House of the Rising Sun: A Novel

The Holland family saga finds the 3rd generation partnering with a WW2 buddy with an adapted German method of welding pipeline, and make a good business of it in the booming postwar oil patch. But the folks already there are out to get them, in particular one family.

Having read nearly every book written by James Lee Burke, I have been slightly concerned at the repetition of some of the story lines as well as the stylized writing. While this is not unexpected due to a lifetime of creative and exceptional writing, it can be a little redundant for readers over time. A great composer who repeats his/her own compositional style does not risk tedium but does define the way his music will sound in spite of the differences in compositions. A Mahler symphony is recognizable due to the sophisticated blending of folk song and complex orchestration. A James Lee Burke novel is recognizable by the rich, philosophical descriptions of the surrounding world blended with violence and pain. That said, House of the Rising Sun is a stunning example of mature glorious writing, depth of human complexity, and rich plot profundity.The self-effacing and tortured protagonist Hackberry Holland is wracked with guilt over his perceptions of himself and his actions. Yet he is driven to correct his own mistakes while rectifying the evil that he encounters. Early in the story, Hackberry, using both ingenuity and violence, takes an object that was originally stolen by someone else. The object in question is a religious artifact that belongs in a church. The symbolism of the object, its past and its purpose, pervades the book at all levels as Hackberry seeks to find his own place in the world by correcting his earlier mistakes. The object comes to represent love, forgiveness, goals, and family while also inadvertently causing great harm and violence due to perceived ownership. In the end, the story is not about the object but rather about stopping evil and reuniting family love. Yes, there are strong religious overtones and abstract spiritual leanings.Along the way, we feel what the people feel and we experience the events through precise and at times beautiful descriptions. We share in the anguishes and violence of war, we hate the enemies, we rejoice in the redemption, and we revel in the physical and emotional environment. As the present circumstances are presented, we learn how events from the past shape the current situations and we come to understand the reactions of the characters. We recognize the failings of Hackberry but we cheer for him anyway and desire him to right the wrongs. While we are never entirely sure what will happen next, the gripping story carries us along to a heady and rocky ending.In the midst of the complex plot, Burke weaves philosophy through the sentences are meaningful, profound, and full of wisdom. The love of his son and the sacrifices Hackberry makes reminds us of Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables as he dedicates himself to reunite his family. Each event connects to the next in a page-turning style that moves readers to a satisfying conclusion. Yet the spirited story is so wonderfully written, that I did not want the book to end. Rather than reading at a breakneck speed, I chose to stop and reflect on the sentences and the wisdom imparted. This marvelous achievement comes close to being a modern classic that is not easily defined. Thrilller? Maybe. Western? Yes. Historical novel? Almost. Meaningful? Absolutely. Highly recommended.

This is my first foray into the literary canon of Mr. Burke, and while I must admit that it is amusing, it is too far-fetched and in the end not terribly significant.I guess I’ve read a few novels that take place on the Texas-Mexican border. There is the one good book by McMurtry, Lonesome Dove; there is the excellent border trilogy by Cormac McCarthy, not to mention his Blood Meridian; there are the Louis L’Amour novels; there is Alan LeMay; and finally there is a little-known novel called the Gringo Kid, and I am here to tell you, the Gringo Kid is as good as any of them. I’m sure there are a lot more I don’t know about. The big difference between House of the Rising Sun and the rest of these is that none of the rest of them feature the Holy Grail as a plot device. Yes, the Holy Grail.You see, the protagonist finds it in a wagon-load of weapons and other paraphernalia in the yard, so to speak, of a Mexican brothel in 1916. This is after he is captured and tortured by some Mexican soldiers, and after which he then brutally kills them all. Somewhere in the novel there is an explanation as to how the Holy Grail ended up being in a Mexican brothel in 1916, but no matter how plausible this explanation is . . . well, no. No, no, no.There are good guys and bad guys and our hero is of course a good guy and he is dangerous and he agonizes over the moral implications every time he beats the heck out of or kills bad guys. Any time someone does something bad to someone he knows, or even just does something bad, you can be sure our hero is going to get his revenge. He does a lot of agonizing. Sure, it’s gratifying to see the hero get his revenge, but this has been a staple of fiction since about David and Goliath. Spiderman is gratifying too.All of the women are prostitutes—except for one—and all the men are cruel and brutal. Every character in the novel gets brutally tortured at one point or the other, including at least three occasions when the torture consists of water-boarding. I’m going to take a wild guess and suggest that Mr. Burke is not a fan of water-boarding.In any event, our hero obtains the Holy Grail and spends the rest of the novel resisting the dark, dangerous, evil forces that try to retrieve it from him. This works pretty well until we get to meet the dark, dangerous force, when we realize that the dark, dangerous force turns out to be kind of a pathetic worm. Some girl walks into his hotel and beats the heck out of him with a frying pan. Since he seems to have about twenty horrible killers working for him at any given time, wouldn’t you think he’d have a body guard hanging around somewhere?The one saving grace here is the dialogue, which is always clever. Nobody ever directly responds to a comment or question, the response is always indirect or abstract. “Did you make a side trip somewhere? Maybe to Canada?”“If that’s what you call falling into a bathtub of whiskey.”It’s fun. It really is. All of the dialogue is like this and you find yourself grinning throughout the novel. Except, well, all of the characters speak the same way: men, women; rich, poor; bad, good; simple, smart. There is no effort to distinguish characters by the way they speak to one another.I recognize that this is the latest of Mr. Burke’s novels, that he has written a lot of them, and that he is getting old. I’m going to give him another shot.

I am a great devoured of all things connected to King Arthur, the Grail, the Templars and related matters. I am also a great fan of James Lee Burke, in my view one of America’s greatest writers regardless of genre. When I picked up this book I did not expect these enjoyments to coincide - but they do. A great read, full of great characters, especially Hackberry Holland, who despite his many failings retained by sympathy throughout. The plot is complex but gripping and Burke’s writing is at his usual high level. Highly recommended

I have been reading JLB since the early 1980s and have never read a bad book written by him and the count now is 35 but this is the time I have ever felt less than impressed.I still don't know whether it was a great book or a poor one and I believe that the answer is somewhere in the middle.The plot is

I have been a fan of James Lee Burke for a long time. Although his heroes have become increasingly superhuman in recent times, this book shows what a superb writer he is. The word pictures he draws couples well with the pace of the action, but at no cost to his characters who are increasingly complex and well drawn. In this novel, it is the women who are most interesting and he paints a picture of the time that reads for real.Put simply, James Lee Burke is one of the great story tellers of American literature: more than that, his skills ensure that the reader is captured and drawn into the story. House of the rising sun - one of his best!

As usual I loved the prose used by JLB. I have even noted down some paragraphs that I really relate to but could never have found the words. The only reason I have, unusually, downgraded this book to 4-star is that it is rather too far-fetched for my liking. The story would have told itself just as well without the need for the protagonists to have known the celebrity characters of John Wesley Harding, Butch & Sundance etc.

James Lee Burke is unmistakable isn't he, and this one identifies itself immediately as one of his. It's involving, even compelling, but too long and almost obsessively interested in both evil and appalling violence. Hackberry, I think we are supposed to conclude, redeems himself in the end, UT for me has indulged in far too many acts of disgusting nihilism to allow him that. No, sorry JLB, this is technically well wrought, but in the end just plain repellent.