The Burning: A Novel [Hardcover]

Thomas Legendre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2006

In an engrossing novel about fate, luck, and obsession, a struggling academic from Philadelphia marries a beautifully dangerous Vegas blackjack dealer, and when his controversial theory about economics is put to the test, his entire life is put on the line.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Writing about gambling, chance and fate, Legendre takes a bold risk, wagering an enjoyable if predictable bloke-lit debut against the egghead novel of ideas that it becomes—and he pulls it off. Fresh out of graduate school, economist Logan Smith joins a couple of friends for a weekend in Las Vegas, where he falls for troubled, needy blackjack dealer Dallas Cole. A few months later, Logan is a professor at Arizona State University, and Dallas is his uneasy new wife. Moving from the trials of a marriage's first year to the rarified world of academia, Legendre makes Logan's life of the mind every bit as stimulating as the human drama that surrounds it, providing Logan's neo-Marxist theories with resonance and real stakes. Legendre's fully realized characters, longing for something other than what they have—other lovers, other careers, other political realities—render vividly the weight of American yearning. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Logan Smith has just finished his doctoral dissertation in economics and decides to unwind in Vegas. There he meets beautiful blackjack dealer Dallas, who gives the naive Logan a few instructive tips on the game and, later, further guidance in the bedroom. Less than two years later, the newlyweds settle in Arizona, where Logan has been hired to teach. He also devotes himself to refining his radical challenge to neoclassical economics. As he becomes absorbed by his work and his intellectually stimulating conversations with an alluring astrophysicist, the volatile, complicated Dallas develops a serious gambling problem. In this remarkably assured debut, Legendre weds a provocative novel of ideas to an affecting story of romantic trials and tribulations. It is a testament to his considerable narrative skill that he makes equally compelling reading out of scenes depicting the academic debate among dueling economists and scenes of a desperate Dallas gambling away the couple's life savings. Muscular prose and heady intellectual banter combine in this exceptionally fine debut. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (July 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031615380X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316153805
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,070,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding writing and character development, October 18, 2006

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Burning: A Novel (Hardcover)

The character development and writing in this novel is outstanding. Dallas and Deck are unlikable individuals with limited, selfish personalities. As portrayed, they are also very understandable and they too suffer, hence they are almost sympathetic. Logan and Keris, are very likeable, complex people.

I thought the interplay between Logan and Dallas as he plays blackjack in the first chapter was remarkable, almost a tour de force. As an example of the type of writing Legendre is capable of, I offer this: " Sometimes it happened like this. Sometimes she accidentally bit into the kernel of an emotion with some trivial comment and she needed an extra minute to absorb its flavor". Later Keris, in explaining her one night stand with someone like Deck talks of biting into a piece of chocolate, only to find goo inside.

Aspects of the plot bothered me. The fact is that economics as a science, like all science, is value neutral (its practitioners are something else). I would recommend the "Underground Economist" as an exceptional book, which among other things shows how economic principles can be applied to fight global warming and pollution efficiently - no new paradigm is needed. I also found the win streak that benefits Dallas at the end, and the subsequent scene in which she gets half the money (including half the man's original stake), contrived.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Southwest is a character in "The Burning", August 9, 2006

By 

Sarah - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Burning: A Novel (Hardcover)

Legendre is particularly acute in his description of urban life in the modern desert southwest. Las Vegas has been characterized many times but seldom better; Legendre strips Vegas down to its bleak essence, a Disneyland of nihilism and insincerity. Of course if you actually like Las Vegas you might not agree with Legendre, but then if you like Vegas this may not be the book for you on several different levels.

His description of life in the Valley of the Sun, as metropolitan Phoenix is called by the Chamber of Commerce in something of an understatement, particularly in summertime, is brilliantly accurate. The glare, the heat, the trackless urban sprawl, the shimmering asphalt subtly influence the characters and the action of the novel until the reader feels a sudden need for sunglasses and air conditioning without really knowing why.

Anyone who has lived in or passed through these two desert cities will appreciate Legendre's clear-eyed vision and spare prose.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars terrific character study, July 12, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Burning: A Novel (Hardcover)

His friends Deck and Prentis persuade economist Logan Smith to join them for some fun in Las Vegas. Needing to escape the world of academia having just completed his graduate degree, Logan agrees. At a casino, Logan meets blackjack dealer Dallas Cole. He falls for her while she needs male attention and protection.

Logan becomes an economics professor at Arizona State University while his new wife Dallas feels out of place in the Tempe area especially in the academia setting. Meanwhile as their relationship turns shaky, Logan works on a neo-Marxist economic theory, which begins to look promising and could shake up the world order. However, he has problems; at home his spouse's clinging needs are driving him crazy; at the university his proposals including an advanced course are being rejected without a second thought; and finally there is this supportive female peer who turns on his body, mind and soul.

This is a terrific character study that star protagonists, especially Logan, who seem as human as they wish and yearn for something they do not have; the grass even in the desert is greener on the other side. Interestingly the macro economic theories are obviously complex yet easy to understand as Thomas Legendre does not dumb down but instead brings up his audience. Fans of a powerful intelligent drama will enjoy THE BURNING for something more in life.

Harriet Klausner