As a teenager, it was never Sam Pulsifer's intention to torch an American landmark, and he certainly never planned to kill two people in the blaze. To this day, he still wonders why that young couple was upstairs in bed in the Emily Dickinson House after hours.

After serving ten years in prison for his crime, Sam is determined to put the past behind him. He fifinishes college, begins a career, falls in love, gets married, has two adorable kids, and buys a home. His low-profifile life is chugging along quite nicely until the past comes crashing through his front door.

<Br> As the homes of Robert Frost, Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and even a replica of Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, go up in smoke, Sam becomes the number one suspect. Finding the real culprit is the only way to clear his name—but sometimes there's a terrible price to pay for the truth.

<Br> An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is a tour de force—a novel disguised as a memoir, a mystery that cloaks itself in humor, and an artful piece of literature that bites the hand that breeds it.

布洛剋•剋拉剋（Brock Clarke，1968—）是美國近年湧現的“另類”作傢。他的文風詭異辛辣，情節設置齣人意錶，以黑色幽默、荒誕喜劇作品見長。著有五部長篇及大量短篇小說和散文，其中2007年齣版的《我燒瞭大文豪的傢》一書得到評論界和圖書市場的熱烈反響，不僅當即獲選亞馬遜“當月好書”，迅速打入各大暢銷榜，而且獲得多國書商青睞，被譯成十幾種文字。