The veteran American crime writer is showing no signs of slowing down as he heads into his late 80s.
James Lee Burke lives in a wooden house at the head of a canyon in the jagged foothills outside Missouri, Montana. But his heart and mind lie in the steamy, complicated South where he grew up and lived for much of his life. His books are set in the over-ripe swamps, surging bayous and wetlands of southern Louisiana, where live oaks and pecan trees trail Spanish moss.
“I write every day, seven days a week and I aim for 750 words. I am sitting here 24 hours a day. So if I can do that successfully I can write one novel a year.” He is not a plotter. “I never know where a book is going but I see it all the time, it is in my dreams. I see two scenes ahead of the story, I write those in the morning and then rework the writing I did the previous day. It’s a long day, but it’s a great life.
In person Burke has all the civility and courtesy of the Southern gentleman that he is, and great humility. He would write at night in motel rooms in longhand. “When I was drinking I was bitter and jaundiced and virtually nihilistic.” After his first 12-step meeting “I walked out of the firestorm. Without it I wouldn’t be here.”, is a departure from anything he has done before. Set during the Civil War when things are going badly for the South it is the story of Hannah, a slave girl, who has a kind of voodoo second sight, and has lost her infant son in the heat of battle.
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