REVIEWS FOR JESUS OUT TO SEA

[jamesleeburke]

Thanks, Muggle and Panjandrum for the kind words. "Johnny Ace" is one of my favorite stories in the collection as well. I hope one day to see it adapted for the screen.

Best,

Jim

[ollie]

Jim, I just finished reading Jesus out to Sea and boy was I upset . The stories were so good that they ended way too soon. I think you should stretch a couple of them into novellas. Personally I liked Texas City, 1947 the best. But, Johnny Ace came in a close second. Good work!!!

ollie

[jamesleeburke]

Thanks, Ollie. I hope to write a few more about the same people and their era a little later.

Best,

Jim

[TexasTele]

I have been a fan of James Lee Burke's books for quite some time now, and have read and enjoyed almost all of them. However, I think that I have finally found a JLB that I didn't like. The stories were as well written as always, and I really liked the Johnny Ace and the first story, but this book was too depressing. There are always 'low' points in JLB books, but I felt like I was stuck in a caliche road when I was reading this one. Anyhow, I look forward to the new Dave Robicheaux.

[tiggywiggy]

hi all, this is my first post

I picked up Cadillac Jukebox a couple years ago and read it in one sitting. I'm a student of writing and language and was awed by both in that book.

I'm reading Jesus Out to Sea and am again awed. I would like to use some of these stories in my classes as examples of what to do as a writer. I say that not only as a fan but as a student of the craft.

As a fan, I read and love the Billy Bob Holland and Dave Robicheaux books. I have to say, though, the writing is even better in Jesus Out to Sea. Perhaps the biggest difference between the books and the stories here is that in the books the good guys take their licks but survive it and sometimes even manage to come out better than they were. Not so the characters in some of these stories.

Creating characters you sympathize with and then doing horrible things to them is tough. JLB's ability to do that in the short stories is why I think I like them even more than I like the books.

[jamesleeburke]

Thanks, Tiggy. I believe the stories in "Jesus Out to Sea" contain some glimpses into an earlier era that has, for good or bad, pretty much passed away. I think we're well rid of a lot of it, but we lost something along the way at the same time, much of which has been our common civility toward one another.

Anyway, keep the faith and stay in touch.

Best,


Jim

[poo-yie]

I'm looking forward to your debrief, whitey.

Hey! Gail and Whitey! Are y'all getting risque or something?

[donkoenig]

Funny, "deck" didn't slow me down a bit.
Don

[mlerc]

Funny, "deck" didn't slow me down a bit.
Don

Well, Don, I owe you. Could not understand your post, so.....I have just spent a wonderful time (I am a slow reader) going over all the posts under this thread. I thought I had missed a story in JESUS OUT TO SEA in the reference to 'deck.' Started smoking in the 50's; quit in the 70's, but never heard a pack referred to as a deck. Maybe it is because I am a Yankee?

Be that as it may, I have just read some wonderfully informative posts by members I have not read before, and those I still miss, like Poo-Yie. Pamala, you have to lure him back; his absence is interfering with my education--and probably that of others. Pax vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo. I was never told that as a girl I was dirty, just that the bible (read Church) did not wish girls to be on the altar, so the nuns had me help them train the altar boys. Kept my Latin in the forefront, clearly nothing else.

If the story of Katrina is possible to be any sadder, I have a friend with a PhD in education who had two heart attacks, whose dog died of cancer from living in a Fema trailer, and who knows that money from the ROAD HOME program never got disbursed correctly, who knows that some major traffic lights are STILL not fixed four years' later, and who could not move back into her 19th century shotgun home in the 9th ward until 2008, so I can attest through her evidence that the results are not ended. Keep writing, JLB.

Ro No Marilyn

[donkoenig]

Marilyn,
Sorry, in my technological ignorance I may have responded to the wrong post. Obviously did. Someone had written a long post about a reference in Rain Gods to a deck of cigarettes, saying it must have been a typo--should have been pack-- and gently berating JLB's editorial staff for not catching it. "Not slowing me down" was a reference to the use of the word not detracting from the quality of writing in my view. A deck of cards is about the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes. Later I went to the urban dictionary and sure enough deck of cigarettes or deck of smokes is slang for pack of cigarettes. JLB's books are the most consistently error free I have ever read, and I'm a proofreader. Sorry for the confusion.
Don