I, Sam Pulsifer, am the man who accidentally burned down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts, and who in the process killed two people, for which I spent ten years in prison and, as letters from scholars of American literature tell me, for which I will continue to pay a high price long into the not-so-sweet hereafter." An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England (Algonquin Books, September 2007) by Brock Clarke. Fourth book, second novel. Agent: Elizabeth Sheinkman. Editor: Antonia Fusco. Publicist: Michael Taeckens.
"Last night at 3:00 a.m. President Kennedy had been killed." Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2007) by Denis Johnson. Twelfth book, seventh novel. Agent: Bob Cornfield. Editor: Jonathan Galassi. Publicist: Jeff Seroy.
"Comes a nightlight's landing beacon leads me to pick villainy from a bouquet of the places I'd left to yesterday's map of the future, rubbernecking unintentionally oblique articulation." Novel Pictorial Noise (Harper Perennial, September 2007) by Noah Eli Gordon. Sixth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michael Signorelli. Publicist: Anne Rohrs.
"For a moment, waking up after this caliber of drinking is like birth." Ovenman (Tin House Books, September 2007) by Jeff Parker. First book, novel. Agent: Ellen Levine. Editor: Lee Montgomery. Publicist: Georgie Lewis.
"I find myself thinking of a guy standing in a field in the year 1200 doing whatever it is people in 1200 did while standing in fields." The Braindead Megaphone (Riverhead Books, September 2007) by George Saunders. Sixth book, first essay collection. Agent: Esther Newberg. Editor: Sean McDonald. Publicist: Heather Connor.
"A few days before my friend Bob died, he woke me up in the middle of the night and told me about all the ladies in the drawers, and in the bathroom, and how they had to leave before we could sleep." Whose World Is This? (University of Iowa Press, September 2007) by Lee B. Montgomery. Second book, first story collection. Agent: Judy Heiblum. Editor: Holly Carver. Publicist: Allison Thomas.
"Here is the calculus of desire— / I have studied its insides // like I have studied the language of the sky." Gomer's Song (Black Goat, September 2007) by Kwame Dawes. Fifteenth book, eleventh poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Chris Abani. Publicist: Aaron Petrovich.
"Smooth stones have always appealed to me." No Real Light (Wave Books, September 2007) by Joe Wenderoth. Sixth book, third poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Matthew Zapruder. Publicist: Monica Fambrough.
"The sciolist has delusions of Godness." Cion (Picador, September 2007) by Zakes Mda. Sixth book, novel. Agent: Isobel Dixon. Editor: Paul Elie. Publicist: James Meader.
"She's sixteen years old—a young woman in a city with blue mountains." Caspian Rain (MacAdam/Cage, September 2007) by Gina B. Nahai. Fourth book, novel. Agent: Barbara Lowenstein. Editor: Khristina Wenzinger. Publicist: Julie Burton.
"Quest the contagion, funnel much muck / through your hands upraised and cupped, / pour river-brack down your throat, pick / your scabs with loving glee." Fragment of the Head of a Queen (Sarabande, August 2007) by Cate Marvin. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Sarah Gorham. Publicist: Nickole Brown.
"Dear Oprah Winfrey, I am writing to inform you that I cannot accept your kind offer to name this book as your October 2007 selection for Oprah's Book Club™." (Not That You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions (Random House, September 2007) by Steve Almond. Fifth book, first essay collection. Agent: Jeff Kellogg. Editor: Julia Cheiffetz. Publicist: Jennifer Huwer.
