The American Dream in Music For Torching Veronica Ordway College

In A.M. Homes’ novel Music for Torching, married couple Paul and Elaine find their relationship to be as static and boring as the Westchester County suburb in which they live. Unsatisfied with their marriage and fearful of a lifeless future, they take out their frustration with suburbia through misguided sexual encounters, insulting verbal spats, and fits of jealousy directed towards their seemingly perfect friends and neighbors. Desperate for a change in their lives, Paul and Elaine purposely set fire to their house, but it does not burn down completely as they intended. Rather, their house sits dirty and damaged while they are forced to reconcile their actions. Having neither money nor resources to move away, their family continues to live in the soot-filled house while selling many of their clothes and possessions. Paul and Elaine spend a few nights at the home of their friends Pat and George Neilson, whose house is always pristine and everything is in perfect order. The idyllic nature of the Neilson’s house seems to exacerbate the problems between Paul and Elaine, as they frequently fight and see themselves as frauds and inferiors. Through these fraught turns of narrative, Homes dissects the concept of the...