The Lost Get Back Boogie

Rating:
Summary: should have won the Pulitzer it was nominated for
Review: Booze is the prime demon for Iry Paret, dark and heavy hero of the demon-ridden novel, The Lost Get-Back Boogie. When Iry is paroled and three miles away from Angola prison, the foam is boiling over the lip of his first icy Jax; from then on, empty cans and bottle rattle in the cyclonic contests with the lesser demons; the sheriff, environment-stinking pulp mills, Vietnam memories, nightmares of drunken rage and helplessness.

Buddy, Iry's friend from Angola, calls him Zeno. Zeno was the Greek founder of Stoicism, the school of impassivity, indifference to pleasure or pain. Buddy, the mean-drunk tilter at alcohol-induced windmills, enlists his friend the stoic in his battle against his own - and his family's - demons. Even the trucks and cars in their life are beset by the devils of redneck vengeance and drunken driving on mountain roads.

It is painful to accompany Iry and Buddy as they drink, and weather jail, brawls, vicious beatings, cruel attacks on Buddy's father's beloved horses and wild birds. Burke's descriptive powers evoke sympathetic response as our eyes blear and our limbs numb and our nostrils fill with the stink of pervasive whiskey and beer, and we wish to God no one ever hurt like this.

With the same power of words, Burke sets us first in Louisiana and then in Montana. We see the Mississippi River and prisoners clearing cane fields of tree roots; we feel the sun and smell the damp from the bayou. Montana is given to us gloriously; river, mountain, sky, clean crisp air, the dust of unpaved roads, taste of trout just taken from icy streams, snow crystals in a woman's hair. Burke is an extraordinary visual writer - what he shows you, you see. The juxtaposition of this enormous grandeur with the sad and violent men who are imprisoned in murky impulses and urges is somehow not jarring.

Iry's wanderings through various "dirty little corners of the universe" can barely be called a quest. He avoids reflection; else he may have to admit other's evaluation; that "I had a little screw in the back of my head turned a few degrees off center." Alcohol can do that to you, but Iry doesn't realize it. Burke's well-known character Dave Robicheaux is what Iry could become if he stumbled into sobriety. Robicheaux still has his lesser demons, but he's been given a daily reprieve from the clutches of the big one.

We like Iry and Buddy; even their enemies are not without our sympathy. The images Burke draw remain long after the book is closed and are a compelling reason to brave the discomfort of reading through to the end. Burke is in the forefront of the genre of recovering alcoholic detective. The Lost Get-Back Boogie, certainly outside the genre and not a mystery novel at all, will intrigue fans of Dave Robicheaux and perhaps adds depth to our understanding of him.

Rating:
Summary: Brave the discomfort and read for the imagery.
Review: Booze is the prime demon for Iry Paret, dark and heavy hero of the demon-ridden novel, The Lost Get-Back Boogie. When Iry is paroled and three miles away from Angola prison, the foam is boiling over the lip of his first icy Jax; from then on, empty cans and bottle rattle in the cyclonic contests with the lesser demons; the sheriff, environment-stinking pulp mills, Vietnam memories, nightmares of drunken rage and helplessness.

Buddy, Iry's friend from Angola, calls him Zeno. Zeno was the Greek founder of Stoicism, the school of impassivity, indifference to pleasure or pain. Buddy, the mean-drunk tilter at alcohol-induced windmills, enlists his friend the stoic in his battle against his own - and his family's - demons. Even the trucks and cars in their life are beset by the devils of redneck vengeance and drunken driving on mountain roads.

It is painful to accompany Iry and Buddy as they drink, and weather jail, brawls, vicious beatings, cruel attacks on Buddy's father's beloved horses and wild birds. Burke's descriptive powers evoke sympathetic response as our eyes blear and our limbs numb and our nostrils fill with the stink of pervasive whiskey and beer, and we wish to God no one ever hurt like this.

With the same power of words, Burke sets us first in Louisiana and then in Montana. We see the Mississippi River and prisoners clearing cane fields of tree roots; we feel the sun and smell the damp from the bayou. Montana is given to us gloriously; river, mountain, sky, clean crisp air, the dust of unpaved roads, taste of trout just taken from icy streams, snow crystals in a woman's hair. Burke is an extraordinary visual writer - what he shows you, you see. The juxtaposition of this enormous grandeur with the sad and violent men who are imprisoned in murky impulses and urges is somehow not jarring.

Iry's wanderings through various "dirty little corners of the universe" can barely be called a quest. He avoids reflection; else he may have to admit other's evaluation; that "I had a little screw in the back of my head turned a few degrees off center." Alcohol can do that to you, but Iry doesn't realize it. Burke's well-known character Dave Robicheaux is what Iry could become if he stumbled into sobriety. Robicheaux still has his lesser demons, but he's been given a daily reprieve from the clutches of the big one.

We like Iry and Buddy; even their enemies are not without our sympathy. The images Burke draw remain long after the book is closed and are a compelling reason to brave the discomfort of reading through to the end. Burke is in the forefront of the genre of recovering alcoholic detective. The Lost Get-Back Boogie, certainly outside the genre and not a mystery novel at all, will intrigue fans of Dave Robicheaux and perhaps adds depth to our understanding of him.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding early novel
Review: Having found The Lost Get-Back Boogie in paperback recently, I rushed home and settled down, expecting a good Dave Robicheaux read. Only then did I see that this novel was pre-Robicheaux. My disappointment, however, didn't last beyond the first sentence. That's how long it took Burke to assure me that already, in this early novel, he was master of the wonderful atmospheric style that I love, a style that is as close to poetry as prose can get. Can anyone else make poetry out of a description of a Louisiana chain gang? ("The captain was silhouetted on horseback like a piece of burt iron against the sun.") And, can anyone else draw his readers so instantly into empathy with his flawed hero -- whatever name he chooses for that particular hero?

In Iry Paret we have Burke's hallmark character: The strong, silent type, tough as nails and sharp as razor blades, who is yet a thinking, sensitive, deeply caring man; a young Louisiana blues singer, veteran of the Korean war, who wants nothing more than to be left in peace to play his guitar, sing his blues -- and finish the song he has been trying to write for years! Though he came home from the war unable to hunt and kill animals, he has done time in Angola for killing a man in a barroom brawl. It seemed to have been a case of self-defense but Iry, with the sense of guilt he wears like a mantle around his shoulders, is convinced he deserved the sentence.

As Beth Riordan, the woman he comes to love, says to him, "You are a strange mixture of men." Yes. But a totally believable mixture. And totally sympathetic. So when, before the first chapter ends, Iry with his new parole walks away from Angola, we find we are walking with him, in his shoes, inside his skin. By giving us a close-up look at the prison, showing us where Iry's coming from, Burke evokes in us a greater desire to see him stay out of trouble. As he walks up that dusty road, refusing a ride in the prison truck because he "has to air it out," we know tha! t just one misstep -- and Iry will make plenty of them -- could hurl him right back where he came from. And we are afraid from him.

Iry reaches his bayou home to find his father dying of cancer, both his brother and sister more foe than friend, and all his old friends dispersed and lost to him, no longer making music. When his father dies two weeks later, he gets his parole transferred to Montanna where he joins his one last friend Buddy Riordan, whom he befriended in prison.

Montanna looks like paradise to Iry, but there's trouble brewing. Rancher Frank Riordan, Buddy's father who sponsored Iry's parole transfer, is fighting the new factories that are polluting Montana. And the workers in those factories are fighting back. Though he tries to claim neutrality, Iry is pulled inexorably into that trouble until he is fighting not only for his freedom but for his very life.

This heart-wrenching, heart-warming novel is ultimately a love story. For in the end it is love that must overcome all, if all is to be overcome. Iry falls in love with Beth, Buddy's ex-wife, another guilt-evoking situation because Buddy is still trying to win her back. Can Iry have this love without betraying his friend? And will that love give him strength to transcend his own flawed nature? When everything shatters around him, will love enable him to withstand all the forces that are striving to bring him down? And finally to finish writing his song, "The Lost Get-Back Boogie"?

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding early novel
Review: Having found The Lost Get-Back Boogie in paperback recently, I rushed home and settled down, expecting a good Dave Robicheaux read. Only then did I see that this novel was pre-Robicheaux. My disappointment, however, didn't last beyond the first sentence. That's how long it took Burke to assure me that already, in this early novel, he was master of the wonderful atmospheric style that I love, a style that is as close to poetry as prose can get. Can anyone else make poetry out of a description of a Louisiana chain gang? ("The captain was silhouetted on horseback like a piece of burt iron against the sun.") And, can anyone else draw his readers so instantly into empathy with his flawed hero -- whatever name he chooses for that particular hero?

In Iry Paret we have Burke's hallmark character: The strong, silent type, tough as nails and sharp as razor blades, who is yet a thinking, sensitive, deeply caring man; a young Louisiana blues singer, veteran of the Korean war, who wants nothing more than to be left in peace to play his guitar, sing his blues -- and finish the song he has been trying to write for years! Though he came home from the war unable to hunt and kill animals, he has done time in Angola for killing a man in a barroom brawl. It seemed to have been a case of self-defense but Iry, with the sense of guilt he wears like a mantle around his shoulders, is convinced he deserved the sentence.

As Beth Riordan, the woman he comes to love, says to him, "You are a strange mixture of men." Yes. But a totally believable mixture. And totally sympathetic. So when, before the first chapter ends, Iry with his new parole walks away from Angola, we find we are walking with him, in his shoes, inside his skin. By giving us a close-up look at the prison, showing us where Iry's coming from, Burke evokes in us a greater desire to see him stay out of trouble. As he walks up that dusty road, refusing a ride in the prison truck because he "has to air it out," we know tha! t just one misstep -- and Iry will make plenty of them -- could hurl him right back where he came from. And we are afraid from him.

Iry reaches his bayou home to find his father dying of cancer, both his brother and sister more foe than friend, and all his old friends dispersed and lost to him, no longer making music. When his father dies two weeks later, he gets his parole transferred to Montanna where he joins his one last friend Buddy Riordan, whom he befriended in prison.

Montanna looks like paradise to Iry, but there's trouble brewing. Rancher Frank Riordan, Buddy's father who sponsored Iry's parole transfer, is fighting the new factories that are polluting Montana. And the workers in those factories are fighting back. Though he tries to claim neutrality, Iry is pulled inexorably into that trouble until he is fighting not only for his freedom but for his very life.

This heart-wrenching, heart-warming novel is ultimately a love story. For in the end it is love that must overcome all, if all is to be overcome. Iry falls in love with Beth, Buddy's ex-wife, another guilt-evoking situation because Buddy is still trying to win her back. Can Iry have this love without betraying his friend? And will that love give him strength to transcend his own flawed nature? When everything shatters around him, will love enable him to withstand all the forces that are striving to bring him down? And finally to finish writing his song, "The Lost Get-Back Boogie"?

Rating:
Summary: Not his best!
Review: I have read nearly every thing that James Lee Burke has written. I like and admire his use of descriptive words. This book, however, was not nearly as good as his Dave Robicheaux books. His discriptions were just as poetic, his intensity just as good, but I guess I just didn't like the story as much and couldn't relate to the characters as well as with his other books. But it was an interesting read and if you are a Burke fan, I would recommend this one.

Rating:
Summary: should have won the Pulitzer it was nominated for
Review: James Lee Burke's prose and narrative drives this tale of darkly depressing proportions along with steam train power. The characterisation exudes realism and recalls images of John Steinbeck. It's not Dave Robicheux but Lee Burke should be praised for bridging the gap between popular fiction and highest literature. Nominated for a Pulitzer, this book should definitely be read by any fan of Lee Burkes. It reassures that true excellence from an author can arise from the truest of tales.

Rating:
Summary: Burke's drama better than mystery, but plot still weak
Review: This book reminds us of what in music is called a "tone poem". The melodies and harmonies swirl in an entertaining, sometimes captivating, pattern; but when it's all over, it doesn't amount to much that's memorable. We wanted to read this novel to possibly cure ourselves of our disappointment with one of Burke's Dave Robicheaux mysteries. Our findings of that one ("Cadillac Jukebox") was that his imagery surely is vivid, but his skills in developing the plot and populating it with just the right number of support characters were lacking. That tends to kill a mystery, which after all must have a story with a somewhat logical structure.

In "Boogie", we do feel the drama category works better for Burke. The mind pictures he draws, especially of the Montana landscape where leading man Iry heads after getting a parole transfer out of his native Louisiana, continue to exhibit's Burke's mastery of descriptive prose. Alas, the plot is still not as strong as we might like, although the sheer drama of his story doesn't require the pace and form of a mystery. We found it difficult to empathize with the beer-swilling, guilt-laden brawlers generally depicted herein. But get by the alcohol content, and there is on display a fair degree of understanding the human condition. Interesting that this book was both nominated for a Pulitzer after publication, but (according to Burke's own web site) was rejected first by over 100 publishers!

After we read the Robicheaux book, we opined: Burke is probably better at drama, and he is. We think he might excel at poetry -- wonder if he's ever tried his hand at that? As with the musical counterpart, we probably wouldn't remember his "melody and harmony" per se, but would settle for the slide show he can create with words to go with our coffee and red wine.

Rating:
Summary: Burke's drama better than mystery, but plot still weak
Review: This book reminds us of what in music is called a "tone poem". The melodies and harmonies swirl in an entertaining, sometimes captivating, pattern; but when it's all over, it doesn't amount to much that's memorable. We wanted to read this novel to possibly cure ourselves of our disappointment with one of Burke's Dave Robicheaux mysteries. Our findings of that one ("Cadillac Jukebox") was that his imagery surely is vivid, but his skills in developing the plot and populating it with just the right number of support characters were lacking. That tends to kill a mystery, which after all must have a story with a somewhat logical structure.

In "Boogie", we do feel the drama category works better for Burke. The mind pictures he draws, especially of the Montana landscape where leading man Iry heads after getting a parole transfer out of his native Louisiana, continue to exhibit's Burke's mastery of descriptive prose. Alas, the plot is still not as strong as we might like, although the sheer drama of his story doesn't require the pace and form of a mystery. We found it difficult to empathize with the beer-swilling, guilt-laden brawlers generally depicted herein. But get by the alcohol content, and there is on display a fair degree of understanding the human condition. Interesting that this book was both nominated for a Pulitzer after publication, but (according to Burke's own web site) was rejected first by over 100 publishers!

After we read the Robicheaux book, we opined: Burke is probably better at drama, and he is. We think he might excel at poetry -- wonder if he's ever tried his hand at that? As with the musical counterpart, we probably wouldn't remember his "melody and harmony" per se, but would settle for the slide show he can create with words to go with our coffee and red wine.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book
Review: This is a wonderful book-perhaps the best I've read in a number of years. It is powerful and tragic, yet humorous at times. Iry is likeable, in spite of his history and the fact that he has made a cuckold out of Buddy. Buddy is bent on self-destruction, and Iry is concerned with self-preservation. The conflict between Beth and Mr. Riordan is never clear to me, but that is the only weakness I found in the book. This book is haunting and exhausting. The ending is somwhat hopeful, in spite of past tragedies. I strongly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book
Review: This is my favourite Burke of all. As per usual he creates multi dimensional characters set within a richly drawn landscape. He deals with the tenuous nature of human relationships, cultural environments, political edifices and the way each of these intersects with the experience of living in Southern USA. He offers comment on rascism, income disparity and the benevolence and malefascence we are all capable of and does so in a style that facile and yet never over simplified. All these strands are woven within a thrilling plot structure. Awesome