Here's another selection from my public library's "Good Books You Might Have Missed" cart. This time they did a pretty good job.
Sam Pulsifer is a bumbler. He bumbles through life. At least that's what his inmate buddies tell him. They are bond traders, incarcerated in a minimum security prison for various SEC infractions. Sam, on the other hand, is in there for arson and manslaughter. As Sam tells it, he accidentally set fire to the historical house of Emily Dickenson, killing two people that he did not even know were there.
Convicted when he was 18, Sam serves 10 years, and upon his release tries to figure out what he is going to do with his life. He moves back in with his parents, who have had to live with the infamy that their son has brought upon their house. In order to get rid of him, they offer to send him to college, but not before his father shows him the box of letters. Dozens of letters, sent while Sam was in prison, from people who want him to burn down the houses of other New England literary figures: Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Edward Bellamy, to name but a few. The letters come from all walks of life, and each of them has their own peculiar reason for wanting the house of a particular author burned to the ground.
Sam tries his best to leave all this behind him and start a new life. After graduating college, he embarks on a somewhat successful career as a package design engineer, marries a beautiful woman, and has two wonderful children. He goes on like this for several years, never telling his new family about his past, until one day the son of the couple he killed shows up at his door. All of his lies start to unravel, and mysterious fires start to occur at the houses of literary figures, with all signs pointing to Sam as the culprit.
I'd never heard of the author before reading this book, but I found it to be very entertaining, in a darkly tragic way. The story is wonderfully absurd, and is full of interesting characters. Sam draws our pity, but not always in a good way. Sam is often the victim of circumstance. However, he refuses to take responsibility for the things he has done, and because of his fear of the truth, he becomes more and more entangled in his web of lies, which ultimately makes his situation much worse.
I won't spoil the ending for you. All-in-all, it's a pretty fun read. Check it out.
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