Latest Book by Brock Clarke Sparks Great Reviews
Glowing reviews are spreading like wildfire for the fourth book by Brock Clarke, associate professor of English.
In a New York Times review, Janet Maslin finds Clarke's "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England" to be "sharp-edged and unpredictable, punctuated by moments of choice absurdist humor." She writes, "Mr. Clarke sets... part of the book in bleakest New Hampshire.... This frozen setting also allows him to express a long-smoldering schoolboy hatred of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome."
The New York Times review also features a portrait of Clarke taken by McMicken's own Jon Hughes, professor and director of the Journalism Program in the Department of English and Comparative Literature.
Clarke, a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award prize for fiction, is also the author of story collections "What We Won't Do" and "Carrying the Torch" and his debut novel, "The Ordinary White Boy."
Read his original essay about Arsonist's Guide, written for Powell's Books.
Related Stories
Scientists craft bold plan to unlock secrets of RNA
May 16, 2024
UC Vice President for Research Patrick Limbach is a key figure in the National Academies’ massive undertaking to sequence RNA in the next 15 years.
Inside the wild ways many creatures make milk
May 14, 2024
UC biologist Joshua Benoit tells Smithsonian that it's not just cows and other mammals that make milk for their newborns. Even some insects like beetle-mimic cockroaches and tsetse flies produce a protein rich "milk" for their babies.
UC grad turns humanities degree into entrepreneurial success
May 14, 2024
Growing up on Ludlow Ave. in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Clifton, Harrison Fowler had planned to enroll in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of Cincinnati. UC was close to home, and ROTC seemed like the right choice. But life had other plans. At the last minute, Fowler withdrew from ROTC and enrolled to earn his bachelor’s in Spanish, which meant he needed a study-abroad experience to complete his degree. He was apprehensive, but completed his requirement in Madrid, in a move that would change the direction of his life. Says Fowler of his foreign-language major, and his experience abroad: “Speaking another language opens up a whole other world and relationships for you.”