Brock Clarke has published four works of fiction, most recently the novel An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, which was a national bestseller. His fifth book, entitled Exley, is scheduled to be published by Algonquin in Fall 2010. Clarke's stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, Ninth Letter, Mississippi Review, the Believer, Agni, as well as in the Pushcart and New Stories from the South anthology. He has twice been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction, and was a 2008 NEA fellow for fiction. Clarke currently teaches at the University of Cincinnati, and is the fiction editor of the Cincinnati Review.
The publication of a great writer’s collected works should be a cause for celebration, and or at least a measured reassessment. How disturbing, then, that the Library of America’s two-volume…