An Arsonist’s Guide
to
Writers Homes
in New England
The anti-hero, Sam Pulsifier, is a recovering ex-arsonist whose sole teenage prank turned into a major fire. The fire destroyed Emily Dickinson’s home and accidentally killed two joined souls who were sleeping, or fornicating, or something, in one of the guest bedrooms. As a result, Sam spent the next ten years in minimum security prison, where, in addition to killing time he told and retold an amazing tale about the life of his father that was later turned into a best-selling memoir by a fellow con, despite the fact that little in the story was true for his father and, of course, none of it was true for the con. But that is minor detail in a novel otherwise about what happens to Sam after all that.
And what happens is this: He graduates from college with a degree in packaging science (something Clemson actually offers), gets a job, gets married to a sweet girl, fathers two lovely children, buys a minivan and a dream tract home in the suburbs, and copiously avoids any mention of his illustrious past to anyone, including his wife and children. Nor does he make contact with his parents, although they live in the next town over. So, for a few years, it appears that Sam has successfully walked away from his past, and from its criminal narrative.
Then something happens to unalterably change his life and the course of the story. And that “something” is a story within the story, this time about someone who is literally setting fire to the homes of famous writers in New England. It isn’t Sam, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that whomever is doing the crime is somehow connected to Sam and that the resulting stories in the media bring new attention to the old criminal life he led before the new life he thought he had fully escaped into. The story also attracts people from his past into his new life, often with disastrous consequences for Sam. One of them is the angry, vengeful son of the couple Sam accidentally scorched in the Dickinson home. This fellow moves into Sam’s home and because of the losses to his personal narrative he feels came solely because of Sam, claims Sam’s wife, life, and even his children as his own. Meanwhile, Sam’s parents, who apparently have maybe become sad codependent drunks (and whose father is a cripple) and who dwell solely within their own lies and half-truths in Sam’s crumbling childhood home, are revealed to be neither drunk, crippled, nor without motive for the recent arsons. And, of course, there are a host of minor other narrativists, each one contributing something to burn in this firestorm of a novel.
Recommended to everyone who understands that the stories we tell are also the ones we ultimately have to live by. Best read with a fresh bottle of Irish whisky close at hand, a fire in the stove, and the smell of burnt wood somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
Aside: Every once in a while I venture into a bookstore on a whim and buy a book because of its title. This book is an example of exactly that whim. It is also true that the author taught at Clemson University, as have I, although his arrival occurred years after my departure. I don’t know how he feels about bright orange tiger paws painted on the main streets. So I don’t know him or his heart. But I think after reading this delightful little meditation on the power of narrative to shape and to disrupt lives, I might want to.
