Staff Book and Media Recommendations

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

Brock Clarke

In this somewhat oddball fictional tale, we meet Sam Pulsfer after he has served time in jail for burning down the home of Emily Dickenson, unwittingly killing two people in the fire, and setting the town of Amherst, MA in an uproar. After serving time in prison, Sam gets his life on track and for a while it’s good. He goes to college, gets married, has children, and buys a house in a quite suburb near Amherst, but never tells his family of his combustible past.

One fateful day though, his world is shattered by a distraught visitor to his quiet home. In the coming weeks after this visit, the homes of other famous New England writers, Robert Frost, Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne go up in flames with Sam as the primary suspect. Sam now has to find the culprits and clear his name.

Sam is a character eternally in a cloud of accidental circumstance and the book is a humorous mystery that is good for a quick read. ~ Dana Jackson-Hardwick

Reviewed December 2008