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Jesus Out To Sea [Kindle Edition]

James Lee Burke (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews) |
Print List Price: £7.99
Kindle Price: £4.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Product Description

Review

'crime buffs have been waiting for James Lee Burke, the prose-burnishing kingpin of the Southern Catholic Guilt School of crime fiction, to deliver his take on the disaster that wiped out the city which formed a nackdrop to many of his previous books.' (WORD )

'this collection is a triumph - moving, compassionate and tough' (Peter Guttridge OBSERVER )

'powerful short stories, quietly and passionately told' (Matthew Lewin THE GUARDIAN )

'visceral, tender depictions of individuals surviving against hard and pitiless odds, with their powerful mix of poetry and gum-chewing colloquialism.' (METRO )

Review

'crime buffs have been waiting for James Lee Burke, the prose-burnishing kingpin of the Southern Catholic Guilt School of crime fiction, to deliver his take on the disaster that wiped out the city which formed a nackdrop to many of his previous books.' WORD 'this collection is a triumph - moving, compassionate and tough' -- Peter Guttridge OBSERVER 'powerful short stories, quietly and passionately told' -- Matthew Lewin THE GUARDIAN 'visceral, tender depictions of individuals surviving against hard and pitiless odds, with their powerful mix of poetry and gum-chewing colloquialism.' METRO
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Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 368 KB
  • Print Length: 244 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0753824086
  • Publisher: Orion (18 Sep 2008)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B002UPVVVA
  • Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #92,665 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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James Lee Burke
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
James Lee Burke has a knack for evoking the Old Testament, especially the part about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Naturally, that approach can also lead to out-of-control escalations that have to be dealt with as well. These stories capture those themes especially well.

Most novelists don't like to write short stories. Why? It takes almost as much time and effort to work out the plot and character development as it does for an entire novel. They want to save up their ideas for places where there can be a larger payoff. Only the truly gifted writers can afford to share short stories.

This collection is totally of fiction that's already been published over the last 16 years, so Mr. Burke is frugally supplying us with what we would have a hard time finding on his own . . . without additional writing effort on his part. That's okay with me. I hadn't read any of these stories before and enjoyed them all.

Jesus Out to Sea is well chosen as the title story for the collection. The story reminds me of the best parts of his recent novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, where the candid scenes of submerged New Orleans after Katrina breached the levees will haunt anyone who reads them.

Strangely, Winter Light was chosen as the book's opening story despite it being the weakest story in the collection. The theme is about the moral and physical challenges of standing up to the mob. A Season of Regret explores a similar theme and is a much more rewarding story.

The next story, the Village, is by comparison a masterpiece . . . capturing the worst tendencies of the 20th century in a few brief, but powerful, words.

The Night Johnny Ace Died has so much plot and character development in it, you'll find yourself not believing that this is short story rather than a novella.

Water People is classic James Lee Burke in which characters are haunted by the past in ways that harmfully affect the present.

Texas City, 1947 shows the challenges that are thrown the way of youngsters when the adults make mistakes or have bad luck. It's the first in a series of wonderful stories with children as narrators including The Molester, The Burning of the Flag, and When Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine that explore the bully-bullied conflicts of youth.

Mist is a magnificent story that takes a woman's perspective and digs deep into the challenges of recovering from being targeted by those who want to misuse you.

Most of the stories are based in the rich Louisiana heritage of the Dave Robicheaux novels dating back to World War II. You'll feel even more of the atmosphere of those days when you read Robicheaux novels in the future after enjoying these delightful, spare stories.
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By J. Cameron-Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This book contains eleven short stories, spanning seven decades and set in two continents. The themes are dark, touching on much that is unpleasant but offering, too, the hope of redemption.

`I look at him and feel ashamed of both of us.'

What makes these stories work is the extraordinarily vivid characters that Mr Burke creates in each story. Some of the stories are linked through their characters; others share themes - of childhood, of the price of peace, of the cost of war, of the personal impact of disaster.

Three stories particularly remain in my mind: in `Texas City, 1947' the Sonnier children's father disappears. They are left with an abusive stepmother. They develop their own solution to this problem. In `Winter Light', set in Montana, an aging professor tries to deal with trespassing hunters. His actions have their own sense, but are not likely to prevail.

` "We're here", one of the hunters yelled at the others. "We're here".'

And, in `Jesus Out to Sea' set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we see failure. Not only has the government failed to react effectively to the disaster, the city itself had been moving from hope to despair. There is less hope evident in this story: it's hard to move past the imagery of Jesus on a cross, the remnant of a destroyed church, floating away in the floodwaters.
I also enjoyed the trio of stories featuring Charlie and his best friend Nick Hauser, growing up in 1940s Houston: `The Molester'; `The Burning of the Flag' and `Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine'.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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Format:Paperback
In this collection of eleven short stories, two of them excerpted from the Robicheaux series, the characters are mostly miserable, in particular those who - survivors of the terrifying hurricane Katrina - found refuge on a roof in the hope to be eventually rescued. However not by president Bush, who merely waved to some of them from his helicopter, and this not sooner than some days after the flood.
The title of the collection alludes to a big wood carving of Jesus on his cross, teared away from a stucco church, drifting on his back, his arms stretched out, within a few yards of the narrator squatting a tin roof.
A plain vanilla James Lee Burke.
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