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Read The Lost Get-Back Boogie (2006)

The Lost Get-Back Boogie (2006)

Online Book

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Rating
4.12 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
1416517065 (ISBN13: 9781416517061)
Language
English
Publisher
pocket star

The Lost Get-Back Boogie (2006) - Plot & Excerpts

I'm just amazed at the ability of James Lee Burke to create characters who have such depth as Ivy Paret the ex-con who served his time in Angola (Louisiana) and is trying to begin a new life far away from his home town. All of Burke's guys, his characters, think about right and wrong; about trying to find their way in a complicated world and how to make the best of everything they're dealt. Sometimes bad luck just happens, life happens and rising above it all takes perseverance, sometimes more than people have, unfortunately. I was a bit concerned because most of Burke's books which I've read have been in the lushness of southern Louisiana and south Texas and I loved the his description of the southern part of the U. S.Burke's second home is in Missoula, Montana, and is the site of this stand-alone. Silly me, I was concerned that Burke couldn't include his lovely landscape description...it's Montana, for crying out loud. (I admit, I know nothing about Montana never having been there.) However, there's just no way that Burke can leave out his lyrical landscape descriptions. He could probably describe the North Pole in such a way that I would want to be there and I hate cold. I just came across this quote which speaks for itself. But I immediately thought of Burke and his finely drawn and unique characters and the burden they carry including one of my favorites, Burke's Dave Robicheaux. "In the N.Y. Times Book Review for Feb. 2, 2012, critic Olen Steinhauer was writing about a John D. MacDonald contemporary, Elmore Leonard, but what he had to say about the best crime writers, that: “Our best crime writers are sometimes our most astute social novelists, concerned as much with our country’s ills as they are with sensational homicides.”I certainly put James Lee Burke in that category which is, in my mind, a very small club of writers. **********Daniel brought me back to this review and when glancing through it, I could not remember the plot. The book was five stars, so I should have written a bit about this five star stand alone featuring Iry Paret. Iry's a musician from Louisiana, just served two years in Angola and needs to start a new life. A friend, Buddy Riordan, a fellow he met in prison and was released earlier, invited Iry to Montana where his father owns a farm and Iry can begin again. His parole officer is watching to see if Iry can stay afloat on this side of the law. Iry knows that anything close to illegal can put him in handcuffs and back to Angola; manslaughter and murder are against the law in Montana, just like in Louisiana. Unfortunately that cloud hanging over Iry's head follows him to Montana. Without trying, Iry is back walking the line between turning a blind eye to some troublemakers and the trouble they cause to Riordan's family or getting even and protecting his new family. Always a presence, the finishing of a song he's started and heading back to Angola. Iry is walking a tightrope hoping he doesn't fall. Great character, Iry, and don't know if I'll see him again, but would enjoy a second book. Of course, I admit, I'm easy when it comes to Burke...I'll read anything he's written.

4.9999 stars. Read this one summer while housesitting - I would never have picked it up otherwise - and Burke surprised the hell out of me. I thought it would be a light, easy read. Nope. The sensation of reading it stays with me - like my first time reading James Joyce or Vladimir Nabokov - Burke's style is so distinctive, without in the least bit altering from 'normal'. And he is affecting. I haven't yet read his other works because it took such an emotional toll on me. That's all I can remember disliking about it: how goddamn sad it was, not in any overcooked 'best-laid plans gang aft agley' way, but with terrible realism: some people are just unlucky, some people are violent and mean, and god help them when they meet up.Burke passed on judging his (intense & well-drawn) characters. Whether your run or fight isn't a reflection on your courage, he says; we do what we do because acting in character is the only choice open to us. It's how we're made. Repeating mistakes and acting like a dipshit is part of it.A grim view of things, to be sure. But probably a realistic one.My only quibble was the sexism - there are very few women and none of them useful, if I remember aright - but again, that's probably realistic of the characters, as well.

What do You think about The Lost Get-Back Boogie (2006)?

Iry Paret has done his time in Angola, which is no country club prison, then or now. He's gone home, but there's nothing there for him any more. His family would just as soon he leave, and he does. He heads for Montana, because his prison pal Buddy Riordan has promised him a job and a place to live. Buddy is a musician, like Iry, and they both have a predilection for the bottle, although Buddy likes his dope, too. Iry is on parole, which means he has to behave in Montana or he can be yanked back to Louisiana to finish out his time. This is not something he wants to do.When Iry gets to Montana, Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley, he finds out that Buddy forgot to mention a thing or two. Buddy's father is a real piece of work, and has managed to piss off the vast majority of people in and around Missoula by filing a lawsuit and getting an injunction against the new pulp mill. He believes, and rightly so, that the pulp mill is an environmental disaster, polluting the water and the air now and as long as it is in business. Frank Riordan doesn't seem to much care about all the people he's going to put out of work; they, on the other hand, see him as the here-and-now problem and don't really want to worry about the long-term damage being done by the pulp mill. Buddy has an ex-wife, and he'd like to get back together with her. Beth has no interest whatsoever in any kind of relationship with Buddy, although she thinks it's a good idea that he still sees himself as an involved parent with their two sons. She's not so happy about the drinking and the drugs. Iry and Beth are attracted to each other, which presents some obvious problems, since Iry and Buddy are living in the same house. THE LOST GET-BACK BOOGIE is an amazingly powerful book, even after twenty years. Burke has such wonderful descriptive passages; it's easy to see that he loves Montana, at least the wilderness and the not-so-civilized portions of it. His people are just that: people, not characters in a book. Sometimes it's more like reading non-fiction than anything else, because these people do all the stupid things people do, make all those bad choices people make . . . but Burke lets the reader know them so well that these choices seem to be the only, the obvious choice to make. Even when we want to smack Iry upside the head and tell him not to go out with Buddy, don't have that one more drink, keep your mouth shut . . . we know that Iry can't do any of those things. THE LOST GET-BACK BOOGIE is Burke's first novel. It was nominated for a Pulitzer. It deserved the nomination. While this isn't a perfect book (skip the Epilogue, and it probably comes close), Burke's talent is so obvious, so true, that no one should be surprised at the quality of his body of work. He's good enough that I kept picking it back up even though I could see the train wreck coming, put it down because I didn't want to read what was going to happen next, but had to pick it back up because I was drawn back into Iry's life by the writing. It doesn't get much better than that.
—P.J. Coldren

As someone who lived in Missoula,Mt for over 30 years, it is fun to read a book that is easy to imagine the scenery and the places they go. This definitely made it interesting for me, but the characters were not people that I would hang with nor would I go to the places they go. Two are ex cons who drink and booze all day and night and for most of the book they are either in a bar or diving up and down the highway south of Missoula drunk. There is a good story line, but it frequently gets lost in the bottle!
—Betty

The Lost Get-Back Boogie, by James Lee Burke, B. Narrated by Will Patton, Produced by Recorded Books, Downloaded from Audible.com.This is not a Dave Robicheau book. I’m not sure if it’s a stand-alone or not. Iry Paret has just come out of Angola Prison in Louisiana where he spent two years for killing someone. He has little connection to his family and decides to go to Montana to pass his probation on the ranch of a friend and the friend’s father. At first things seem wonderful. He stays under the radar of the sheriff and the probation officer. But his friend’s family is very involved, particularly the father, in trying to shut down a toilet paper mill due to its pollution, and the town is hostile because most of the jobs in the town come from that paper mill. So tragedy comes to Iry. Will Patton is as usual a wonderful narrator. But I just couldn’t get close to liking Iry or his friend. So, despite the fact that Will Patton could read the telephone book and I’d enjoy it, I have to give this book a B. I prefer Burke’s books in Louisiana.
—Kathleen Hagen

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