Synopses & Reviews
The Lost Get-Back Boogie is a story set to the lament of a blues guitar. The time is the early 1960s and Iry Paret, Korean War veteran and country musician, has just been released from the Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana after serving a term for manslaughter. He heads west to work out his parole on a former prisoner's ranch in Montana. There he becomes involved with his acid-dropping pal, Buddy Riordan; Buddy's stubborn father (who is feuding with a polluting pulp mill); and Buddy's estranged wife, Beth. The setting may be idyllic, but the feud with the pulp mill has made pariahs out of the Riordans the possibility that the mill may be closed threatens four hundred jobs. As the confrontations become increasingly nasty, Iry is thrust unwillingly into the violent midst of other people's troubles, and the consequences threaten his freedom and his chance to go straight.
Review
"Powerful....Burke finds the flaws in people, but these very flaws are the mystery that enables them." The Village Voice
Review
"[A] wonderful novel....Although the ending strays, [Burke's novel] is pensive and cautiously paced. It also contrasts two very different parts of the essence of America the hazy bayou and a resolute valley in the beautiful West." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Bulging with virile prose...reminiscent of Kerouac, Kesey, and McGuane." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"A powerfully written novel." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"This is a beautifully crafted and written novel...truly a wonderful book." Charles Willeford, Mystery Scene
About the Author
James Lee Burke grew up on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf coast and now lives with his wife and four children near Missoula, Montana. The author of nine novels and one collection of short stories, Mr. Burke has received a Breadloaf Fellowship, an NEA grant, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. His most recent novel, A Stained White Radiance, is yet another triumph for the author of Black Cherry Blues, the Edgar Award winner for outstanding crime novel of 1989.