An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke

Still another 2007 book inspired by The Morning News’ Tournament of Books, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England was on my TBR list already, based on the strong review in Entertainment Weekly:

One little mistake, and Pffft – your life goes up in smoke. Ten years after Sam Pulsifier accidentally burns down Emily Dickinson’s childhood home, he becomes Suspect No. 1 when other scribes’ homes get flamed. Who’s really to blame? This absurdly hilarious mystery, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England about a bumbler’s guilt-consumed life skewers the whole memoir thing and offers a fact/fiction-blurring meditation on the risky business of self-deception: ”Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.” A killer line in Brock Clarke’s searingly funny book. A-

Sam is an engaging guy, whose bumbling sometimes induces cringes, and sometimes demands sympathy. It’s a funny book, and the clever, quotable lines come fast and furious. But it sometimes felt a little too meta, at the expense of real, human emotion.

If you find lines like this funny:

She thought for a while, her forehead wrinkled, as if I were an especially difficult passage in a novel and she were trying to unpack me.

you’ll likely enjoy the book. Arsonist’s Guide didn’t win its match, but its blend of smart, funny, and sad made it well worth reading.

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