The Convict and Other Stories
James Lee Burke, Author Louisiana State University Press $0 (145p) ISBN 978-0-8071-1273-1
Burke brings the reader inside the minds and emotions of his characters, in stories that strike to the heart. They each concern the search for a reason, a purpose behind the interminable battle between good and evil. ""Uncle Sidney and the Mexicans'' focuses on a maverick tomato picker, fired for petty reasons and deprived of a day's pay, who is hired by the narrator's uncle and enabled thereby both to revenge himself on his former boss and to teach a lesson about Mexicans to the local bigots. A younger narrator, in ``Losses,'' is troubled in the confessional by his priest's reluctance to condemn. Only long afterward does he comprehend the arrogance youthful innocence that refuses to countenance human flaws. The closing sentence in ``When It's Decoration Day,'' about a young Civil War soldier, elegantly epitomizes the subtle impact of Burke's storytelling: as a shell bursts, the boy ``thought he felt a finger reach up and anoint him casually on the brow.'' November 24
Details
Reviewed on: 01/01/1985
Release date: 01/01/1985
Paperback - 227 pages - 9780752848891
Open Ebook - 240 pages - 9781451618471
Paperback - 160 pages - 9780786881437
Paperback - 145 pages - 9780807112755
Hardcover - 145 pages - 9780807112731
Paperback - 228 pages - 9781416599258
Mass Market Paperbound - 144 pages - 9780786889655
Paperback - 145 pages - 9780316117289
Downloadable Audio - 1 pages - 9781442354203