The Lost Get-Back Boogie [Paperback]

James Lee BURKE (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: (n.p.) (1993)
• ASIN: B002VLCSGK
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave the discomfort and read for the imagery., March 29, 1998

By 

Abigail Weed Howard ([e-mail]) (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lost Get-Back Boogie (Mass Market Paperback)

Booze is the prime demon for Iry Paret, dark and heavy hero of the demon-ridden novel, The Lost Get-Back Boogie. When Iry is paroled and three miles away from Angola prison, the foam is boiling over the lip of his first icy Jax; from then on, empty cans and bottle rattle in the cyclonic contests with the lesser demons; the sheriff, environment-stinking pulp mills, Vietnam memories, nightmares of drunken rage and helplessness.

Buddy, Iry's friend from Angola, calls him Zeno. Zeno was the Greek founder of Stoicism, the school of impassivity, indifference to pleasure or pain. Buddy, the mean-drunk tilter at alcohol-induced windmills, enlists his friend the stoic in his battle against his own - and his family's - demons. Even the trucks and cars in their life are beset by the devils of redneck vengeance and drunken driving on mountain roads.

It is painful to accompany Iry and Buddy as they drink, and weather jail, brawls, vicious beatings, cruel attacks on Buddy's father's beloved horses and wild birds. Burke's descriptive powers evoke sympathetic response as our eyes blear and our limbs numb and our nostrils fill with the stink of pervasive whiskey and beer, and we wish to God no one ever hurt like this.

With the same power of words, Burke sets us first in Louisiana and then in Montana. We see the Mississippi River and prisoners clearing cane fields of tree roots; we feel the sun and smell the damp from the bayou. Montana is given to us gloriously; river, mountain, sky, clean crisp air, the dust of unpaved roads, taste of trout just taken from icy streams, snow crystals in a woman's hair. Burke is an extraordinary visual writer - what he shows you, you see. The juxtaposition of this enormous grandeur with the sad and violent men who are imprisoned in murky impulses and urges is somehow not jarring.

Iry's wanderings through various "dirty little corners of the universe" can barely be called a quest. He avoids reflection; else he may have to admit other's evaluation; that "I had a little screw in the back of my head turned a few degrees off center." Alcohol can do that to you, but Iry doesn't realize it. Burke's well-known character Dave Robicheaux is what Iry could become if he stumbled into sobriety. Robicheaux still has his lesser demons, but he's been given a daily reprieve from the clutches of the big one.

We like Iry and Buddy; even their enemies are not without our sympathy. The images Burke draw remain long after the book is closed and are a compelling reason to brave the discomfort of reading through to the end. Burke is in the forefront of the genre of recovering alcoholic detective. The Lost Get-Back Boogie, certainly outside the genre and not a mystery novel at all, will intrigue fans of Dave Robicheaux and perhaps adds depth to our understanding of him.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars should have won the Pulitzer it was nominated for, November 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Lost Get-Back Boogie (Paperback)

James Lee Burke's prose and narrative drives this tale of darkly depressing proportions along with steam train power. The characterisation exudes realism and recalls images of John Steinbeck. It's not Dave Robicheux but Lee Burke should be praised for bridging the gap between popular fiction and highest literature. Nominated for a Pulitzer, this book should definitely be read by any fan of Lee Burkes. It reassures that true excellence from an author can arise from the truest of tales.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best!, February 28, 2003

By 

Janet B. Mears "Book Lover" (Port St Lucie Fl USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost Get-Back Boogie (Hardcover)

I have read nearly every thing that James Lee Burke has written. I like and admire his use of descriptive words. This book, however, was not nearly as good as his Dave Robicheaux books. His discriptions were just as poetic, his intensity just as good, but I guess I just didn't like the story as much and couldn't relate to the characters as well as with his other books. But it was an interesting read and if you are a Burke fan, I would recommend this one.