James Lee Burke

BIO

James Lee Burke, a rare winner of two Edgar Awards, is the author of twenty-three previous novels, including such New York Times bestsellers as BITTERROOT, PURPLE CANE ROAD, CIMARRON ROSE, JOLIE BLON'S BOUNCE, and DIXIE CITY JAM. He lives in Missoula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana.

PAST INTERVIEW

July 23, 1997

On July 23, The Book Report welcomed James Lee Burke, Pulitzer-prize-nominated writer and author of CIMARRON ROSE.

BRC: Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

JLB: Great to be here. Thank you.

BRC: What inspired you to write CIMARRON ROSE?
JLB: It's a continuation of a story that I've written about in two other novels and several short stories. It's also the most biographical book I've written --- one that I waited 40 years to write. I thought I should not wait 40 more. I just thought I'd try something a bit different for a while.

BRC: Where did the title come from?

JLB: Cimarron Rose is the name of the outlaw woman who has a love affair with the trail drover. The trail drover character is based on my great-grandfather, Sam Morgan Holland. The story is both contemporary and historical.

BRC: Where do you get the inspiration for your characters?

JLB: They live in the unconscious. Michelangelo once said he did not create his sculpture... he freed it from the marble. I cannot upstage Michelangelo. I'm great at quoting smart men.

BRC: Billy Bob and Dave Robicheaux are very special kinds of heroes. What draws you to them?

JLB: They represent what's best in us. They have tragic proportions. Their denouement is brought about by their own commitment.

BRC: Commitment --- what about your commitment to writing after many, many rejections?

JLB: I never wanted to do anything else as a career. I wanted to be a writer, so it's like being on board an airplane and realizing you're the only pilot, so you better learn to fly. Art is cheaper than psychoanalysis. Seriously, no... You have to have your head on straight to create art.

BRC: You have had a lot of different jobs, from oil field worker to land surveyor. What did those teach you?

JLB: I was around people who had experienced great deprivation in their lives. It's a humbling experience to work alongside people for whom every day is a struggle.

BRC: How old were you when you started writing?

JLB: I published my first story when I was 19. I'm still the same writer I was at 19. An artist has a vision that is given to him by someone else, something outside himself. And that vision never changes.

BRC: This is a risk, isn't it, departing from Louisiana and those characters? Hillerman and Parker have fared poorly leaving their bread-and-butter characters. Why take the risk?

JLB: Everything is a risk. If you don't take risks in art, you're not any good. Safe and predictable isn't art. Art is outrage. Art never seeks convenience. Dave didn't go away. Another Dave Robicheaux novel is due out next summer. I write different things all the time. I've published 16 books. Been doing it since Guttenberg published the first Bible.

BRC: Will we be seeing more of Billy Bob and Pete?

JLB: Yes. I'm working on the sequel right now.

BRC: Billy Bob reacts so strongly to the man who hits Pete (a child). How do you feel about Megan's Law?

JLB: I think they're good laws. Laws that are long overdue.

BRC: What do you think about the serial killer on the loose?

JLB: I think this particular tragic event is being covered in a way that is unseemly. There's a strong element of voyeurism and sensationalism in the coverage. It's tragedy as entertainment.

BRC: You have a background in journalism. Do you think that ethics are a thing of the past?

JLB: No, but I believe the media in the last 20 years has devoted itself to a form of journalism to entertain --- in a way that has nothing to do with news reporting. It's adversarial journalism. It's not good. The story is created by the journalists.

BRC: Have you ever worked in any of the law enforcement areas you write about so well?

JLB: Thank you for the compliment. But, no, not directly. I taught nine years in a college that worked with the Miami Police Academy, so I knew people who worked in law enforcement. But if you know the character, Hemingway said, you can place him any situation. It's the human story that I care about.

BRC: Who was/is your inspiration?

JLB: William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Hemingway, James T. Farrell, Tennessee Williams, and the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

BRC: You've begun to write about evil teens. Do you know any like Darl?

JLB: The characters in CIMARRON ROSE are biographical in many ways.

BRC: Violence is a common theme in your books. Why?

JLB: We live in the most violent society on Earth. A person would have to go to Bosnia to find the equivalent of South L. A.

BRC: What have you been reading lately?

JLB: JOHN CHEEVER'S COLLECTED SHORT STORIES. I love it. He's a great writer.

BRC: What precipitated your switch to crime fiction?

JLB: I couldn't get published at gunpoint. I couldn't sell ice water in Hell... I couldn't give away blankets to Eskimos. I simply used police officers as the narrator. The change was cosmetic, but the stories didn't change.

BRC: What was your biggest inspiration to get you started in writing?

JLB: Andre Dubus is my first cousin. We were great competitors. We're four months apart. When we were in college, Andre won first prize in a writing competition. I won honorable mention. We've been each other's pacing horse ever since then -- for 41 years! He's a great writer. His son is a novelist, too -- Andre Dubus, Jr.

BRC: I adore the Dave Robicheaux books, and the Bootie character. I also was pretty pleased with the HEAVEN'S PRISONER movie. What are the chances that NEON RAIN will be done as a movie, or maybe another book?

JLB: The sequel to HEAVEN'S PRISONER is DIXIE CITY JAM. Tommy Lee Jones is supposed to direct and play the lead.

BRC: Has sobriety improved your ability to write? You do a good thing by mentioning AA meetings in your books. They have helped so many people and a lot of people still do not know about them or understand that miracles happen there. Do you attend meetings?

JLB: I belong to a 12-step fellowship that asks its members not to identify the name of it. Through the program, I have 20 years sobriety now. Sobriety gave me a whole new vision of my art and a new way of life, a new way of writing.

BRC: Do you believe that the change in the print media is because people become too impatient with leisurely stories, in part because they are used to the hectic pace of television?

JLB: It's because it's easy. It's easy to deal in sensationalism and deal simplistically with complex problems. There's a certain element of escapism to this stuff.

BRC: You introduce a supernatural element with the character LQ. What made you decide to use a ghost?

JLB: There are spirits in all my stories. I believe there are spirits in real life. I believe the visible world is simply an extension of the unseen one. They're one entity. I believe in a higher power.

BRC: What do you think about Elvis? Is he alive?

JLB: He was a great musician. One of the great talents of our time. He was the first mainstream white musician to take black R&B to white audiences. That's all I have to say.

BRC: What did you think of the movie of HEAVEN'S PRISONER? How involved were you in the production of it?

JLB: I wrote an earlier adaptation of another book... you'll notice it is not available in your video stores. For HEAVEN'S PRISONER, the studio decided to hire someone who knew what he was doing. It was like the sinking of the Titanic.

BRC: What do you do when you aren't writing?

JLB: I clank iron in the afternoon to give the other guys a few laughs. That's about it. Stay on the planet. I wear a hat. I'm good at wearing hats.

BRC: What do you and your wife, Pearl, do for fun in Missoula, Montana?

JLB: It's a wonderful place to live. We hike in the mountains a lot. We live. We fish. We live in a beautiful spot and we have a real good life there. We're building another home in Louisiana right on the bayou now.

BRC: If you had a choice, what time period would you like to live in?

JLB: The American Revolution. It was a very exciting time. I'm interested in history a great deal.

BRC: About not being able to get published at gunpoint... is the publishing business as daunting as it seems to new writers and do you think the industry will continue to head in a direction that is almost impossible for a young writer to crack?

JLB: I think it's always been tough. I think it's easier today than it was years ago. Faulkner never sold more than 5,000 copies of a book until his death. Five thousand is nothing today. Hemingway, until THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, barely got by. Poe died penniless and drunk. Hawthorne, Melville, they had a terrible time. It takes a great deal of commitment and resilience for anyone to stay with it. It can be very discouraging. The truth is that if a person is an artist, he never doubts his talent. He never needs to ask.

BRC: Of the current crop of actors, who comes closest to capturing the image of Dave Robicheaux that you have in mind while writing your stories?

JLB: I never thought about it. I never had an image of an actor in mind while writing. Dave was played by Alec Baldwin and I think he did a very good job. Tommy Lee Jones is an excellent fellow to play Dave. They're both very talented.

BRC: Have you seen much change in the way of life in the Atchafalaya Basin? How much is the basin your creation as distinct from reality?

JLB: It's real. I just describe it. It's one of the biggest swamp areas in the U.S. It's just like I describe it.

BRC: Next week you'll be at BBQ in Texas. Any chance you'll be coming to New England for a clambake?

JLB: I'd love to, but we don't go there this year on the tour. Not this year.

BRC: You drive around in a Winnebago. Any features you have added to make long trips more comfortable?

JLB: I fly with the angels. I drive very fast... I drive very safely and legally, I promise. The angels guide us throughout the country. My father used to say "St. Christopher jumps out over 55 mph."

BRC: Fatherhood is a strong theme in CIMARRON ROSE. Were you close to your dad?

JLB: Yes. My wife and I have four children of our own. Jim, Jr. is a prosecutor with the Justice Department. One daughter is a TV ad producer. One works in education. The youngest daughter is also a prosecutor.

BRC: Do they help with plot points?

JLB: They help me a great deal with legal information. Also, there are quite a few attorneys in my family who help me a lot.

BRC: Whom would you like to meet most? In this day and age or other time periods.

JLB: When I get to Heaven, I'm going to ask to meet Robert E. Lee. He is emblematic of all that's fine and gentle and brave in human beings. Men and women, those are the qualities that redeem us: Kindness, humility and courage.

BRC: Thank you so much for joining us.

JLB: Thank you very much for having me here.