by Brock Clarke
BC: I don’t think it’s just you. I think all children, in some ways, bear the burdens of their parents’ pasts, of the secrets their parents keep from them—often for good reason. And in the same way, parents are constantly forced to watch—sometimes mutely, sometimes not—as their children do the same ridiculous, self-destructive things that they themselves have done. We—parents and children—are fortunate in this way. We make the same mistakes, and so it’s difficult for any one of us to feel superior. This is why we end up loving our parents, and children, so much. If we’re not allowed to feel superior to them, we might as well go ahead and love them.
SP: You say I’m not unlikable. But is it safe to say that I’m unreliable?
BC: That’s safe to say, to a point. To a point, all first-person narrators are unreliable, and you go a bit beyond that point. But I don’t think you’re totally unreliable. I think you’re trying to find the truth behind all the stories told in the novel: all the stories about you, about all the people whom you hurt, all the people who hurt you, all the people who want you to burn down all those writers’ homes in New England. I think you’re trying honestly to figure out why people tell stories, what they want to get out of them, even though you’re not always willing to admit to what you’ve found. You’re unreliable, but you’re trying hard not to be.
SP: I’ll tell you what I think. I think that everything that happened in the novel exists only in my head. It’s all my fantasy. I think I’m in prison for burning down the Emily Dickinson House the entire time. The novel is me in prison, imagining what might happen once I get out of prison.
BC: What? No! What are you talking about? Everything that happened in the novel really happened.
SP: Really happened? I thought that’s the whole point. That nothing really happens in books. That all books are fantasy, even memoir. That people who say otherwise are fooling themselves.
BC: I suppose. But real things happen in the context of a book that’s made up. The book is fiction, but we can understand things as meant literally within the fiction. Does that make sense?
SP: No. It sounds like the kind of thing a memoirist would say to defend stuff he, or she, made up instead of telling the truth.
BC: Now you’re just being mean.
SP: You must be pretty pleased with yourself now that all these memoirists are getting caught lying in their memoirs.
BC: It gives me no pleasure at all.
SP: Why are you smiling then?
BC: That’s just the way my face is. Seriously, every time I read about one of these memoirists who write memoirs that aren’t memoirish enough, I think, That would have made a good novel. Why didn’t you just write a novel?
SP: Is it safe to say that you don’t like memoirs?
BC: It’s safe to say that memoir is not my favorite genre.
SP: Is it safe to say that you hate every single book that’s ever been written? That you think the world would be a better place without books?
BC: What? No, it’s not safe to say that at all. I love books. I love the writers whose houses get burned in my novel. I love Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost. I love every Edith Wharton novel except for Ethan Frome. That’s just for starters. I can’t imagine a world without books. I wouldn’t want to imagine one. Just because I poke gentle fun at the literary world doesn’t mean I don’t want there to be one. Just because I poke gentle fun at you doesn’t mean I’m sorry I made you.
SP: I suppose you’re going to tell me that criticism is a form of love?
BC: I couldn’t have said it better myself.
SP: What genre do you think this book falls into? I heard that you got asked to speak on a mystery writers’ panel. When you sat down to write this book, did you know that you were writing a mystery, and is that what it is?
BC: I do think this book is a mystery, although I think it’s a bunch of other things, too. But no, I didn’t know I was writing a mystery at first, and I had a rough time with the novel because of it. It had no direction, no sense of mystery to guide it. That is why I’ve come to love mysteries. They give the reader and writer a sense of purpose: this guy needs to solve this mystery or else. And I thought it especially relevant in writing this book because you, Sam, don’t know the first thing about mysteries, mostly because your mother never allowed you to read them as a kid. And so you’re as much a bumbler at being a detective as you are at everything else. That was important to me because the one thing I distrust about some mysteries, some literary detectives, is that they’re implausibly good at it. You, thankfully, were not.
SP: Now that you’ve told my story, what’s next?
BC: I’m writing a book called Exley. It’s about, in one way or another, the writer Frederick Exley, who wrote the book A Fan’s Notes, which he called a “fictional memoir.”
SP: Again with the memoir. Again with the writers. What makes this book different than mine?
BC: Well, for one, you’re not in it. And no one burns down anything in it, I don’t think. And there are no bond analysts running around, making life more difficult for the narrator of the new book. It’s a totally different book, except, of course, that I’m the one writing it.
SP: What is up with those bond analysts, anyway? What are they doing in the book? They speak as a group. They steal other people’s stories and try to pass them off as their own. They’re ridiculous.
BC: That’s why they’re there. I wanted them in the book so that you would look better by comparison. It’s easier to love someone if you have someone around who is so obviously less worthy of love.
SP: You’re speaking in aphorisms again, just like you had me speak in aphorisms in An Arsonist’s Guide. Are you going to use aphorisms in Exley, too?
BC: No, that was the very last time.
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The novel makes fun of reader’s guides found in the backs of books, the kind of reader’s guides that ask questions like, “How does this book make you feel about the Human Condition?” (page 85). What, if anything, is objectionable about those sorts of questions, those sorts of guides? What questions might we ask instead of those questions? And what is the “Human Condition,” anyway?
2. The novel is interested in New England, in the way Sam sees it, the way other people see it, the way it’s been portrayed in books, and the way Sam portrays it in the book(s) he’s writing. What are the clichés associated with New England, its people, its landscape, its literature? Is the problem with these clichés that they have no foundation in reality or that they’re so familiar that they prevent us from seeing what New England is, or might be, beyond the clichés? Does the novel help you see New England (and the literature about it) in ways that the Writer-in-Residence and his story (page 204) do not?
3. Why doesn’t Sam just tell his wife and kids the truth about his past? He says, on this subject, “Because this is what you do when you’re a liar: you tell a lie, and then another one, and after a while you hope that the lies end up being less painful than the truth, or at least that is the lie you tell yourself” (pages 40–41). Does this kind of claim make you sympathize? Do you believe that because Sam lies to his family, he doesn’t really love them?
4. The novel explores stories, why we write them, why we read them, what we hope to get out of them, and whether we can (or should) get out of them what we want to get out of them. How would you describe the characters’ (Lees Ardor, Peter Le Clair, Sam Pulsifer, Elizabeth Pulsifer, the bond analysts) feelings about books? What do they want, or not want, to get from reading and writing? Why do we read books? What do we want to get from our reading? And if we don’t get what we want, does that mean the book is a failure?
5. Memoirs are everywhere in An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England. Are they as unavoidable in real life as they are in this book? What is the author saying about memoirs, about their place and role in our culture? When he satirizes memoirs, is he also satirizing the people who read them? If so,
why? What might novels in general—and this novel in particular—do that memoirs cannot, or should not?
6. On page 249, Thomas Coleman says of Sam’s parents, “They’re not bad people.” Do you feel the same way—not only about Sam’s parents, but also about Sam, Thomas, and all the people who want Sam to burn down writers’ homes? After all, these characters do, or want to do, awful things. If those things don’t make them bad people, then why not? How does the novel help you see these people beyond some of the bad things they do?
7. Sam receives letters from hundreds of people asking him to burn down various writers’ homes in New England. And yet (with the exception of Lees Ardor) the anger people express toward the writers’ houses seem to have little to do with the writers’ books. Why? Why do we care about writers’ homes in the first place? Do we visit writers’ homes because they intensify the feelings we have about their books or because they give us some insight the books do not?
8. Speaking of Lees Ardor: what’s her problem? And why does she repeatedly use one particular bad word? And the bond analysts: why don’t they stop worrying about writing their memoirs and go back to analyzing bonds? And Sam’s mother: if she has to give up something, why not drinking instead of books? And then Peter Le Clair: why doesn’t he just talk already? And then all of the other characters, with their ridiculous troubles, most of which they’ve brought on themselves and deserve: what’s up with them? What is wrong with these people?
9. Sam says that “to be a son is to lie to yourself about your father” (page 176). What does he mean? Is it only true for the father and son in the book, or is it true of all fathers and sons? Is this the Human Condition we wondered about earlier?
10. Sam says, “All men are but slight variations on the very same theme” (page 258). Is that true, or is it just something Sam says to make himself feel better? And if it is true, then why do the “capable” women in the book care so much about these men?
JON HUGHES/PHOTOPRESSE
A recipient of a 2008 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Brock Clarke has twice been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for fiction. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including the Believer, OneStory, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. The author of three other works of fiction, he teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati.
Other Algonquin Readers Round Table Novels
Water for Elephants, a novel by Sara Gruen
As a young man, Jacob Jankowski is tossed by fate onto a rickety train, home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Amid a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, Jacob becomes involved with Marlena, the beautiful young equestrian star; her husband, a charismatic but twisted animal trainer; and Rosie, an untrainable elephant who is the great gray hope for this third-rate show. Now in his nineties, Jacob at long last reveals the story of their unlikely yet powerful bonds, ones that nearly shatter them all.
“[An] arresting new novel …. With a showman’s expert timing, [Gruen] saves a terrific revelation for the final pages, transforming a glimpse of Americana into an enchanting escapist fairy tale.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Gritty, sensual and charged with dark secrets involving love, murder and a majestic, mute heroine.”—Parade
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AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES • FICTION • ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-560-5
Saving the World, a novel by Julia Alvarez
While Alma Huebner is researching a new novel, she discovers the true story of Isabel Sendales y Gómez, who embarked on a courageous sea voyage to rescue the New World from smallpox. The author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, Alvarez captures the worlds of two women living two centuries apart but with surprisingly parallel fates.
“Fresh and unusual, and thought-provokingly sensitive.”—The Boston Globe
“Engrossing, expertly paced.”—People
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AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES • FICTION • ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-558-2
Responsible Men, a novel by Edward Schwarzschild
When a divorced man from a family of mostly upstanding salesmen decides to change his less-than-honorable ways, things do not go exactly as planned. This is the story of three generations of men struggling to be good sons and good fathers in a world of big dreams and bigger temptations.
“Marvelous …. It’s impossible to avoid falling for Max.”—Entertainment Weekly “A compassionately and deftly told story.”
—William Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize—winning author of Ironweed and Roscoe
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AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES • FICTION • ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-543-8
The Ghost at the Table, a novel by Suzanne Berne
When Frances arranges to host Thanksgiving at her idyllic New England farmhouse, she envisions a happy family reunion, one that will include her sister, Cynthia. But tension mounts between them as each struggles with a different version of the mysterious circumstances surrounding their mother’s death twenty-five years earlier.
“Wholly engaging, the perfect spark for launching a rich conversation around your own table.”—The Washington Post Book World
“A crash course in sibling rivalry.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
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AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES • FICTION • ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-579-7
Coal Black Horse, a novel by Robert Olmstead
When Robey Childs’s mother has a premonition about her husband, who is away fighting in the Civil War, she sends her only son to find him and bring him home. At fourteen, Robey thinks he’s off on a great adventure. But it takes the gift of a powerful and noble coal black horse to show him how to undertake the most important journey in his life.
“A remarkable creation.”—Chicago Tribune
“Exciting …. A grueling adventure.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Gripping …. Echoes the work of Cormac McCarthy.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
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AN ALGONQUIN READERS ROUND TABLE EDITION WITH READING GROUP GUIDE AND OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES • FICTION • ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-601-5
