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The Convict and Other Stories
THE COLLECTION NO CRIME FICTION FAN SHOULD BE WITHOUT -- THE ESSENTIAL SHORT STORIES OF JAMES LEE BURKE
"America's best novelist" (The Denver Post ), two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke is renowned for his lush, suspense-charged portrayals of the Deep South -- the people, the crime, the hope and despair infused in the bayou landscape. This stunning anthology takes us back to where Burke's heart and soul beat -- the steamy, seamy Gulf Coast -- in complex and fascinating tales that crackle with violence and menace, meshing his flair for gripping storytelling with his urbane writing style.
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1985
226 people are currently reading
558 people want to read
About the author
James Lee Burke
124 books4,184 followersJames Lee Burke is an American author best known for his mysteries, particularly the Dave Robicheaux series. He has twice received the Edgar Award for Best Novel, for
Black Cherry Blues
in 1990 and
Cimarron Rose
in 1998.
Burke was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Missouri, receiving a BA and MA from the latter. He has worked at a wide variety of jobs over the years, including working in the oil industry, as a reporter, and as a social worker. He was Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, succeeding his good friend and posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner John Kennedy Toole, and preceding Ernest Gaines in the position. Shortly before his move to Montana, he taught for several years in the Creative Writing program at Wichita State University in the 1980s.
Burke and his wife, Pearl, split their time between Lolo, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. Their daughter, Alafair Burke, is also a mystery novelist.
The book that has influenced his life the most is the 1929 family tragedy "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner.
Burke was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of Missouri, receiving a BA and MA from the latter. He has worked at a wide variety of jobs over the years, including working in the oil industry, as a reporter, and as a social worker. He was Writer in Residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, succeeding his good friend and posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner John Kennedy Toole, and preceding Ernest Gaines in the position. Shortly before his move to Montana, he taught for several years in the Creative Writing program at Wichita State University in the 1980s.
Burke and his wife, Pearl, split their time between Lolo, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. Their daughter, Alafair Burke, is also a mystery novelist.
The book that has influenced his life the most is the 1929 family tragedy "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
June 20, 2011
I had no idea what I was getting into with Burke, but now I can say I know a little bit more about the Korean War, the Civil War, Cold Wars in Latin America, baseball, fishing, oil rigs, southern Catholics, and Mexican farmworkers. Here Burke writes ultra-masculine stories told through the eyes of two character types: a white boy around his elders or a white man around people of color. I haven't read much Faulkner and Hemmingway, but I imagine Burke fancies himself their freakin' lovechild. I enjoyed "When It's Decoration Day" the most from this collection. It's a suspenseful slog through the final days of the Civil War for a young Confederate soldier as he tries to make it to safety while Sherman invades Atlanta. The aging English professor in "Taking a Second Look" also rang true to me, perhaps because it was the most straightforward story in the whole bunch (I could actually understand the character's actions and emotions). And some of Burke's little touches surprised me: Nazi submarines parked at the mouth of the Mississippi and the image of an arm tattooed with an American flag pulling burned soldiers out of the Gulf of Mexico. Burke is relying on precise cultural values embedded in American readers to advance that image to something much more emotionally visceral. But only a particular type of American is moved by that sort of thing.
I'm not sure if I'll read Burke again, but I'll know what to expect if I do. He's at his best in these stories when he's linear, not jumping back and forth through time and place. At his worst ("The Pilot") he reminds me what I hate about those musty southern gentleman writers whom I was forced to read in high school.
I'm not sure if I'll read Burke again, but I'll know what to expect if I do. He's at his best in these stories when he's linear, not jumping back and forth through time and place. At his worst ("The Pilot") he reminds me what I hate about those musty southern gentleman writers whom I was forced to read in high school.
March 1, 2022
The Convict and Other Stories is an early James Lee Burke work, one which pre-dates any of the famed Dave Robicheaux novels. Many of the themes that Burke takes to a deeper level later have their inception in this collection.
There are some wonderful stories here, but two I found not quite to the level of the best. In "The Pilot," a pontoon plane pilot who works dirty deeds for Klauss Stroessner, whom Marcel believes is a Nazi war criminal, hates Stroessner for that and also, by the way, because Stroessner is "diddling" Marcel's wife, Amanda. Whether or not Stroessner actually is a Nazi is unclear. Regardless, Marcel's revenge is adolescent. I found the story pointless and the protagonist particularly distasteful with no redeeming qualities.
"Lower Me Down With a Golden Chain," despite its intriguing title, is unfocused and rambling. Maybe that's the point, but I found the constant shifting gears to be a distraction. The unnamed narrator, a journalist and college English teacher, is for most of the story in war-torn Guatemala, where he finds himself interviewing fighters on both sides. He thinks back to his days in Wichita, where he teaches, to the time of Daniel Berrigan and his protests against the draft and Titan missiles housed locally, to his childhood in New Orleans. In the story's favor is the awful depiction of the cruelty and impersonal slaughter of war.
The other seven stories range from really good to breathtaking. Burke is outstanding at writing children, and several of these stories feature young boys and teens. (Burke's best portrait of a child, Alafair, is yet to come).
JLB get kids right. Writing realistically about children is one of his great strengths. Claude is the narrator of “Losses," a convincing tale of innocence lost, a way of life long gone. In this story, JLB focuses on Claude, a ten-year-old fifth grader, who unnecessarily suffers childlike yet profound guilt in his daily life This story is a wonderful, achingly beautiful tale about, in part, being brought up Catholic pre-Vatican II, that is, before the early 1960s. The children, the sisters, the priests, JLB gets every detail right. (Those of us who were raised Catholic and attended parochial school in the forties, fifties, and sixties can attest to the realism of this world). Reading it, you are filled with emotion for the losses, the sadness, the pain that sit right under the surface and can barely be articulated.
Hackberry (Hack) Holland, the grandson of the older Hackberry, makes an appearance as a teenager in "Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans." Hack is smitten with his co-worker picking tomatoes, Juanita, who is Mexican. In his attempt to befriend Juanita, Hack hits multiple brick walls. His Uncle Sidney, with whom he is spending the summer, helps him to fight back against flagrant racism.
Another English professor is the protagonist of "Taking A Second Look." (JLB himself taught English at Wichita State University). Doc has little or no respect for his students, whom he finds boring and uninvolved. Watching a bunch of boys playing baseball in a lot across the street from where he indulges in an afternoon drink, his thoughts drift to his own youthful days playing ball. He sees a young crippled boy utilized as a substitute only when his team is so thoroughly trounced that it didn't matter any more. Doc not only helps the boy try to improve his game, but also stands up for others who are harassed by a local bully cop.
"Hack," this one about the grand-father, spends some time with the old coot on his ninety-fourth birthday. Between interaction with family, Hack reflects on, no imagines, that he is back fighting John Wesley Hardin, an event that permeates much of the Holland family series in books to come, and his days as a Texas Ranger fighting by the side of Captain McAlester.
Although it is not explicitly stated, the narrator of "We Build Churches, Inc." is likely the young Hackberry Holland, now grown and a soldier in the Korean Conflict. He is in a ditch with other soldiers, trying to survive an onslaught of North Koreans and Chinese fighters. The rat-a-tat dialogue keeps the reader involved to the story's awful conclusion.
"The Convict" is the last story in the book. It's focus in less on the title character than on the young boy, Avery Broussard, another character who is to appear in later works as an adult, and his parents. Avery's father, Will, is a man of conviction and standards who stands up for his beliefs. "The Convict" is exactly what a short story should be, a slice of life that engages the reader and brings the characters to life in just a handful of pages.
The best story in The Convict and Other Stories is also the longest, "When It's Decoration Day." It is set during the Civil war from and told from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Confederate soldier Wesley Buford. This is quintessential Burke, the images of both the characters and the location so vivid that it is like watching the tale unfold on the screen, the writing gorgeous and lyrical amid the horror of war.
Wesley signed up after his brother was killed at Cold Harbor. His unit approaches burning Atlanta, explosions set off everywhere.
His butternut brown uniform was heavy with perspiration, and the weight of his Springfield rifle...cut into the shoulder bone like a dull headache. His face was drawn in the moonlight, and his long, blond hair stuck out damply from under his gray cap. There was a thin, red-brown scar under his eye, like a burn, where a Minie ball had flicked across his face at Kennesaw Mountain (where, for the first and only time, he had seen Negroes in Yankee uniforms break through the fog, kneel in a ragged line, and shoot at him---a vision so unbelievable to him in the turning mist and the scream of grape and cannister that he lowered his rifle and stared again until the Mine ball ticked across his face like a hot finger).
Later that night, Wesley is called into the Lieutenant's tent:
Beyond the fire the lieutenant was seated over a small folding table inside the open flap of his tent. The light from a candle that he had melted to the table flickered on his pale, handsome face while he wrote in a steady motion with an ink quill across a piece of paper. Wesley watched him as he would someone who moved about in a strange world that he would never fully understand, one that existed above all the common struggles that most men knew.
As the men shaved willow poles from a creek bed, slanted them into the ground, and stretched their slickers over the notched ends and weighted the bottoms with rocks to make dry lean-tos...The moon had risen with a rain ring around it in the green twilight, the mist started to gather in the woods, and the first drops of rain clicked flatly on the high spread of branches overhead.
The lieutenant elevates private Buford to Corporal and enlists his aid as a scout. Throughout his days as a soldier, Wesley is consumed by the terror and violence of the war and fears that he does not have the ability to carry out the lieutenant's order, to live up to his trust that Wesley has the courage necessary to fulfill the mission.
This unforgettable story closes with a line that will take your breath away.
There are some wonderful stories here, but two I found not quite to the level of the best. In "The Pilot," a pontoon plane pilot who works dirty deeds for Klauss Stroessner, whom Marcel believes is a Nazi war criminal, hates Stroessner for that and also, by the way, because Stroessner is "diddling" Marcel's wife, Amanda. Whether or not Stroessner actually is a Nazi is unclear. Regardless, Marcel's revenge is adolescent. I found the story pointless and the protagonist particularly distasteful with no redeeming qualities.
"Lower Me Down With a Golden Chain," despite its intriguing title, is unfocused and rambling. Maybe that's the point, but I found the constant shifting gears to be a distraction. The unnamed narrator, a journalist and college English teacher, is for most of the story in war-torn Guatemala, where he finds himself interviewing fighters on both sides. He thinks back to his days in Wichita, where he teaches, to the time of Daniel Berrigan and his protests against the draft and Titan missiles housed locally, to his childhood in New Orleans. In the story's favor is the awful depiction of the cruelty and impersonal slaughter of war.
The other seven stories range from really good to breathtaking. Burke is outstanding at writing children, and several of these stories feature young boys and teens. (Burke's best portrait of a child, Alafair, is yet to come).
JLB get kids right. Writing realistically about children is one of his great strengths. Claude is the narrator of “Losses," a convincing tale of innocence lost, a way of life long gone. In this story, JLB focuses on Claude, a ten-year-old fifth grader, who unnecessarily suffers childlike yet profound guilt in his daily life This story is a wonderful, achingly beautiful tale about, in part, being brought up Catholic pre-Vatican II, that is, before the early 1960s. The children, the sisters, the priests, JLB gets every detail right. (Those of us who were raised Catholic and attended parochial school in the forties, fifties, and sixties can attest to the realism of this world). Reading it, you are filled with emotion for the losses, the sadness, the pain that sit right under the surface and can barely be articulated.
Hackberry (Hack) Holland, the grandson of the older Hackberry, makes an appearance as a teenager in "Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans." Hack is smitten with his co-worker picking tomatoes, Juanita, who is Mexican. In his attempt to befriend Juanita, Hack hits multiple brick walls. His Uncle Sidney, with whom he is spending the summer, helps him to fight back against flagrant racism.
Another English professor is the protagonist of "Taking A Second Look." (JLB himself taught English at Wichita State University). Doc has little or no respect for his students, whom he finds boring and uninvolved. Watching a bunch of boys playing baseball in a lot across the street from where he indulges in an afternoon drink, his thoughts drift to his own youthful days playing ball. He sees a young crippled boy utilized as a substitute only when his team is so thoroughly trounced that it didn't matter any more. Doc not only helps the boy try to improve his game, but also stands up for others who are harassed by a local bully cop.
"Hack," this one about the grand-father, spends some time with the old coot on his ninety-fourth birthday. Between interaction with family, Hack reflects on, no imagines, that he is back fighting John Wesley Hardin, an event that permeates much of the Holland family series in books to come, and his days as a Texas Ranger fighting by the side of Captain McAlester.
Although it is not explicitly stated, the narrator of "We Build Churches, Inc." is likely the young Hackberry Holland, now grown and a soldier in the Korean Conflict. He is in a ditch with other soldiers, trying to survive an onslaught of North Koreans and Chinese fighters. The rat-a-tat dialogue keeps the reader involved to the story's awful conclusion.
"The Convict" is the last story in the book. It's focus in less on the title character than on the young boy, Avery Broussard, another character who is to appear in later works as an adult, and his parents. Avery's father, Will, is a man of conviction and standards who stands up for his beliefs. "The Convict" is exactly what a short story should be, a slice of life that engages the reader and brings the characters to life in just a handful of pages.
The best story in The Convict and Other Stories is also the longest, "When It's Decoration Day." It is set during the Civil war from and told from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Confederate soldier Wesley Buford. This is quintessential Burke, the images of both the characters and the location so vivid that it is like watching the tale unfold on the screen, the writing gorgeous and lyrical amid the horror of war.
Wesley signed up after his brother was killed at Cold Harbor. His unit approaches burning Atlanta, explosions set off everywhere.
His butternut brown uniform was heavy with perspiration, and the weight of his Springfield rifle...cut into the shoulder bone like a dull headache. His face was drawn in the moonlight, and his long, blond hair stuck out damply from under his gray cap. There was a thin, red-brown scar under his eye, like a burn, where a Minie ball had flicked across his face at Kennesaw Mountain (where, for the first and only time, he had seen Negroes in Yankee uniforms break through the fog, kneel in a ragged line, and shoot at him---a vision so unbelievable to him in the turning mist and the scream of grape and cannister that he lowered his rifle and stared again until the Mine ball ticked across his face like a hot finger).
Later that night, Wesley is called into the Lieutenant's tent:
Beyond the fire the lieutenant was seated over a small folding table inside the open flap of his tent. The light from a candle that he had melted to the table flickered on his pale, handsome face while he wrote in a steady motion with an ink quill across a piece of paper. Wesley watched him as he would someone who moved about in a strange world that he would never fully understand, one that existed above all the common struggles that most men knew.
As the men shaved willow poles from a creek bed, slanted them into the ground, and stretched their slickers over the notched ends and weighted the bottoms with rocks to make dry lean-tos...The moon had risen with a rain ring around it in the green twilight, the mist started to gather in the woods, and the first drops of rain clicked flatly on the high spread of branches overhead.
The lieutenant elevates private Buford to Corporal and enlists his aid as a scout. Throughout his days as a soldier, Wesley is consumed by the terror and violence of the war and fears that he does not have the ability to carry out the lieutenant's order, to live up to his trust that Wesley has the courage necessary to fulfill the mission.
This unforgettable story closes with a line that will take your breath away.
August 15, 2010
This book benefited from the concurrent reading of two other short story collections which proved far inferior to this one. Nameless the other two shall remain. This might have been a four star book except that the power and quality of the stories varied greatly -- a four star book would have been powerful cover to cover.
Here's my scoring:
Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans - 2/5
Losses - 1/5
The Pilot - 2/5
Taking A Second Look - 2/5
Hack - 3/5
We Build Churches Inc - 4/5
When Its Decoration Day - 4/5
Lower Me Down With A Golden Chain - 3/5
The Convict - 3/5
Most of the stories seemed flawed by reliance on stereotypes. The exceptions, for me, were "We Build Churches Inc" and "When Its Decoration Day" which seemed far more human and believable. "Lower Me Down With A Golden Chain" seemed accurate for the '70s, but the characters seemed caricatures of themselves. Perhaps I had read "The Convict" before because nothing in the story surprised me, which disappointed me. "Uncle Sidney" had no real ending; "Losses" made no sense; "The Pilot" was implausible; "Hack" was better than the score I gave it, but was cheapened by the stereotyping.
Forgive me if you think I'm harsh; you should see the savaging I gave to the other two collections. Burke is a gifted writer who needs to dive below the superficial and stop depending on stereotypes to convey an impression to the reader -- let the reader discover for themselves with dialogue, with action, with description. Stereotype change over time, but that which defines the character does not. That is the difference between pulp fiction and literature.
Here's my scoring:
Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans - 2/5
Losses - 1/5
The Pilot - 2/5
Taking A Second Look - 2/5
Hack - 3/5
We Build Churches Inc - 4/5
When Its Decoration Day - 4/5
Lower Me Down With A Golden Chain - 3/5
The Convict - 3/5
Most of the stories seemed flawed by reliance on stereotypes. The exceptions, for me, were "We Build Churches Inc" and "When Its Decoration Day" which seemed far more human and believable. "Lower Me Down With A Golden Chain" seemed accurate for the '70s, but the characters seemed caricatures of themselves. Perhaps I had read "The Convict" before because nothing in the story surprised me, which disappointed me. "Uncle Sidney" had no real ending; "Losses" made no sense; "The Pilot" was implausible; "Hack" was better than the score I gave it, but was cheapened by the stereotyping.
Forgive me if you think I'm harsh; you should see the savaging I gave to the other two collections. Burke is a gifted writer who needs to dive below the superficial and stop depending on stereotypes to convey an impression to the reader -- let the reader discover for themselves with dialogue, with action, with description. Stereotype change over time, but that which defines the character does not. That is the difference between pulp fiction and literature.
February 24, 2022
Herein are nine harrowing, amusing, and expertly-crafted stories from early in the career of James Lee Burke. I picked this used copy up from a local second-hand shop several years ago, on a whim (I had heard positive opinions of the author in the past), and I've just got around to reading it. Boy, does Burke hit hard with each of these stories, each in a different way. A couple I found to be brilliant, devastating literary gut-punches; a couple I found to be quite charming and entertaining; and a few I felt were really quite fine.
All of which is to say, I highly recommend reading The Convict and Other Stories by James Lee Burke.
All of which is to say, I highly recommend reading The Convict and Other Stories by James Lee Burke.
September 9, 2020
I surprised even myself that I had never read James Lee Burke's "The Convict and Other Stories." I recently found and rescued a copy, even though I had another one in my library.
Originally published in 1985, this collection contains stories like "Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans," "When It's Decoration Day," and "Hack." Hack is the 94-year-old Texas Ranger in this story with family celebrating his birthday but still displaying the irascible nature of the protagonist of my favorite James Lee Burke non-Robicheaux book: "House of the Rising Sun."
In "The Convict," we see again the boy storyteller, who reminds me of the young Dave Robicheaux learning from his illiterate Cajun pops Aloisus, or the young James Lee Burke learning from his father - watching adults for character development.
Excerpt: "In my dream I prayed for my mother and father, the men in the bar at the Frederic Hotel, the sheriff and his deputies, and finally for myself and the Negro convict. Many years would pass before I would learn that it is our collective helplessness, the frailty and imperfection of our vision that ennobles us and saves us from ourselves, but that night, when I awoke while my father was carrying me up to bed, I knew from the beat of his heart that he and I had taken pause in our contention with the world."
Originally published in 1985, this collection contains stories like "Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans," "When It's Decoration Day," and "Hack." Hack is the 94-year-old Texas Ranger in this story with family celebrating his birthday but still displaying the irascible nature of the protagonist of my favorite James Lee Burke non-Robicheaux book: "House of the Rising Sun."
In "The Convict," we see again the boy storyteller, who reminds me of the young Dave Robicheaux learning from his illiterate Cajun pops Aloisus, or the young James Lee Burke learning from his father - watching adults for character development.
Excerpt: "In my dream I prayed for my mother and father, the men in the bar at the Frederic Hotel, the sheriff and his deputies, and finally for myself and the Negro convict. Many years would pass before I would learn that it is our collective helplessness, the frailty and imperfection of our vision that ennobles us and saves us from ourselves, but that night, when I awoke while my father was carrying me up to bed, I knew from the beat of his heart that he and I had taken pause in our contention with the world."
May 9, 2012
Again Burke's writing is without equal. He touches on race relations, war, unfulfilled dreams in this collection of short stories. But this format does not suit him as well as the novel does. His ability to describe scenes and develop characters is limited because of the space requirements. These are the things that make him the great writer that he is. The stories are thought provoking but they all left me wanting more.
August 13, 2018
What a pleasant read. Always thoughtful, Burke goes easily from suspenseful action to poetic reflection. His descriptions are some of the best I've ever read. Memorable.
May 16, 2019
Whatever I say about James Lee Burke's work is genetically inadequate, so here's a quote from "The Convict"- "Many years would pass before I would learn that it is our collective helplessness, the frailty and imperfection of our vision that ennobles us and saves us from ourselves; but that night, when I awoke while my father was carrying me up to bed, I knew from the beat of his heart that he and I had taken pause in our contention with the world."
September 27, 2021
Having read and loved most of James Lee Burke's novel length fiction I was intrigued by the idea of a collection of his short stories. I was not disappointed. Admittedly, these stories are dark and often depressing, but they have the same richness of plot and fascinating characters as the longer works. You won't find Dave Robiechaux here (although Hackberry Holland is featured in one tale). You will find the same conflict between good and evil. Burke's descriptions of combat in different wars rival anything that Hemingway penned, great as he was. The book includes a reading group discussion guide with talking points on each story. Just the morality issues alone could take weeks to hash out.
Burke fans will like this collection. If you are new to Burke, you may want to try a few of his novels to get a "feel" for him before getting into this one. Either way, It's worth your time.
Burke fans will like this collection. If you are new to Burke, you may want to try a few of his novels to get a "feel" for him before getting into this one. Either way, It's worth your time.
August 22, 2021
These stories capture you the moment you start to read. These are complex, kind of warped and damaged people that you can immediately recognize as real.
I always was rooting for each character and yet knew that somehow they would fall in the most spectacular way. The little triumph's along the way were huge but almost always a shadow awaits them.
This is riveting writing and I certainly intend to read more by this prodigious author.
I always was rooting for each character and yet knew that somehow they would fall in the most spectacular way. The little triumph's along the way were huge but almost always a shadow awaits them.
This is riveting writing and I certainly intend to read more by this prodigious author.
November 16, 2025
3.5/5 stars : There’s some great stuff in this early collection from James Lee Burke and even the stories I didn’t like as much were well written and had something to say. “Losses” was my favorite of the bunch. I’m looking forward to reading some of his novels to watch him grow as a writer and expand on some of these themes.
January 18, 2019
The voices in the stories were vivid. However, it's hard to get past the lack of women in any of the stories as more than a prop--the few women present lacked depth. So while the stories were colorful, they came off as really flat.
April 26, 2015
30 years old volume of short stories . My 26th James Lee Burke book read !
December 4, 2019
Having listened to most of Burke’s mystery novel audiobooks, I didn’t know whether to expect short versions of his mysteries or something else. You get something else here, a collection of very readable short stories, many touching on the same themes Burke hits in his mysteries, especially his Dave Robicheaux stories set in New Iberia parish in Louisiana. I always said Burke knows how to write an atmospheric scene that drips humidity like bayou bald cypress trees in August, and he shows some of his writing expertise here. But there are also things missing in comparison to his novels. That’s not necessarily bad. Burke tends to write long, angsty, and over-literary inner monologues for his characters, and you don’t get as much of that in these short stories. I missed them. Burke also tends to repeat plot elements in his novels, but in these short stories he’s further afield than I am used to – there’s even a story about baseball here. (I’m currently reading Burke’s “The New Iberia Blues”, and it focuses around Hollywood filmmakers filming in rural Louisiana. I believe that means that more than 10% of his dozens of mystery novels revolve around this same theme – movie making in New Iberia. I suspect the Louisiana Film Board is way more successful in Burke’s novels than in real life! These stories must have preceded that plot theme.) Another interesting difference was the narrators of the audiobooks. Most of Burke’s unabridged audiobooks are narrated by Will Patton, and he has a way of amplifying Burke’s atmospheric descriptions. I would go out of my way to listen to Patton. Here, different narrators read each story. For this kind of collection, that worked fine. The variety helped separate the stories and keep my interest up. Overall, I liked these stories. They provided a taste of the writing of Burke without the deep investment required of his novels – kind of like a tourist version.
March 28, 2023
I’m a huge fan of JLB’s writing, I avidly gobble up anything he writes. Ok, there’s an an element of ‘one trick pony’ to his novels – these all tend to feature dark, violent characters who are out to do significant harm, and there’s a creeping grimness in each of these tales – but I don’t even mind that. What I love most, I think, is his ability to set a scene, to describe things so vividly and then to maintain a sense of impending doom until the inevitably explosive climax. But that’s his long fiction; these short stories are somewhat different – but not that different.
Like all short story collections, some of the stories here appealed to me more than others. There’s also the fact that, published in the 1980s, these are some of Burke’s earliest, and therefore perhaps rawest, works. My favourites include the title story, one featuring a school teacher who gets involved with a local baseball team and a couple featuring the Hackberry Hollands – i.e. both the elder HH and his grandson of the same name – who are to feature in later full length novels.
I’m not sure if this is a good introduction to this author as the shorter form of fiction handcuffs him somewhat – I think he’s at his strongest when he’s able to build a tale slowly and crank up the tension through a series of ever more bellicose encounters. For that reason this is only a three star read for me.
Like all short story collections, some of the stories here appealed to me more than others. There’s also the fact that, published in the 1980s, these are some of Burke’s earliest, and therefore perhaps rawest, works. My favourites include the title story, one featuring a school teacher who gets involved with a local baseball team and a couple featuring the Hackberry Hollands – i.e. both the elder HH and his grandson of the same name – who are to feature in later full length novels.
I’m not sure if this is a good introduction to this author as the shorter form of fiction handcuffs him somewhat – I think he’s at his strongest when he’s able to build a tale slowly and crank up the tension through a series of ever more bellicose encounters. For that reason this is only a three star read for me.
October 2, 2022
Well you learn something new every day - I had just assumed James Lee Burke had always been a crime writer, because that's what he's best known as. But as he explains in the introduction to this collection, he initially had sights on becoming a more literary-type writer and actually had reservations about his crime debut, The Neon Rain, because crime writing isn't thought to be literary by some. Luckily for the world of crime fiction, he overcame those reservations! But this collection of non-crime stories shows Burke is an adept writer even when he's not steering Dave Robicheaux. My personal favourite was When It's Decoration Day, a harrowing tale set in the final days of the Civil War; several tales give insights into the lives of those working in Louisiana's oil industry - a harsh way to make a living. One tale, The Pilot, disappointed me - it was going great until Burke spoiled the ending with a fairytale twist that defies credulity. It just wasn't that easy, even in pre-internet times, to impersonate someone and screw up their official records, in order to take revenge on them. The pilot's paranoia in the first part of the story was genuinely disturbing however. Overall a good collection.
April 23, 2019
A very early work of James Lee Burke: a collection of short stories that tap into common themes that Burke has explored over time--nine stories that transport the reader to Louisiana and Texas and the Gulf Coast, battlefields in America and the world, exploring themes of guilt, memory, war and race. I enjoyed "The Convict" the most of all of the stories. The father, Will, aids an escaped convict and then later turns him in to the authorities (continued corruption on the part of the convict.) Along with straining his marriage and going against the mores and ethics of his small parish in New Iberia one ponders how this singular man fought the resistance of his peers and seeing good and evil through the eyes of the narrator child. In one story, a character rhetorically asks, "How do you expect us to overcome a 350 year old belief system in five years?" Good question. You can't. You just have to chip away at it like a drop on the stone.
October 31, 2019
These stories by James Lee Burke predate his popular Robicheaux stories set in Louisiana and Montana, but include some of the Holland stories featuring characters appearing in his later novels. The Convict and Other Stories makes for a good read, particularly the story called "Hack," about old sheriff Hackberry Holland.
August 29, 2021
This is an older set of short stories by Burke. They range across different times and places, though mostly southern Louisiana which Burke knows so well. They are basically these character studies of how people deal with the challenges, often the evil of others, around them. There are three, rather brutal war tales, set in other places, that are a bit out of place here. But, as always, Burke writes such beautiful prose in his descriptions. Worth taking the time to read.
September 13, 2024
These stories are all unique and all have a central character who is struggling with something: loss, betrayal, violence....My favorite stories were Taking a Second Look (a professor who lost his son in the war befriends a baseball team), Hack (a 94-year-old Texas Ranger relives the good old days) and When It's Decoration Day (set during the Civil War). If you like Southern fiction, this is the author for you.
July 12, 2017
Small collection of short stories set mostly in southern Louisiana in the mid 20th century. There's a poetry in Burke's prose and a deep empathy for the tortured souls of his characters. These are not as deep, by nature of their brevity, as his novels, but they still have the wonderful sense presence - of being there, inside the story as it happens.
March 11, 2019
A Fine Collection
What a fine book of short stories from James Lee Burke! The 9 stories in this collection feature Burke’s master story telling seen in his Robichaeux and Holland Family novels. Had there been twice or three times the number stories in this book, it wouldn’t have been too much. This is a great read.
What a fine book of short stories from James Lee Burke! The 9 stories in this collection feature Burke’s master story telling seen in his Robichaeux and Holland Family novels. Had there been twice or three times the number stories in this book, it wouldn’t have been too much. This is a great read.
April 11, 2021
The last two stories were the two I enjoyed most . I haven’t read any of his writing before and he writes about landscapes without overwriting which I always appreciate. Although there are many characters across the pages , unfortunately it only seemed to be the white males who got multiple dimensions.
July 5, 2022
This is early Burke, and while the bones of the career to come are there, it’s definitely not his best work—a lot of stereotypes and simplistic situations. Still, there are decent stories here: The Convict, Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans, Lower me Down With a Golden Chain, and (my personal favorite) Taking a Second Look.
November 27, 2022
A collection of 12 short-stories. Written in typical style of James Lee Burke. Twelve tales of the Deep South and its people. One of my favorite novels by Burke and not nearly as rough and profane as his later series about the Cajun Detective David Robicheaux. I know I'll keep this book for a later reread.
July 9, 2025
Something A Bit Different From James Lee Burke...
This selection of short stories was a bit different than the other JLB stuff I've read which is not to say I was disappointed in the least. It just exposed me to a different level of his writing that I had yet to experience. Great selection and a quick read. If you enjoy James Lee Burke, don't miss this collection of short stories!
This selection of short stories was a bit different than the other JLB stuff I've read which is not to say I was disappointed in the least. It just exposed me to a different level of his writing that I had yet to experience. Great selection and a quick read. If you enjoy James Lee Burke, don't miss this collection of short stories!
March 24, 2020
None of these stories
are anything that will stay with me. Bought this a long time ago - may have read it previously. Somewhere along the line I tired of the preachiness of JLB. Some of his books still hold a place in my heart however.
are anything that will stay with me. Bought this a long time ago - may have read it previously. Somewhere along the line I tired of the preachiness of JLB. Some of his books still hold a place in my heart however.
April 2, 2020
I read this book years ago, and decided to re-visit it. Im so glad I did. All of the stories are good, no great, but my FAVORITE was " The Pilot"... Im a long time fan of this author! (as far back as the 80s.)
July 1, 2023
Collection of short stories. A variety of themes. Not Burke's best work.
The stories:
1. Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans
2. Losses
3. The Pilot
4. Taking a Second Look
5. Hack
6. We Build Churches, Inc.
7. When It's Decoration Day
8. Lower Me Down with a Golden Chain
9. The Convict
The stories:
1. Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans
2. Losses
3. The Pilot
4. Taking a Second Look
5. Hack
6. We Build Churches, Inc.
7. When It's Decoration Day
8. Lower Me Down with a Golden Chain
9. The Convict
August 29, 2024
A book of short stories written in a very descriptive way. The stories were about wars and killing and anger.
Some sexually content and lots of unnecessary language. Probably a male would enjoy these stories more than I did as a female.
Some sexually content and lots of unnecessary language. Probably a male would enjoy these stories more than I did as a female.
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