The
Jealous Kind: A Novel – James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)
There are authors who bring something to the table that
puts them head and shoulders above their writing peers. It is a special
something; I won’t call it a gift because I know the ones I would put in this
class worked hard to hone the skills that play out in their words.
James Lee Burke is one of those writers. There is an
unmatched elegance to Burke’s prose and the way he strings words together that put
him in a class all his own. The way the Burke crafts his characters and his
stories captures a level of authenticity in place and time that very few have
the ability produce.
In his latest, The
Jealous Kind, Burke collects the sights, sounds and smells of Korean War
era Texas that marks not only the struggle with coming of age, but also the arm
wrestling with identity of Aaron Boussard, a teenage high school student who
rings like a man out of time, stuck between youth and manhood and who his
parents want him to be and who he wants to be.
Like many of Burke’s books, there is a bit of an
unrepentant, wild streak to the characters that are in play in The Jealous Kind. He has a clear
fondness for the era and locale he drops these folks into that rings through in
his words. While so much fiction reads like a throw away, James Lee Burke
serves it up in a way to be enjoyed and savored slow and easy. The Jealous Kind easily finds its way onto
my list of the Top Five summer reads.
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