The Burning
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Life goes on in the face of a climate crisis in this unforgettable, “relevant, and entertaining” (Fredrik Backman, New York Times bestselling author) debut novel that follows four characters as they struggle to survive in a burning world.
Even when the climate crisis escalates beyond our worst nightmares and people become refugees, the world keeps turning and life carries on as usual: teenage love stories, marital collapses, identity crises, and rebellions against hopeless parents continue to play out.
Didrik is a forty-year-old media consultant whose misguided efforts to become the family hero render him a pathetic vision of incompetence. Melissa is an influencer with a suitcase full of lost dreams after denying climate change for years. André is the nineteen-year-old loser son of an international sports star who uses the erupting violence around him to orchestrate his own personal vengeance on his negligent father. And Vilja is Didrik’s teenage daughter who steps into a leadership role in the face of adult ineptitude.
“A devilish twist on climate fiction” (Publishers Weekly), The Burning eloquently illustrates a picture of a very near future that is at once extraordinary and entirely realistic.
The Burning was previously published as Even If Everything Ends.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Liljestrand makes his English-language debut with an engaging climate change satire. In an alternate present, PR consultant Didrik von der Esch is caught stealing a quad bike on camera while attempting to rescue his wife, Carola, and three children from a massive forest fire. Everyone survives, no thanks to him, and he then catches the last train back to Stockholm, without telling Carola or their children where he's gone. There, while the security video circulates online and makes Didrik the subject of a meme, he holes up with his former lover Melissa Stannervik, an influencer who's house-sitting for tennis pro Anders Hell. Melissa finds herself in her own online morass after her tone-deaf posts of early cherry blossoms win her ire as the world collapses, and she keeps up a steady opioid consumption while painting herself as a victim of online bullies. Anders is away on vacation with his 19-year-old son, André, who grows increasingly annoyed and vocal about how the elite have insulated themselves from the consequences of their greed on the climate. Liljestrand gets in plenty of barbs at the various players as they cling to their old lives amid disaster. It makes for a devilish twist on climate fiction.
