Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
120th out of 290 books
—
113 voters
The Burglar
by
David Goodis
A dreamlike masterpiece of crime, honor, and perverse loyalty by the legendary author of Shoot the Piano Player.
Nat Harbin is a family man. His family happens to be a gang of burglars. Now Nat has met a woman so hypnotically seductive that he will leave his partners and his trade to possess her. But you don't get away from family that easily.
The Burglar has the hallmarks t...more
Nat Harbin is a family man. His family happens to be a gang of burglars. Now Nat has met a woman so hypnotically seductive that he will leave his partners and his trade to possess her. But you don't get away from family that easily.
The Burglar has the hallmarks t...more
Paperback, 154 pages
Published
May 7th 1991
by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
(first published 1953)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
251)
Jul 17, 2012
Josh
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
goodis_five_noir_novels_edition,
read_2012
Underneath the facade' of a heist novel lies a story about a damaged man who slowly finds himself, only to loose his tender grip on a perfect reality just as he begins to grasp it. Nat Harbin grew up, fostered by a thief, raised as one, consumed by the idea and thrill of the take. Deeper than most in the sub genre, 'The Burglar' inches towards literature by virtue of its core plot element and rationalisation of character. For Nat, the deducer, evaluator, and strategist, planning, execution and r...more
THE BURGLAR. (1953). David Goodis. ***.
After reading this novel by Goodis, I finally realized that he was really trying to write love stories – not crime novels. He covered up his attempts by setting his love stories within the world of crime, but they have finally been exposed, at least I have finally uncovered his secret. In this adventure, we meet Nathaniel Harbin, the head of a gang of thieves. These include two men, Baylock and Dohmer, and one woman, Gladden. Gladden is the daughter of the...more
After reading this novel by Goodis, I finally realized that he was really trying to write love stories – not crime novels. He covered up his attempts by setting his love stories within the world of crime, but they have finally been exposed, at least I have finally uncovered his secret. In this adventure, we meet Nathaniel Harbin, the head of a gang of thieves. These include two men, Baylock and Dohmer, and one woman, Gladden. Gladden is the daughter of the...more
4.5 stars, really. Call it serendipity or whatever, but I read THE BURGLAR (1953) while revising my own work-in-progress which is about thieves pulling off a diamond heist. Goodis has his gang of five thieves (4 men and a lady) rip off a cache of emeralds from a mansion in a posh enclave of Philadelphia. Nat Harbin, the boss and brains, fools a pair of cops who come nosing around during the robbery to get lost.
The gang manages to finish the emerald caper and return to their seedy hideout they c...more
The gang manages to finish the emerald caper and return to their seedy hideout they c...more
7 likes
·
like
· see review
Mar 15, 2008
Andy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
noir fans, crime suspense stories
Shelves:
pulp-fiction
Creepy crawly tale of a burnt out house burglar and his vow to take care of his mentor's daughter while a crooked policeman and his B-Girl accomplice stalk them for some stolen jewels.
One of David Goodis' better suspense stories, and the novel's short length means there's no literary lollygagging going on to slow down the action. The movie starring Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea is great, but this book is just as good.
One of David Goodis' better suspense stories, and the novel's short length means there's no literary lollygagging going on to slow down the action. The movie starring Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea is great, but this book is just as good.
2 likes
·
like
· see review
This was my second time reading The Burglar. The set-up is oddly reminiscent of Richard Stark's/Lawrence Block Parker novels, but this came long before those books. Goodis's vision is so relentlessly bleak it seems impossible that the write so beautifully. The last four pages of the novel stayed with me for over a decade and they're even better than I remember.
2 likes
·
like
· see review
My cousin the writer was touting Charles Portis and I remembered that I had meant to read 'True Grit' after reading George Pelecanos's 'A Life in Books' squib in Newsweek last year where he categorized 'Grit' as 'A Book You Hope Parents Read to Their Kids.' So I went back to look at that and there as runner-up to the number one 'The Long Goodbye' in his 'My Five Most Important Crime Novels' was 'The Burglar.' I have it in my little noir library, so reread it. Stone cold great American hard-boile...more
This is perhaps Goodis' greatest piece of writing. Tightly wound from beginning to end, THE BURGLAR has the added quality of being a seminal work, which would engender the wonderful burglar fiction of Donald Westlake, Garry Disher, Richard Stark and Timothy Hallinan.
Emeralds - Green. Hero - Blue. Dame - Scarlet. Plot - Purple.
Cop - Puce. Girl - Golden. Ocean - Noir.
Don't you just love them old black-and-white movies.
Cop - Puce. Girl - Golden. Ocean - Noir.
Don't you just love them old black-and-white movies.
The writing is excellent. It is an extremely dark tale. Circumstances own all of these people.
Dec 29, 2008
Peggy
marked it as to-read
Life/books: Pelecanos
something to be said for a story that goes exactly where you expect, direct and concise, does not bore or distract from plot. the first goodis i have read, though i have seen truffaut’s film shoot the piano player. lean, direct, from ’53. i see the overwhelming style of hemingway in dialog and short, punchy, description of emotional stoicism. and kerouac in workmanlike prose, cool, rootless, losers. sharp. simple plot. embedded morality. have they made a film out of this- yes but have not seen i...more
Apr 11, 2013
Pete Moya
added it
Great Noir
It's fucked up, how dark and miserable those pulp guys in the '50s sometimes got. Something was in the water. This is a perfectly balanced crime novel -- 100% bleak without losing its humanity, tightly structured without sacrificing its poetic style. The ending maybe overreaches a bit toward operatic tragedy, but the story is so vivid it almost feels like it's unfolding in slow motion. Hardcore stuff.
2.5 rounded up to three. I'm just about done with Goodis. He gets the mood right. His strengths are flashbacks and background montages; these bits are quite cinematic. But overall, his stuff feels thin when compared with Chandler and Hammett.
Lean, mean, and terribly bleak, once this story starts moving it's pretty hard to break away from it until the haunting ending! This was my first novel by the nearly forgotten David Goodis and it won't be my last.
Decent, reads quickly. Bleak ending is unexpected(but not really).
May 19, 2013
John
marked it as to-read
May 12, 2013
Jeff Miller
marked it as to-read
Apr 11, 2013
Ilovebooks
marked it as to-read
Apr 02, 2013
Bosa Mora
marked it as to-read
Mar 17, 2013
Barbara De caro
added it
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Born and bred in Philadelphia, David Goodis was an American noir fiction writer. He grew up in a liberal, Jewish household in which his early literary ambitions were encouraged. After a short and inconclusive spell at at the University of Indiana, he returned to Philadelphia to take a degree in journalism, graduating in 1937.
More about David Goodis...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Jul 17, 2012 07:44am
Hi Tfitoby, I have 'The Moon In The Gutter' and 'Street Of No Return' left. It's...more
Jul 17, 2012 03:51pm