Sometimes I buy a book just 'cause I can't resist the title. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke falls in that category. But the category itself has a built-in problem: Will the book live up to its title? Sad to say, the answer so far has always been no, and Arsonist's Guide did not end the run. It wasn't a BAD book; I read it all the way through. After two hundred pages, though, I was ready for it to end. Shame I still had a hundred pages to go.
There were plusses. The premise is cool, and I did dig-ear some pages where a thought or writing impressed me. Let me take a look at them and see if I there's anything I want to talk about.
1) "After that, silence opened up between us (the narrator and his wife), big and yawning and much wider than the actual two miles between the gas station from which I was calling and our home to the west. … Think of when California finally breaks off from the rest of country, and the people of Nevada watching it happen from their new coastline. That's what I felt like." (page 47) I like the image—even though the descriptive sentence is pretty awkward. No, he doesn't have a "the" before "country." Its omission is not a typo.
2) At one point during the narrator's childhood his father leaves. He comes back and that night the narrator watches his mother and father dance. "I felt so sad for these confused parents of mine and had the distinct impression that love and marriage and dancing were like being at war with your better judgement. Watching my parents dance made loneliness look happy and relaxing by comparison, so I went upstairs to my room and went to bed." (page 216) Interesting thought, IMHO.
3) "… but the birches were thin and lonely, each of them far apart and like an only child among larger, happier broods. I knew from Mr. Frost that the birch was supposed to be the most New England of trees, and if that was so, then I couldn't help thinking New England was a very bad idea." (page 281) I'm convinced.
Bottom line: Read the title, smile and keep on walking. Do not reach for the book, do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars.
