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| JESUS OUT TO SEA
- Excerpt - Reviews |
July, 2007
Special Works Focus on Katrina
By BRUCE DESILVA
Associated Press Writer
"Jesus Out to Sea" (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 291 pages, $24.95) - James Lee Burke: When a tragedy as monstrous as Hurricane Katrina befalls us, journalism can tell us what happened, and occasionally it can even explain why. But it cannot take us to that quiet place where spirit goes to heal.
For that, we need art.
Katrina has inspired a fair amount of it - some good, most not. Thankfully, there are two special works we can cling to, and if we're lucky, they just might be enough.
One is "Levee Prayer," an elegy by bluesman Jimmy Thackery. The other is "Jesus Out to Sea," the signature piece in a new short story collection by James Lee Burke, a writer better known for hard-boiled detective novels.
Both are simple, personal, spiritual and hauntingly beautiful, and they are best experienced together. First read Burke's story; then pop Thackery's "In the Natural State" album in the CD player and skip to the fourth cut. Afterward, you'll want to sit quietly with your own thoughts for a while.
Thackery helps us grasp the magnitude of the tragedy through the wail of a solitary man:
"Got my right hand on the good book,
and my left hand on my gun.
When I call out, nobody answers,
and I don't know which way to run."
For solace, he turns to Jesus, asking only, "let me see just one more day."
Burke helps us come to terms with the incomprehensible abandonment of victims by asking us to share a roof with two junkie musicians.
Despite the horrors they see all about them - the bloated body of a priest, a dead baby in a tree - they peacefully reminisce about good times in their once-beautiful city.
"You woke in the morning to the smell of gardenias, the electric smell of the streetcars, chicory coffee, and stone that turned green with lichen. The light was always filtered through the trees, so it was never harsh, and the flowers bloomed year-round. New Orleans was a poem, man, a song in your heart that never died."
As the water rises and the house buckles beneath them, each prays in his own way for the help that will not come.
The story is one of two about Katrina in this collection of 11 short pieces written by Burke over the last decade. Most touch on his usual theme: the courage of ordinary people in the face of evil.
Each piece is a gem, but one worth singling out is "Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine," about two kids who enlist the famous mobster in their struggle against a neighborhood bully.
The book represents the author at his best, the images lush, the emotions wrenching, the prose lyrical.
Meanwhile, Burke is not done with Katrina. "The Tin Roof Blowdown," a crime novel that will be published in July, unfolds in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm.
From Kirkus:
Eleven violent, heartfelt slices of life among the underdogs of the Louisiana bayous and Texas plains from acclaimed mystery novelist Burke (Pegasus Descending, 2006, etc.). Burke’s volcanic novels of guilt, revenge and redemption wouldn’t have pegged him as a master of the highly wrought short story. Yet he’s something even better: a natural storyteller with a feeling for unequal conflicts and the pain of impotence and humiliation. Within a page or two, he can hook you with the tale a retired professor menaced by a cadre of swaggering hunters (“Winter Light”) or, in a virtual rehash of the same plot, a rancher who takes up for a young woman harassed by a biker gang in “A Season of Regret.” In “The Night Johnny Ace Died” and “Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine,” starry-eyed small-time hoods cross paths with criminal headliners, with results as touching as they are predictable. A running argument between an oil-rig driller and a dynamiter swells to a roar before it subsides in “Water People.” Several entries visit the territory in the wake of Katrina. The title story strands a pair of young musicians in the floodwaters waiting for rescue by Jesus or a charismatic gangster, and “Mist” follows a shattered survivor determined to stay off drugs and the streets despite repeated relapses. But Burke’s voice is just as urgent when he’s describing a murderous raid in Vietnam (“The Village”) or recalling the childhood of boys being raised by their father’s uncaring mistress (“Texas City, 1947”) or standing up to a smooth-talking predator (“The Molester”) or fighting over an American flag against the backdrop of Pearl Harbor (“The Burning of the Flag”). If some of the endings are rushed or unconvincing or just plain AWOL, that’s because Burke understands that conflicts like these, even spun out to novel length, never truly end.
From Publishers Weekly
The 11 previously published stories in this strong collection showcase Burke's handling of familiar themes and places, minus the trappings that accompany his popular Dave Robicheaux or Bill Bob Holland novels. The inevitable marriage of war and atrocity is powerfully described in the very brief Vietnam War tale, "The Village." The title story, one of two dealing with Katrina and its aftermath, shows the lasting damage of war on survivors. Both "Winter Light" and "A Season of Regret" feature disillusioned, stoical academics, loners coping with the encroachments of cruder society. Most wrenching and affecting are several coming-of-age tales: "Texas City, 1947" depicts brutalized children and contains a surprising dénouement; "The Molester" and "The Burning of the Flag" both feature childhood friends from the WWII era confronting bullies or demons. Burke demonstrates impressive range, sensitivity and polish in these smaller-scale gems.
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