Everyone's Burning: A Novel

By Ian Spiegelman

Book Overview

A young man without prospects finds his place in the universe--as a young woman's slave. Poised somewhere between high school and adulthood, Leon Koch roams the bars and bedrooms of Bayside, Queens,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400060567
• ISBN13: 9781400060566
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: Villard
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.7" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

A Brilliant Novel that is a Must Read

I consider Everyone's Burning by Ian Spiegelman (Villard Books) the best novel that I have read in the last twenty years, since I read Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Faulkner's Sanctuary. The author has written a brilliant book which can be read on many different levels. On one hand it is fiction about growing up in a tough Queens neighborhood, gangs, people going to prison, weird sex, drugs, friendship and betrayal and just at this level, Everyone's Burning is an exceptional read, mesmerizing and completely unforgettable. Spiegelman builds his characters in such a way that you really care about them, they become so vivid that is a moment of despair when you reach the final page and realize that you aren't going to be able to live inside their skins any more. But there is so much more to Everyone's Burning. Spiegelman is a genius. This man can really write. The text is alive, the words just jump off the page and crunch you. This author will be heard from again, many times again. His style is brief and dead on target. Even though he is writing about a very tough scene, the literary style here is so superb and the word choice is so skilled Spiegelman could be just as well be writing poetry. This is writing craft at its most perfect. For instance, there is a key scene where the main character accuses a cop whom he feels has not tried hard enough in tracking down the guy who sexually molested him as a kid. Spiegelman focuses on the shifting physical distance between the main character and the cop as the main character describes the scene. It is one of the most effective brief descriptions of two sort-of-strangers confronting each other intensely that I have ever read, and the author pulled it off by focusing on that changing distance between them, because in that kind of defensive overwhelming situation people will get caught up with displacement and remember small details like physical distance. I finished reading that passage thinking, "Can literature possibly be better than this?" But it was like that virtually on every page with Everyone's Burning. Another small stylistic example: the author ended his brief chapters at exactly the right moment. Some of the chapters were just a few pages and their length was always unpredictable, giving the book a pacing element that Spiegelman used like a master. The author's use of rhythm in his text, his feel for language was remarkable. The author always kept me a little off balance but the joy of reading such powerful prose and ruthlessly effective character development just made me desperate for more when I got to the last page. I cannot recommend a book more highly than this one.

Not Your Mother's Cup of Tea

I heard about this book when Ian Spiegelman was on Howard Stern. So I bought it and read it in one day. Well-written, psychologically meaty, and the ending will tear out your heart. Hands down, best last line ever.

Read this book

Perfectly captures the alienation and hopelessness felt by those who, as children, are failed by the adults around them. While there are some funny parts that will make you laugh, the story's true strength lies in the very real depiction of characters who can only cope with an unkind world and each other through completely self-destructive behavior. If you are shocked or bored by this book, I can only wonder what planet you've been living on. Open your eyes.

Raw and True

I initially bought "Everyone's Burning" based upon my love of all things Queens and was very pleasantly surprised."Everyone's Burning" is not for the Oprah's Book Club bunch. It's not sweet, the characters are irredeemable, and the setting is bleak. I LOVED it. It's such a well-crafted book. The sentences are razor sharp and the dialogue is crisp. There's not one wasted or superfluous word. I found the themes and structure very Raymond Carver-esque in their realism and deceptive simplicity. The characters experience love, friendship and loss with varying degrees of confusion, anger and denial. Put away the rose-colored glasses, "Everyone's Burning" does not paint a pretty little picture of society.This is a terrific debut novel. I look forward to seeing more from this bright young novelist.

Take off your clothes

Spiegelman brilliantly exposes the proverbial elephant on the coffee table of middle class America. Completely exposed, this writer's first novel is daring, disturbing and never slow. Once in awhile you need to take off your clothes and look at your self in the mirror.