An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
by:
Brock Clarke (author)
A lot of remarkable things have happened in the life of Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, beginning with the ten years he spent in prison for accidentally burning down Emily Dickinson's house and unwittingly killing two people. emerging at age twenty-eight, he creates a new...
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A lot of remarkable things have happened in the life of Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, beginning with the ten years he spent in prison for accidentally burning down Emily Dickinson's house and unwittingly killing two people. emerging at age twenty-eight, he creates a new life and identity as a husband and father. But when the homes of other famous New England writers suddenly go up in smoke, he must prove his innocence by uncovering the identity of this literary-minded arsonist. In the league of such contemporary classics as A Confederacy of Dunces and The World According to Garp, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is an utterly original story about truth and honesty, life and the imagination.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781565126145 (1565126149)
ASIN: 1565126149
Publish date: September 2nd 2008
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Pages no: 317
Edition language: English
If you're in an airport, and you don't have anything to read, and you are in one of those airport bookstores, and you don't see anything else you want to read more, you could buy this book and it would get you through your trip. Or you could just make up stories about the crazy ass people in the air...
When I mark this as "finished," I mean I'm finished with it, not that I completed reading the entire thing. I got less than 50 pages in and was unwilling to read further. At first it was charming and funny, but that wore off fast. The satire is mostly lame, and I did a lot of eye-rolling. The concep...
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is best read as a spoof of fictionalized memoirs. Some reviewers haven't liked this novel; my guess is that they are reading it straight rather than as a parody of the genre. Of course the protagonist acts stupidly. Of course the characters are ei...
I am more often surprised by the ends of books than not these days. Am I losing my plot-fu? Am I narratively challenged? This is the second book in a year which has discombobulated me. (The first was Mark Watson's Bullet Points.) The narrator was so bland, so dreary that I wasn't prepared for the su...
This book was so contrived and repetetive that I put it down after about 160 pages.
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