Wow. I can give this book a short review for someone considering reading it, and I want to go more in depth, because this man has a lot going on.So here's the short version of this Edgar winning novel: the story line holds together w/o pause, slow spot, or error, but it's more than that. The development of character is the most engaging of any new-to-me writer I've read in a very long time. I was so sick of reading novels about alcoholics, and really, really tired of the hackneyed ruse of ordinary-person-gets-involved-because-he's-framed and ALSO of ordinary-person-gets-involved-to-save-a-loved-one. Yet Burke made both of these tired old saws brand, spanking new, breathed such amazing new urgency into character, plot, and setting that I could only drop my jaw and say, "WOW."I consider this a must-read. Now you can be done, unless you've already read it; spoilers below.__________________________________________________________________________When I take on a new author--and this guy had been writing for over 20 years before I found him, so I was looking at this novel not only as a new book and writer, but also as someone whose entire series I was considering reading--I need to know a little bit about his outlook on the world before I can really engage. If he spins too far to the right, with Black folks being just born to a life of crime and gay people being sick, sick sinners (for example), I just can't go there and do that. So I reserve a little of my buy-in until I trust the writer.You can read on many levels. If you are a pleasure reader and don’t do analysis, and if you are still with me, you can go now. I’m about to delve into issues of race as they come into play in this novel, and I will take my time. Again, there will be spoilers.That said, I went in wary, and came out very impressed, though still a little bit puzzled. What is WITH the habitual use of the word “Negro”? It may be on the U.S. census, but I don’t know a single African-American who wants to be called by it. When six syllables are too long to sustain, simply “Black” is preferred. My basis for this belief is my many years of teaching in what was considered by some to be a “dangerous” school (oh please) and my own family members. I am pretty pale, but the miracle of blended families has brought us all together. And I looked at the word, and my back went up. WHAT? What’s that about? And because the writer drives home his message subtly and uses that weird, weird term (socially weird, anyway,) I had red flags all over his work until I was three-quarters of the way done. He compounds the error by referring to “Texans and Negroes”, inferring that no Black person can be Texan…this is uncharacteristically clumsy, or else the guy really has a few issues that he probably doesn’t even realize he has; his writing later sympathizes with a former Panther behind bars who hears that the system works, and says, “That’s right, Motherfucker. And it work for somebody else.” And still later, he talks about how people who complain about the cost of welfare and paying for free housing for the poorest of the poor have absolutely no idea what it costs the people who grow up in projects to live the way they must, and how very little they actually have. So the guy is not a racist in the true sense of the word; like a lot of folks who think they have passed all the hurdles, he has one or two left, at least at this stage in his writing. What he really wants to talk about, though, besides of course building an outstanding suspense thriller, is how the Indians have been treated. And he uses this term, but also directly refers to AIM (the American Indian Movement). This didn’t bother me right up front, the way the word “Negro” did, but I was watching to see where he took it.Part of the story takes place in Montana. The writer is very familiar with the area; he has two homes, according to his profile, one in New Iberia, Louisiana, and one in Montana. And all through the build-up, as he decides that the death of a man who is a member of the Blackfeet tribe may be the key to his own dilemma, he inquires of various locals as to whether they knew this man, or what happened to him. And again and again, they explain to him, not about the man as an individual or whose well being causes them concern. They tell him about Indians. They tell him about the reservation.I have sticky notes on all the pages where this occurs, but this review will be long enough without all of them, so here’s the short version: they say something that sounds token, like how sorry they feel about what was done to the Indians…and then, they feel free to say what they really think, which is that Indians drink, they fight, they blow all their money in bars, they don’t show up for work. They’re violent; alcoholic; unreliable. “They’re a deeply fucked up people.”So, as a new reader, I am still wondering whether the author believes this is true. The way he pops that bubble is artistry, all by itself.He does this with two people who are also Blackfeet. One is the sister of the victim, with whom he has an affair; the other is the mother of the victim. The victim’s mother is a wizened old woman out in the dusty fields, cropping away at the dirt and weeds with her hoe, working in what is trying to be a garden. He speaks to her as if she is simple, maybe doesn’t speak very good English. It’s both an act of racism and ageism, but as the narrator, he outs himself. He realizes when she looks him straight in the eye and asks him who he is and what he is after, that he has underestimated her. Then he talks to her like someone who knows something, and she invites him in for a chat.The victim’s sister is better still. She notes that the Blackfeet Reservation is in the lee of the mountain, and she has to tell HIM what that means (it’s the side away from the wind, on the eastern slope). The US government has its missile silos under the reservation. The government had freely admitted that if the missiles were ever used, every single person on the reservation of the Blackfeet would die. She has quite a bit to say, and none of it is stupid, violent raving or alcohol-induced stupor.He also does not shrink from talking about the misery experienced by those who live in the kind of poverty to which reservation Indians have been consigned, or issues of addiction. He compares them to Salvadoran refugees whose village has been the site of terrible warfare. Any people who loses a war, he says, is consigned to unspeakable degradation. And he gives us details to support it.This is all sideline stuff in terms of the story itself, but it was essential to me as a reader. I can’t bury myself in a writer’s story until I feel that his good guys and my good guys are mostly the same people. His tale is one outstanding ride, and the writer, warts and all, meets my standard of what a decent human being looks like.
Sometimes I wonder if you can really like the Robicheaux series. It isn't easy witnessing a man struggle with his demons, both internal and external, to root for him and watch him both succeed and fail, sometimes in the same breath.Dave isn't a simple person, which is one of the attractive aspects of him as centerpiece to a series. He knows his weaknesses, fights them and yet is unable to avoid following his pattern, like Sysiphus hauling the boulder again and again only to watch it roll downhill. He's been seeing a therapist since his wife died, and they have an oddly telling discussion:"'Cut loose from the past. She wouldn't want you to carry a burden like this.''I can't. I don't want to.''Say it again.''I don't want to.'He was bald and his rimless glasses were full of light. He turned his palms up toward me and was silent.'"Beautiful. Book three in the Dave Robicheaux series opens in a motel, Dave dreaming of the helpless night his wife Anne was murdered. Restless and haunted, he heads to an all-night diner and runs into Dixie Lee Pugh, former roommate, master blues singer, old-time rock-n-roller and dedicated drinker. They only spend a few minutes together, but shortly after, Dixie looks Dave up for help with a couple of thuggish business acquaintances. From there, Dixie's flailing, drunken attempts to stay out of Angola pull Dave into a world of hurt. As he asks a few questions on Dixie's behalf, he runs into his former partner Clete. Dave watches him drive away and wishes him a powerful blessing:"Whatever you're operating on, I hope it's as pure and clean as white gas and bears you aloft over the places where the carrion birds clatter."Dave almost breaks free of Dixie's situation when the thugs threaten Alafair; Dave's inner demons take over and he finds himself facing a murder charge. Freeing himself will mean digging deeper into Dixie's connections in Montana.Burke weaves his trademark beautiful, evocative beginning, bringing the varied landscape of the deep south to life, from Louisiana to the edges of Texas. In fact, it's fair to say that the setting stands in for Dave Robicheaux's emotions, and it seems to be raining quite a bit in the bayou these days. Unfortunately, setting doesn't seem to work as well after they head up to Montana, the land of pines, mountainous geography and multi-colored streams. Memories of the south stand in instead.There is just a touch of humor in this, the kind that makes me smile, albeit crookedly:"But I had never bought very heavily into the psychiatric definitions of singularity and eccentricity in people. In fact, as I reviewed the friendships I had had over the years, I had to conclude that the most interesting ones involved the seriously impaired--the Moe Howard account, the drunken, the mind-smoked, those who began each day with a nervous breakdown, people who hung on to the sides of the planet with suction cups."Once the story moved to Montana, I found Clete and Dixie rapidly took over the story with their extravagant personalities. I didn't mind, but if anyone is more flawed than Dave, it's Clete. Clete is no fool either, and is well aware he's Dave's stalking horse:"'Why'd you keep partnering with me at the First District after you saw me bend a couple of guys out of shape?' He grinned at me. 'Maybe because I'd do the things you really wanted to. Just maybe. Think about it.'"Character arcs and redemption go farther than I expected, and if the villain is a bit of a sociopath, he's a frustrated sociopath with resources and its no less frightening for it. Batist is well done and avoids both disrespect and pitfalls of the loyal support character. Alafair is written appropriately for a young child, and one of my favorite moments is when Dave acknowledges the foolishness of telling her to be brave: "She had experienced a degree of loss and violence in her short life that most people can only appreciate in their nightmares."The first read was somewhat less than satisfying, perhaps because I was pushing the mood and the speed. Burke does not write thrillers, although they certainly have their share of violence and mayhem, and his stories are not conducive to skimming. Visual setting and childhood memories are as important as suspect interviews. The second time--largely accomplished on a comfy lounge chair in the sun--was far more successful and satisfying. I always want to visit the bayou after I'm finished with Dave Robicheaux.Highly recommended. Note: it won Burke's first Edgar Award.Four and a half, five stars. Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0...
What do You think about Black Cherry Blues (1990)?
Burke's Robicheaux series is, well - dark. Robicheaux is not someone you want your sister dating, let alone marrying. Alcoholic, now ex-cop, once divorced and once widowed, fond of the one-night-stand (maybe two), violent, with a penchant for inviting (perhaps goading) evil men to try to kill him, his kin and his friends - and succeeding (except, of course, for Robicheaux himself as the series goes on).Recommend reading the series in order. Having read the first and second books helped me deal with the a-bit-too-often vision conversations Robicheaux has with his murdered wife Annie, among other things.But Burke can write. The book is full of enjoyable prose that evokes his Louisiana home and the geography around him (in Black Cherry Blues this includes Montana). However, while Louisiana is a colorful place that may actually be as Burke portrays it, I felt his description of the state and prison dialogue strained credulity just a bit.
—Nanosynergy
This trade paperback reprint brings back an early Dave Robicheaux novel (first published in 1989) in which he travels from his native Louisiana to Montana to escape his guilt over the murder of his wife. Of course, the familiar territory is covered: his attendance at AA meetings, care for an adopted refugee girl from El Salvador, among other things.A land-hungry oil company is pitted against the interests of a Blackfoot reservation, and when two American Indian activists disappear, Dave’s investigation puts him squarely in the sights of mafia thugs and the oil interests. Also, he enters into a romance with Darlene American Horse, his ex-partner’s girlfriend.The broad sweep of the story helps Dave relieve the demons of his grief, loss, fear, rage and need for vengeance. And the author shows how graphically and wonderfully he can write about the broad vistas of Montana’s red cliffs and tree-line hills, as well as the accustomed bayous of Louisiana, and the multi-ethnic aspects of the United States.Recommended.
—Gloria Feit
This is good storytelling. Even if it's a bit confused and slow to start Burke's storytelling is miles above the rest. Robicheaux is still swimming through the lost tragic and traumatic lost of his wife Annie, his past comes back to bite him in the behind and he might, just might have stepped into a bit of a mess that will put him in jail and much worst unless he finds a way to make sense of it all. Not all black, definitely no white knight, Robicheaux lives in a world of grey and where the choices are never, never easy and life is hard with burst of vivid colours. I liked it. Really good, modern noir. Not as tightly structured as the first two novels but still, Burke delivers a gripping tale of deceit, despair and greed.
—Writerlibrarian
