Brock Clarke's fourth book is stacked with literary references, self-references and clever memoirs within fiction, all stitched together with the familiar twine of first-person narrative. It is hysterical, it is tragic and it is maddening.

Our narrator, Sam Pulisfer, is giving us the straight scoop on how he came to burn down the Amherst, Mass., home of Emily Dickinson and, in the process, kill a couple making love in an upstairs bedroom. By accident.

		"AN ARSONIST'S GUIDE TO WRITERS' HOMES IN NEW ENGLAND" By Brock Clarke Algonquin Books ($23.95)

Everything that happens to the self-described bumbler Sam seems to happen by accident. Except, as we are told repeatedly, nothing is by accident.

And about halfway through the book, any sympathy the reader may have acquired for Sam evaporates as he haplessly digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble.

The romp of this story feels almost Candide-like, except instead of "This is the best of all possible worlds," substitute "by accident."

Clarke easily maneuvers his mega-horsepower talent through an obstacle course of his own invention. His American literary predecessors are all here, although they are not the names evoked in the story.

As Sam sets out to find out who, in copycat style, is burning down (or trying to burn down) homes of famous American literary figures, including Frost, Twain and the more obscure Edward Bellamy, Clarke is flashing elements of more contemporary American writers -- writers like Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins. Perhaps he's most like Tom Robbins, except that Clarke is his own man, to be sure.

Testament to his talent comes not so much in the structure of the story itself, which is both unpredictable and utterly predictable, but in how he gets us there. Where Sam goes, what he does and how the sad portrait of his family comes to light is impossible to anticipate.

Clarke keeps these twists and turns perfectly under wraps, so that each detail comes as a surprise. And Sam himself, a liar who tells more lies to cover up his previous lies, finds himself buried in an insurmountable pile of misfortune, all of it self-inflicted.

In that regard, Sam is no different from the "I Love Lucy" show where liars always are rewarded with deeper and deeper mischief. Except, here people die, lives are ruined and houses burn.

Despite his bumbling charm, Sam comes off, in the end, as someone who deserves what he gets, though not necessarily for the reasons he gets it. And if Sam has any redeeming characteristic, it is through the gradual introspection he gains as his story unfolds. Ultimately, he knows he deserves everything that happens to him.

No one in this novel isn't a bumbler, and only Sam's wife, Anne Marie, comes out of it as even remotely sympathetic, although her choice in mates proves the validity of the "there are no accidents" refrain.

Like TV analysts who deconstruct Tiger Woods' swing, it's not easy to do justice to writers like Brock Clarke.

But I know just enough to recommend "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England" to anyone, and especially to anyone who wants to read the best, newest manifestation of great American writing.