Burning

by Diane Johnson

Bingo Edwards, an eccentric woman living in the hills of Bel Air, is appalled when she is forced to remove her privacy hedges, exposing her life to her neighbors as well as to an enormous fire threatening the entire area. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Diane Johnson is an American novelist and essayist whose satirical novels often feature American heroines living in contemporary France. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Persian Nights in 1988.
In addition to her literary works, she is also known for writing the screenplay of the 1980 film The Shining together with its director and producer Stanley Kubrick.

Reviews

[Kat Walter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the last Diane Johnson I read, but not by much. More farcical than comedic. Reminiscent of David Lodge or Tom Sharpe. This novel is about smoldering passions, addictions and madness amidst the dry heat of California just waiting for the spark to set off the conflagration.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comic and tragic and packed with action. Barney and Bingo Edwards live rather quietly in the hills of LA until they are required to chop down their hedge for fire concerns. They can now look directly down upon their neighbor's house, owned by Hal and Irene Harris. Hal Harris is a psychotherapist who treats his patients by giving them hallucinogenic drugs. He sees his patients in his house and leaves them alone while they are tripping so that he can take care of his plants, which in fact he cares about more than people. The book has dark undercurrents (mothers neglecting their children, hack engineers considering killing junkies with their worthless inventions) but overall it is funny. I believe Johnson, when it was published, said it was "about despair," which I don't see. Oh, the problems of the educated first world! Salon.com describes Johnson's protagonists as "well-meaning but complacent middle-class women of vaguely liberal political inclinations who are jolted out of their comfortable worldviews by disruptive events."

[Sawyergal Sawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you have a self?
Is there much to know?

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

"pretty good"