The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke

Anyone who knows me, especially readers and even more so writers, is probably sick of hearing me talk about James Lee Burke. I admittedly have a man-crush on him. He is my favorite contemporary author. He, for the most part, writes crime fiction, and his themes are consistent. They are the corruptible qualities of wealth and political power. The flip-side of that theme is the helplessness of "the other America"
.

The Glass Rainbow is Burke's latest effort in the long running Dave Robicheaux series of novels. Robicheaux is a Cajun cop in New Iberia, Louisiana. The Glass Rainbow contains all the colorful characters, lush prose, and disturbing violence readers have come to expect of a Robicheaux novel. It centers on the murders of two young girls in Jefferson Davis Parish - one a poverty-stricken local honor student about to begin studies at LSU, the other a girl who had gone missing from Canada. Burke has mentioned in interviews that the book was his attempt to give a voice to a real problem in Jeff Davis Parish of eight unsolved homicides of young, poor women. Their cases have evidently gotten very little attention by neither the authorities nor the press. In the novel, Dave and his trouble-making, buddy Clete Purcel seem the only ones interested in the crimes...which happen outside Dave's jurisdiction.

The Glass Rainbow, for the most part, is a pretty middling entry in the series. I've seen so much of this before that I almost know what is going to happen before Mr. Burke fills us in. Reading the series has become kind of like eating comfort food. I reach for a Robicheaux because I know it's not going to let me down...it will be a good read and there are repeating characters that I love spending time with. The Glass Rainbow does those things...most of my reading was on autopilot. But there is this little piece of magic

----Major Spoiler Alert----

-----Seriously I Mean it---------



at the end. About ten pages from the end of the novel, Robicheaux starts narrating in a way that makes it clear that this is the end of the series. These last few pages are remarkable in that they read as a denouement despite the fact that all hell is breaking loose in a VERY violent scene. It's hard to explain what Burke pulled off here, but it was masterful...

Then, the closing passage had a touching, beautiful even, scene with Dave and Clete...almost perfect except for one thing. Mr. Burke used ambiguity to give himself an out.

I love the Robicheaux series, but I've come to enjoy the occasional standalone or when Burke strays from the expected in the series. I loved his depiction of the struggle of Louisianans during Katrina in The Tin Roof Blowdown, and felt letdown when he returned that story to more of the typical in the second half. I think that is what I found disappointing...the ending was so refreshing. Like I said, it's hard to explain it without quoting it verbatim, but it could have been (and I suppose still could be) such a poignant ending to the series, that I wish he wouldn't have given himself the opportunity to return to these characters. If it is indeed the end for Dave and Clete, it would free Burke to explore other stories. Something he has always excelled at, but with Dave's series his big seller, he has always returned to it. Whatever he decides, I'll be along for the ride...Burke is the only author I buy in Hardcover.

What I'm Reading...Roger Angell

I have once again learned my lesson about giving myself assignments...sigh. Black History month has to be deemed a reading failure for me. I'm about 2/3 of the way thru Uncle Tom's Cabin, but it has been that way for awhile. The thing is, it isn't a complex read. Beloved was infinitely more complex. Stowe's style, most early American lit. style it would seem, is just a little difficult to take. When I reviewed Dreiser last year, I mentioned how he tended to show up at the beginning of chapters to sort of give the reader a topic sentence for the chapter he/she was about to read. Even with Sister Carrie, I found this off putting, and I loved Sister Carrie. (In fairness, I believe Hugo did this some in Les Miserables, as well. So perhaps it isn't just Early American lit.) With Dreiser, though, he got his topic sentence out of the way, and then let the story prove his point. Not so with Stowe...she is constantly popping up to spoon feed the reader. It is irritating...especially when it's painfully obvious the point she is trying to make with her story. I am going to finish Uncle Tom's Cabin, because despite Stowe's exposition, I still find the story interest AND because I am of the mind that one of the best ways to understand a period of history is to read the fiction of its time.

Black history month wasn't a total failure for me though...as all the dear readers know, I did read Beloved, which was another great Toni Morrison book. And I also purchased a copy of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for my Nook. I didn't get to reading it, but it is waiting for me on Mt. TBR.

Right now...Spring Training games have started and that means it is time to dust off copies of my Roger Angell books. For the uninitiated, Angell is/was(?) a writer and editor for The New Yorker magazine. He is well known for his pieces of baseball, and rightfully so. Every half decade or so, a collection of these pieces are published in book form. He is my favorite writer of my passion - baseball.

I read a fair amount about baseball, and I once played the game (college and pro). So, I'm pretty well informed on the game. Most writers of the pastime attempt to uncover new ideas/statistical analysis/scandals etc. Angell does none of that. He writes as a fan. Reading Angell is about as close as you can get to sitting in the stands without actually doing so...moreso than even watching a game on TV IMO. His prose is beautiful and poetic. He writes romantically about a game that everyone else wants boil down to a few rows and columns on page 2 of your Sports section.

So, yep, every spring...Roger Angell. I'm ready for a beer and a dog.

(Oh and I've also started The Master by Colm Toibin.)

Top Ten Tuesday - Literary Baby Names

The Broke and the Bookish this week asks us to list our Top Ten Literary figure/character names we'd give our children.

1. Dylan. As in Bob Dylan. I DID name my son this. I DID name him after Bob. The title of my blog comes courtesy of Mr. Dylan, too.

2. Samwise (Gamgee) from Lord of the Rings. Not Sam. Samwise.

3. Spenser like the poet with an 's'. From Spenser the poet with an 'S' or more truthfully the Robert B. Parker detective.

4. Mucho (first) Maas (middle) from The Crying of Lot 49. Ok, Mucho Maas isn't much of a character, but his name cracks me up. The fact that I have a Latino surname just makes this too good to pass up. The poor kid.

5. Toni, as in Toni Morrison. Ok, I'm struggling with girl names. I like Morrison, and I have thought about naming a daughter Toni - Antonia (Willa Cather, anyone) actually but Toni for short.

6. Ok...I'm stopping here. And leaving it on this note. I always wish I had named my dog Strider (Strider/Aragorn from Lord of the Rings)

Hop

It's been forever since I particpated in the Hop over at Crazy for Books. And I'm bored right now, so I figured I'd answer the question and visit some blogs. This week's question is:

What are you reading and why?

I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I'm reading as part of my Black History Month commitment. And because I've never read it. And because I had a copy of it on my Nook, that I downloaded free last summer. And because it seems like a book that I should have read by now.

I'm close to 100 pages into it, and I can't imagine what reading book must have been like in the mid-1800's, especially in the South. I'm not sure I like it, yet. The style is very dated...Stowe has an annoying habit of showing up and explaining things to me, rather than letting her story do it. Nonetheless, it's obvious this is a revolutionary novel, and took Stowe incredible courage to write.

So...that's what I'm reading... I'll hop around and see what everyone else is reading.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (+)

I am male. I am white. I like simple stories. I like simple, tight-to-the-bone, Heminwayesque prose.

Yet.
I adore Toni Morrison.

Beloved is perhaps Ms. Morrison's most praised novel. It won her the Pulitzer Prize and was certainly instrumental in her becoming a Nobel Prize laureate, something no American author has managed since. On a more Pop level, it was the first Book of the Month Club selection written by an African-American author since Richard Wright's Native Son 40+ years prior. In addition, Ms. Morrison is to the Oprah Book Club, what the New York Yankees are to the World Series. On a personal level, it is the second Morrison book I've read (The Bluest Eye being the other), and the first book in my Black History Month reading exercise.

Beloved is the story of Sethe, a runaway slave, and her daughter Denver and their trials dealing with the spirit of Sethe's deceased daughter, who comes to be known as Beloved, because this is all Sethe could afford to inscribe on her gravestone. I pretty much knew this going in, but I wasn't prepared for there to be some "spookiness" involved. Yeah, I know what do you expect from a ghost story, right? Still, I guess I wasn't expecting it from this ghost story.

I also knew that there would be a fair amount of description of the conditions of slavery. It was, of course, unpleasant. I actually do tend to feel some guilt for the actions of my ancestors, so this stuff is never easy going. Possibly the most eye opening aspect to me was how Morrisons described the slaves' need to not "love too much"...not a mother, not a father, not a mate, and most certainly not one's children. How depressing.

Beloved is a difficult read. Some passages I had to re-read two or three times to understand. Some passages I have yet to completely understand. The structure is a bit of a mess. Morrison relies heavily on literary devices such as flashbacks (the novel is alternately set during the Civil War on a farm in Kentucky called Sweet Home, and years later after the way in Sethe's home in Cincinnati), and changing the point of view, and the TENSE. The point of view changes often happen mid-passage without a break, and often do not only involve changing from one character to another, but also changing from third to first person. Same thing with the flashbacks. It makes all of it a bit of a struggle to follow. However, the flipside is that when all of the pieces the reader is juggling start to slide into place the result is a more powerful experience. Not to mention, Morrison's prose is unarguably beautiful.

My favorite character in the book was Stamp Paid. A male character, who helped Sethe and several other slaves, runaway to safety in Ohio. He is a guy, who always tries to do the right thing...pay it forward, and prides himself on the fact that every 'colored' door in town is open to him. He does find Sethe's door closed to him at one point...however, even when he wrongs someone, it is done with the right intentions. As someone who has experienced this type of man for untold years, I can attest to Ms. Morrison's ability to write believable, compelling male characters. She is understandably more known for her feminine characters (they are done well, too), but she writes men well too.

For me, Beloved was a slow, difficult read. And for this reason I understand when I hear/see other readers complain about it. It isn't easy. But, as mentioned above when everything is illuminated (apologies to Mr. Foer), the message is that much more powerful. It is worth the effort.

Black History Month

It's just a coincidence that I am reading Beloved by Toni Morrison now. I just saw that it is Black History Month. One of the things I've learned in my little read more widely exercise is that I like African-American literature. This really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as in my genre of choice (crime) Chester Himes and Walter Mosley are two of my favorite authors. At any rate, since I'm already reading the Morrison AND it's February, I think I'm going to make this a month where I focus on books either written by African-Americans or written about the African-American experience. So, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I'm considering reading, while not written by an African-American, would still work.

Anyone else interested in joining me? If not reading all African-American centric books, possibly at least one?

Top Ten Tuesday - Debut Novels

A good topic this week brought to us by the Broke and the Bookish...though a tough one, as I don't really pay much attention of whether a book is a debut or not. No particular order here.

1. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I haven't read about Bilbo's adventure since high school, which makes me sad.

2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I adore Ms. Morrison's prose.

3. The Brass Cupcake by John D. MacDonald. I'm mostly a fan of his Travis McGee novels, and have had a hard time connecting with many of the standalones I've read...but this one certainly is an exception.

4. American Rust by Philipp Meyer. Yep, I still love this book...scroll down and you can read my review of it.

5. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. I have seen this panned quite a bit in the blogosphere. It has been forever since I've read it, but it turned me into a Hemingway fan.

6. Neuromancer by William Gibson. It reads like a futuristic-ultra punk Chandler novel.

7. Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. Easy Rawlins' desperation in holding on to that which is he is most proud - home ownership, makes him one of crime fiction's most empathetic characters.

8. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. The first book reviewed on this blog.

9. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safron Foer. I didn't love this book, but I saw so much promise in Foer that I do think it is a strong debut. The way Foer is able to weave humor into such dark subject matter without you wanting to punch him in the face is astounding. At some point I will work Foer's second book into my reading plans.

10. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I jest.