Today is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on the Gulf Coast. It is fitting then to talk about the novel that may well become the definitive fictional treatment of the storm’s arrival in New Orleans, James Lee Burke’s Tin Roof Blowdown. (Link goes to an excerpt.) Tin Roof is the 16th installment in Burke’s Dave Robicheeaux detective series (if you’re not familiar with French pronunciations, that’s robe-i-show).
Robicheaux is a detective with the New Iberia Police Department. He’s a Vietnam veteran and a recovering alcoholic. There are no shortage to the demons that haunt Detective Robicheaux, but he thought that they were in his past. In the first chapter, the detective, awoken by a recurring Vietnam nightmare, says:
When I go back to sleep, I once again tell myself I will never again have to witness the wide-scale suffering of innocent civilians, nor the betrayal and abandonment of our countrymen when they need us most.
But that was before Katrina. That was before a storm with greater impact than the bomb blast that struck Hiroshima peeled the face off southern Louisiana. That was before one of the most beautiful cities in the Western Hemisphere was killed three times, and not just by the forces of nature.
After the hurricane hits, Detective Robichaux is called into action to assist the Feds and the New Orleans Police Department with the investigation of a murder. A black looter was found shot in an upscale, and mostly white, neighborhood. Burke uses the investigation of the shooting to lead the reader into all of the unseemly aspects of the storm and its aftermath - exposing the senseless death, racism, violence, betrayal, desperation, greed, futility, horror, human misery, and the inexplicable world of politics.
It is a testament to Burke that he can hit all of these hot-button issues without being condescending to the residents of the city or preachy to those who live elsewhere. Having written fifteen prior novels about the region, Burke may be singularly qualified to tackle Katrina. It has been said that if you read all 16 of the Dave Robichaux novels, a contemporary history of New Orleans will emerge. In fact, this may be the book that Burke’s entire career has been building towards. Burke’s descriptions of Louisiana have been honed to gleaming mirror.
Detective Robichaux’s home in New Iberia is west of New Orleans in Louisiana’s Cajun country. It is a real place - it’s where Tabasco comes from. James Lee Burke splits his time between New Iberia and Montana, so he knows the lay of the land. In the 2005 hurricane season, New Iberia was battered by Katrina and then pummeled by Rita. In my thinking, it’s the perfect place for a writer to emerge to write “the great Katrina novel” - close enough to have experienced first hand the impact of the storm with the perfect amount of distance to allow for some amount of remove and perspective. And I’m saying that this is “the great Katrina novel.” Or at least the best so far.
As a detective story, the novel may disappoint true fans of the genre. The case is a little murky, and its resolution is too realistic to be truly satisfying. Bad men go to jail, but the powerful men pulling the strings may go free. In the end, the crime is almost beside the point. Detective Robichaux leaves the real mystery at the center of this novel unsolved:
The failure to repair the levees before Katrina and the abandonment of tens of thousands of people to their fate in the aftermath have causes that I’ll let other people sort out.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Interesting assessment of the author. I love regional writers. I have Stormy Weather on my stack and think Carl Hiaasen is uniquely qualified to speak about Hurricane Andrew that breezed through the Miami area. (Hey, weren’t you there for that one?)
August 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I used to read James Lee Burke years ago. Don’t know why I stopped. (I always loved the description of his home on the river.)
This seems like an excellent book with which to resume my Burke reading.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:45 am
RaeRae: I was indeed in Miami for Hurricane Andrew. I was evacuated from what turned out to be near perfect safety of Miami Beach. I decided to ride the storm out with Mark S in Kendall, which was just north of ground zero. Three days of 8 people living in an apartment with no electricity, a tub of fresh water, and only a partial roof. If you’re going to go through something like that, have Mark with you was the take home message.
Beth: I had a similar experience. I’ve read Burke off and on. You can jump right back into this one without missing a beat.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Almost totally off-subject, but here goes:
Sen. Craig’s current legal difficulties have put me in mind of my other favorite New Orleans novel, A Confederacy of Dunces.
After I got a good chuckle out of Craig’s rank hypocrisy [see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Vs5570pKw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftalkingpointsmemo%2Ecom%2F I started feeling really sorry for the poor airport cop who had been assigned to this (ahem) beat. I started thinking I’d had this feeling before. And then I remembered where I’d heard the story previously: this is almost exactly what happened to Officer Mancuso in ACOD. Officer Mancuso screwed up so many times that NOPD told him to come up with a disguise and assigned him to the bus station men’s room, where he was to arrest “suspicious characters” and where he first encountered Ignatius.
As my main man Burma Jones would say, “Whoa!”
August 29th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Dr J: Just another example of Toole’s genius. I had forgotten about that aspect of Officer Mancuso’s suffering.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Interesting. I tend to avoid novels dealing with major tragedies since I don’t want to end up with the ones that just seek to grimly capitalize on the suffering of others, but I do like to hear about the ones that help us to understand and learn about the tragedy—which it sounds like this one does. Another one for the wish list; thank you for writing such a good review.