Wednesday, August 20, 2014

A Conversation with Novelist James Lee Burke

Omnimystery News: Author Interview with James Lee Burke
with James Lee Burke

We are delighted to welcome novelist James Lee Burke to Omnimystery News today.

Two-time winner of the Edgar Award and Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, Jim is the author of the more than thirty novels and two collections of short stories. His latest book, Wayfaring Stranger (Simon & Schuster; July 2014 hardcover, audiobook and ebook formats), is a tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller that crosses continents and decades of American history.

We recently had a chance to catch up with the busy author to talk about his work.

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Omnimystery News: Your books tend to cross several fiction genres. How do you think of them?

James Lee Burke
Photo provided courtesy of
James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke: I try to write a book or a short story that has literary merit. Williams Burroughs once said something to the effect that categories lie within the province of journalism. If it can fit in a box, it's probably not worth very much.

OMN: Tell us something about Wayfaring Stranger that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.

JLB: Wayfaring Stranger is by far the best novel I've written. It deals with what one might call the American Dream, or better said, a transitional generation that will probably remember what is called "traditional America." The story begins during the dust bowl era and ends in Hollywood in the late 1940s. I think it was Karl Shapiro who once said Hollywood is the most American city in the country. We constantly demean it, but if there was ever a secular cathedral in this country, it's Hollywood. Wayfaring Stranger also deals with the Battle of the Ardennes and McCarthyism the postwar oil boom. We also meet Benny Siegel and Virginia Hill and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and a few of the people who made Midas-levels of wealth after the war.

OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your books?

JLB: I believe the characters originate in the subconscious. I've never understood the creative process. I don't think anyone does. Leonardo said he did not carve his sculptures; he libereated them from the stone. I'm convinced, at least in my case, that creativity comes from a source outside of oneself. The enemy of all art is the ego. For an artist, humility is not a virtue but a necessity.

OMN: How do you go about creating the plots for your books?

JLB: As many have said, write what you know about. The real story is in your heart. I didn't say that. Hemingway did. And once you fall in love with your art, the only thing that can separate you from it is death. That's also from papa.

OMN: Tell us a little about your writing process.

JLB: I don't outline and never see more than two scenes ahead in the book. I write during all hours of the day and night. I keep a notebook by my bed and often write at 4 a.m. Milton, in his blindness, said his hours of illumination came to him with sleep and at dawn he woke to darkness. I always try to remember those lines.

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?

JLB: Never quit. Glory in rejection and excoriation. Be true unto yourself and the talent that was given to you. It's there for a reason. An artist has to have faith. You swallow your blood and go the whole fifteen rounds and spit in the world's mouth if you have to. My favorite musical lines of all time come from Danny and the Juniors: "We don't care what people say / Rock and Roll is here to stay."

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James Lee Burke was born in Houston, Texas, in 1936 and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute and later received a B. A. Degree in English and an M. A. from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Over the years he worked as a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps.

Burke's work has been awarded an Edgar twice for Best Crime Novel of the Year. He has also been a recipient of a Breadloaf and Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant. His short stories have been published in The Atlantic Monthly, New Stories from the South, Best American Short Stories, Antioch Review, Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review.

Today he and his wife live in Missoula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana.

For more information about the author, please visit his website at JamesLeeBurke.com or find him on Facebook.

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Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke

Wayfaring Stranger
James Lee Burke
A Novel

In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun and being unsure whether it hit its mark.

Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein — a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business.

In just a few years' time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless, courageous act yet — one that takes its inspiration from that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth.

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