James Lee Burke: A Dust Bowl Tale of Bonnie and Clyde: A Short Story

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A new perspective on Bonnie and Clyde

This short story is a great e-book introduction to the remarkable atmospheric and almost poetic prose of James Lee Burke and to his forthcoming book "Wayfaring Strangers".

Weldon Holland grew up in Texas during the Depression and this is his first brush with good and evil which he would never forget. Weldon's early life was changed forever when infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and associates drove onto his Grandfather's property. He was immediately captured by Bonnie's beauty, an impression that never left him, but things changed when they came back the next day after a bank robbery went bad. After one of them spat on his Grandfather, as they drove away Weldon fired a shot through the car's back window. This first dramatic encounter with good and evil never left him.

This short story gave me a far better perspective of Bonnie and Clyde in a few pages than the whole of the famous movie. It is the first chapter of "Wayfaring Stranger", a very different novel by master storyteller James Lee Burke, which will be released  in mid July 2014. I have been fortunate through Net Galley and the publisher to be able read an advanced copy of that book which follows Weldon's live through the horrors of WWII and the death camps and when he returned home to try to make his fortune. All through his life Weldon has to face up to the consequences good and evil. I highly recommend that book to discerning readers.

James Lee Burke: Wayfaring Stranger

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Modern morality story of good and evil
This is a very different James Lee Burke (JLB) novel to his popular Dave Robicheaux detective thrillers. This is a book about good and evil in life seen through the eyes of Weldon Holland who grew up in Texas during the Depression, fought in WWII and returned home to try to make his fortune. It is written by a master storyteller whose prose, as usual, is remarkable and atmospheric.

Weldon's first brush with good and evil came when infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow drove onto his Grandfather's property. He was immediately captured by Bonnie's beauty, an impression that never left him, but things changed when they came back the next day after a bank robbery went bad. After one of them spat on his Grandfather as they drove away Weldon fired a shot through the car's back window. This first dramatic encounter with good and evil never left him.

During WWII Weldon saw real evil, especially when Second Lieutenant Holland and his Sergeant, Hershel Pine, were caught behind enemy lines and to escape boarded an empty freight train that took them to a death camp that had been abandoned by the fleeing SS. Among a pile of emaciated bodies Weldon finds 23 year old Rosita Lowenstein who is just alive. Rosita is Jewish and had grown up in Madrid and her parents were famous Communists who fought for the Republic. Weldon and Hershell carry Rosita as she slowly regains her strength while they find the way back to their lines. They get parted when Weldon goes back to the front but his blooming attraction for for Rosita sends him across Europe after the war to find her again. They marry and return to Texas.

After the war Hershell encourages Weldon to seek their fortunes in the oil business using a new pipeline welding process. There they find different forms of evil in the greed of unfettered capitalism, corruption, bigotry, anti-semitism, anti-communism and violence that attack them from all angles. It is a new battle where people don't just want your possessions, they want your soul. Hershell's wife, Linda Gail, aspires to be a Hollywood actress and encounters similar demons along the way that impact on all of their lives.

They meet Roy Wiseheart (the "Wayfaring Stranger"), an enigmatic wealthy person with many business connections who has a questionable history as a war hero. Roy "befriends" them although it is not clear if he is friend or enemy. Roy's wife Clara is a bitter and intolerant anti-Semite who tries to make Weldon and Rosita’s life a nightmare. His father, Dalton, a totally unscrupulous oil baron, whose business strategy with difficult people is "make them wince", does the same.

As always JLB's superb descriptive  prose is an outstanding feature of the book. The book is also filled with memorable characters. I especially liked Weldon's description of his commanding officer, Lloyd Fincher. "... Major Fincher is widely regarded as a dangerous idiot....someone said the German army has been trying to find him for years to award him the Iron Cross". Fincher is just as dangerous after the war when he offers to help Weldon's business.

The ending showed that under great stress good people will take action to protect themselves. It also demonstrates the power of love, the good that lies in most people, and that truth can sometimes win over direct action.

I am a fan of JLB and this is a landmark and very different novel by a master storyteller. It is part love story, part family/historical saga, part thriller and in total I consider it is a modern morality story. JLB is now 77 years old and I suspect that this is the book he has wanted to write for some time. It will certainly remain in my memory for some time. Highly recommended for discerning readers.  

James Lee Burke: Heaven's Prisoners (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries)

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A compelling and intelligent thriller

Recently I told an author friend of mine that I was numbed by the poor quality of recent thrillers I had read and he told me to "read something by James Lee Burke - the man's a master". That was great advice. Burke doesn't write your normal type of crime thriller, he is a fabulous storyteller and a master of prose who writes stories of literary quality full of great characters, violent emotions with almost poetic descriptions of the landscapes where the action happens. 

Dave Robicheaux has retired from a long career as a homicide detective and is running a boat, bait and food business catering for tourists to the bayou area of southern Louisiana. He is very happy in his new marriage to Annie and is winning his long and hard battle with alcohol. Dave and Annie are on their boat one day trawling for shrimp when a small plane crashes nearby. Dave saves a six-year-old girl's life but her mother and three other people in the plane perish. Annie looks after the small girl who can only speak Spanish and names her Alifair, after Dave's mother.

When the police search the plane they only find three bodies. One man was missing. Dave remembered him clearly, he wore a pink shirt which had been ripped in the crash to show a tattoo over one nipple and his neck was broken. As usual Dave couldn't leave this alone and it  unleashes the devils of gang vengeance which strike at Dave and his family.

This is a dark story which is sometimes violent and faces up to the despair of loss and the demons of alcohol. It is also very philosophical about life and its dangers and weaknesses, which is rare in a thriller. I found parts of the book both compassionate and tear-jerking.

I strongly recommend this book as one of the most compelling and intelligent thrillers I have read for some time. This is the first of Burke's novels that I have read and it won't be the last. I will especially remember his vivid descriptions of the Louisiana bayou where I could almost smell the water, the moss, the trees and the flowers that Burke so loves. Another author who does this so well is the great Pat Conroy with his landscapes of the Carolina wetlands.

While this book was written in 1988, well before Hurricane Katrina, Burke may have had a premonition of the future when he felt a big storm building up and quoted the lyrics of this song - "Don't come `round tonight, it's bound to take your life. A bad moon's on the rise, I hear hurricane's a blowing, I know the end is coming soon, I feel the river overflowing, I can hear the voice of rage and ruin."