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| The Craze After the Storm |
The Craze After the Storm
James Lee Burke's Dark Look
At Post-Katrina New Orleans
By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG of The Wall Street Journal.
James Lee Burke has never taken a straight road when a crooked one will do. His latest novel, "The Tin Roof Blowdown," published last month, cuts across many lives.
A dark story of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, the book follows four black men who rob a mob boss; a priest/addict who disappears during the height of the hurricane trying to rescue others; and a family whose members are already scarred from an earlier act of brutality. Their eventual misguided response pulls tight the various strands of this novel.
This is the 16th book to feature Dave Robicheaux, a flawed but empathetic lawman who finds himself back in the Lower Ninth Ward after the storm. It's getting the best reviews that Mr. Burke, 70 years old, has enjoyed in some time. CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster says there are now 150,000 copies in print, the most ever for a Dave Robicheaux book.
Mr. Burke
Mr. Burke, a lyrical, sensuous writer with 26 novels to his credit, still works a seven-day week. "I never take a day off unless it's forced upon me," he says. One of his earliest Dave Robicheaux titles, "Heaven's Prisoners" was turned into a movie of the same name. The thriller, released in 1996, was directed by Phil Joanou and starred Alec Baldwin. Another film, based on "In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead," starring Tommy Lee Jones and directed by Bertrand Tavernier, has finished shooting.
Mr. Burke knows his territory: he owns a house in New Iberia, La., the same town where the fictional Dave Robicheaux works. The author was interviewed by phone by The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg in Lolo, Mont., where he lives part of the year.
The Wall Street Journal Online: What is the biggest challenge in writing about New Orleans today?
James Lee Burke: To avoid the temptation of proselytizing. I've tried to present the information I have in a dramatic narrative form and let people come to their own conclusions. A good writer always acts on the assumption that his reader is an intelligent person of good will. You never pander. You never try to control the conclusions of your readers. You present the world as you see it, as objectively as possible. If you choose the right details, and see the essence of situations in a way that perhaps others do not, the reader will understand that truth you are trying to convey.
WSJ.com: Can you explain the process?
Mr. Burke: I've never understood how creativity works. But I believe the story is placed there by another hand, placed in the artist by another hand. Leonardo said he didn't carve the statue, he released it from the stone. He wasn't being humble. He understood how the process works. An artist who claims credit for the gift he's got is about to lose it. Vanity is the enemy of every artist.
WSJ.com: Why do you offer redemption to one of the books most violent criminals?
Mr. Burke: He's a criminal of the first order, and a man who normally would be considered morally insane. Then we see him step through a keyhole, and out of his terrible experience he learns to care about someone else. I believe in redemption. Every great work has dealt with man's quest for redemption, going back to Celtic legend. The linkage between the spirit, the body and divinity is what all human experience is about.
WSJ.com: It seems that crime fiction has become a broad genre for addressing social issues.
Mr. Burke: That's the heart of the matter. It's replaced the sociological novel. We know a society not by its symbols but by its cultural rejects and failures. The U.S. was built by people out of sync, ferocious people to be around. They weren't a moderate, intemperate group. But that America is gone. Today we are living in a strange crossroads where there are millions who aren't technologically competitive, people who belong to a new underclass not racially defined. These books address the need for social justice.
WSJ.com: Dave Robicheaux is a difficult, sometimes angry man. What's his appeal?
Mr. Burke: He has his origins in Elizabethan theater. His character is very much a tragic hero: blue collar but very intelligent, with classic virtues. Dave comes from humble origins; he understands the problems of the poor. He also has a classic flaw: hubris. The tragic hero takes a fall because of pride.
WSJ.com: What are your thoughts on Alec Baldwin's performance as Dave Robicheaux in "Heaven's Prisoners?"
Mr. Burke: I liked him. He's a very good actor. The bigger problem with the film was that the studio went broke during production. I didn't feel disappointed with the movie. I thought the critics were harder than they should have been.
WSJ.com: In each of your Dave Robicheaux books there seems to be a point where violence becomes a satisfying end in itself. Is that part of what has made the series so popular?
Mr. Burke: When Dave acts in a violent fashion it's almost always in the defense of another. But he knows violence is the last resort of an intelligent person and the first resort of a primitive person, and that everyone is diminished by it, usually the perpetrator the most. Dave's greatest anger is over the loss of the Cajun culture into which he was born. He's never been able to accept the fact that it's gone and won't be coming back.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
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