James Lee Burke's novels

For me, there is no reading a James Lee Burke novel straight through. His earlier novels, yes.  But not the last few.  This newest one, "Robicheaux" is so intense that I can only read it for 30 minutes and then I need a break. I WANT to read it all the way through but my thoughts and emotions get weighed down.

It isn't because the subject matter is so intense, it's a detective novel, one of a series, and as brutal as the killings Dave Robicheaux investigates might be, they are no more brutal than what happens in our daily lives, what we read in the headlines every day.  No, the reasons I need to put the book down and walk away for a bit are because of the intensity of the writing, the focus on what happens in his characters' minds, the directness of the insight into the emotional and psychological workings of the evil in our society, the angst and terror and sometimes joy that coexist within everyone.

Just this: "Like an early nineteenth-century poet, when I have melancholy moments and feel the world is too much for us and that late and soon we lay waste to our powers in getting and spending, I am forced to pause and reflect upon my experiences with the dead and the hold they exert on our lives.  This may seem a macabre perspective on one's life, but at a certain point it seems to be the only one we have. Mortality is not kind, and do not let anyone tell you it is. If there is such a thing as wisdom, and I have serious doubts about its presence in my own life, it lies in the acceptance of the human condition and perhaps the knowledge that those who have passed on are still with us, out there in the mist, showing us the way, sometimes uttering a word of caution from the shadows, sometimes visiting us in our sleep, as bright as a candle burning inside a basement that has no windows."

OK, if that doesn't make you want to read it a couple of times and then look up from the page and just.... stop and think about life, death, mortality..... well, you aren't ready for James Lee Burke.

He is one of my favorite writers and I do a little dance whenever a new book is released. It isn't often but I treasure his prose. The detective story genre isn't usually thought of (by those who are neophytes of the genre) as a literary gold mine but Burke is one of those whose prose transcends the genre. I have written about him several times in the past but he continues to amaze me. He lives in Montana.  Seriously, his writing makes me want to drive there tomorrow and find him and shake his hand.

That's all..... just wanted to toss that in there. I will be finished with this novel before the weekend is done and it will stay in my mind for a while.  His books always do.

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