James Lee Burke is one of the most prolific authors in the United States. Averaging a book a year throughout his sixty-years in literature, he is also one of the most profound, riveting, and stylistically beautiful. His new novel, Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, acts as both a companion to his other work, exploring violence and the quest for justice through the lens of a courageous protagonist. It is also a departure, demonstrating that Burke is still full of surprises. Writing in the voice of a sixteen-year-old girl, Burke explores evergreen concepts of coming-of-age, while also giving a rollicking and keenly intelligent tour of America in the early 20th Century. Bessie, the main character, moves from the oil patches of Texas to the slums of New York, meeting avaricious industrialists, mafiosos, corrupt police officers, and crusaders for humanity.
More than any other book in Burke’s vast body of work, Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is a lyrical and unnerving examination of misogyny and patriarchy; the violent, and more subtle ways that men in power exclude, demean, and attempt to control women.
At 88-years-old, Burke has had the equivalent of two careers that most writers would envy. In addition to several stand-alone novels and short story collections, he is the author 24 novels in the Dave Robicheaux series, which chronicles the homicide cases and personal struggles of a former New Orleans detective turned investigator in the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office. The Robicheaux series is eminently readable, and re-readable, offering first class entertainment, while also inspecting the “shadow and light,” to use Jungian terminology, of the human spirit and American experience. Burke is also the author of 13 novels about the Holland family, some set in the present, and others in the past, allowing Burke to weave tales out of the triumphs, crimes, and battles of American history. Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is the latest in the Holland family saga.
We recently discussed the novel, the highs and lows of American history, and related ideas over the phone. The interview is the latest in a series that I’ve conducted with the great writer for CrimeReads.
David Masciotra: Perhaps, the most striking quality of this novel is that it is not only told from a woman’s point of view, but also that it depicts the evil and damage of misogyny, and the exclusion of women from various sectors of society. Did that develop during the day-to-day writing, or was it already on your mind?
James Lee Burke: Both. If you are writing about women, those things have to be confronted. That has been the history of womankind. The story of women is one of strength and endurance. Men are delusional, because they often don’t recognize that without women’s strength and endurance, we wouldn’t have made it. Even to this day, women produce 80 percent of the food in developing countries. Women are, generally, more intelligent than men, because they had to be in order to survive.
David Masciotra: And now that you’ve written this novel, you are in a good position to answer: Do you think these issues – issues of sexism, patriarchy – have been insufficiently depicted and explored in American history and literature?
James Lee Burke: Yes, and they’ve always been neglected.
David Masciotra: How does your writing process differ when you are writing in the voice of a woman?
James Lee Burke: This is what I believe: The ordinary human being is a reflection of all of humanity. There are the characteristics and habits that enabled us to create civilizations, and we all have those gifts in ourselves if we accept and love ourselves, and each other. We can, then, truly live in a humane, civilized world. But when we abandon that knowledge, we lose every time.
David Masciotra: Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie provides a narration of many American failures. There is misogyny and violence against women, references to slavery and lynching, antisemitism, and organized crime, and the violence and corruption it created in major cities across the country. One of things that your corpus does, in addition to the new novel, is explore the darkness at the heart of American history. Why is that something that you continue to do?
James Lee Burke: Well, we have to understand ourselves, and we can’t do that if we lie about our historical failures. The worst period of the human race took place in the twentieth century, and we’re now edging to the return of it. We’re returning to a very dark place within ourselves. It scares the hell out of me.
David Masciotra: It is frightening. We are witnessing the recrudescence of fascism.
James Lee Burke: That is correct. There are numerous people wishing for it, and they’re doing a good job of it.
David Masciotra: Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is quite timely in its depiction of book bans, anti-intellectualism, and the hatred of one of the heroic characters, a teacher, Miss Banks, because townspeople suspect her of being a lesbian. Were you deliberately making that subplot a commentary on gender-focused book bans sweeping our country?
James Lee Burke: No, I didn’t want to create a political voice, rather it’s just reality. We are living through a time when stereotypes of good people come from those who are frightened, and the frightened are taking out their fears and hatred on their fellow human beings. Those things have always been with us. I believe that we will pass through it. But I did not put that in the book to, in effect, try to make a sermon. You know this yourself – good writers don’t hang signs on the walls.
David Masciotra: It didn’t come off as didactic. I just couldn’t help but make a connection between the past as you are depicting it, and the present as we are experiencing it.
James Lee Burke: Certainly. It happens in the story. This is a woman who might be a lesbian. We don’t know for sure. But, because of that, and because of her politics, she’s treated badly by people who are ignorant. To draw out the connection to the present, I would say that we are better than the way we are behaving. Of course, the story here is through the eyes of a young girl. She’s sixteen-years-old, and she’s surrounded by men who are afraid of her. She’s a marvelous person. Her father is a good man, but he doesn’t know how to love his daughter. She, finally, has to learn to live in a cruel world. This teacher helps her. Then, this Texas girl, ends up in the slums of New York with these gangsters – Bugsy Siegal types. I dare anyone to say that he’s had a plot like this.
David Masciotra: You’re right that it is unique. What was the genesis for writing a novel in the voice of a 16-year-old girl?
James Lee Burke: The characters are biographical. I remember the early years of the Second World War, and the poverty in the area between Houston and San Antonio, and the travail of the people who really struggled. My mother had to leave school in the tenth grade. People like her struggled to find housing. The dust bowl was still blowing down there. Those people were a model for what we feel of ourselves as Americans. In the 1930s and ‘40s, we saw the best of ourselves, but we’re losing it now. My mother was very intelligent, and travail was her life, yet she lived to be 102-years-old. My father was a very strong, but gentle and kind man. I was an only child, and I had a great pair of parents. Much of them are in this novel.
David Masciotra: Speaking of virtues, the characters in the new novel become heroic when they do something as simple as speaking the truth.
James Lee Burke: That’s correct. We haven’t lost the ability to speak the truth, but we no longer really look at it. We now have the sense that we’ve been undone by someone. People feel like, somehow, they got cheated. If you asked them how they got cheated, they probably couldn’t answer. So, the heroes of the new novel are contrasts with that pervasive mentality. I don’t want to flagellate people, but I think more people should pause for a moment to look at what we have, and what we have been. If we want to talk about what makes America great, we should talk about the Marshall Plan. No country in the world ever rebuilt the cities of its enemies, and that’s what we did after World War II.
David Masciotra: And you would argue that that is what makes this country worthy of celebration?
James Lee Burke: That’s right, and we should be proud of it, for God’s sake. We should be proud of what we’ve done for other countries, and how we’ve welcomed other people. Instead, we have a president who glories in telling people who vote for him that they are being dumped on by other countries and other people.
David Masciotra: On that point, one of the most powerful lines in Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is “History doesn’t repeat itself. It metastasizes.” Could you elaborate on that?
James Lee Burke: We should not seek repetition. If you have something that is good, you should subsume it. That’s what democracy does. It subsumes things. It makes people more intelligent, more educated, more accessible to medicine. When we find that we have to go back, and get into something that has a dark tone, we undermine ourselves and our democracy. That’s why I use the word “metastasize.” It captures the damage of going back to our darker instincts; those instincts that are always within us.
David Masciotra: Going back to the relationship between history and literature, and exploring dark elements of American history, did you see any association with To Kill a Mockingbird when writing this new novel? Both have young, women protagonists. Both depict those protagonists getting an education in the tougher realities of their respective communities.
James Lee Burke: Well, that’s a wonderful story, and there are some similarities. But, Scout is an angelic figure. I’d be afraid of Bessie. She’s heck on wheels. Look out! You mentioned earlier, “virtue.” To Kill a Mockingbird depicts virtue, and in my book, virtue prevails. Virtue is what makes us great, as human beings, as Americans. It isn’t power or killing people. It’s virtue.
David Masciotra: What’s interesting is that you look back on previous eras of American history in your novels to spotlight moments of virtue, but at the same time, your work offers warnings against nostalgia. Another one of my favorite lines in Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie is, “Anyone who talks about the ‘good old days’ wasn’t there.”
James Lee Burke: That is a good line!
David Masciotra: It is! So, how do you separate looking back on the better moments of our history with pride, and developing a dangerous nostalgia?
James Lee Burke: Well, we can’t romanticize, because then it becomes fantasy. That’s not what I’m talking about when I mention the Marshall Plan, or when I mention that we once accepted people of different races and religious beliefs, and gave them opportunities for better lives. What I’m talking about is the lionization of someone like William Sherman, who supported the starvation of Native Americans. That’s how they were defeated. They were starved and pushed onto reservations. What we did to the indigenous population was genocide. This wasn’t happenstance. It is the worst of us, just like the Marshall Plan was the best of us.
David Masciotra: As a storyteller, what do you think is the consequence of failing to reckon with the best and worst of our stories?
James Lee Burke: Well, look at this fellow we have in the White House right now. He’s an idiot. Remember during his first term when they arrived in Hawaii for a commemoration of Pearl Harbor, and he asked his Chief of Staff, “What went on here?” Yeah, he’s a real bright one.
David Masciotra: Back to Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, which is a more pleasant topic. There is a spirit character, Mr. Slick. His inclusion makes for several consecutive novels now that deal with the hazy plane between two worlds. Why have you returned to the supernatural more frequently in recent years?
James Lee Burke: I’m glad you asked that. I think it is that we would all like to have some relationship with a character who is common in Medieval Plays – the spirit who looks out for us. I believe that there is always something that is playing with us, not in a religious way. But, in effect, the world is a grand place, and Mr. Slick is a great guy who communicates that to Bessie. She knows that someone is always looking out for her. The world is a wonderful place, and I’m happy for each day I have on the big, blue bubble. It’s like what Dave Robicheaux says, “The point is the mystery.” A mystery is a mystery. That’s what the present is for us, either in relationship to history or the struggles in our own lives. We always have the opportunity to be better and do better for each other. There is a hand out there – and I don’t claim to know what it is – but the hand is out there that will put a flame in your breast. The good things are there for us, right at our fingertips. All you have to do is reach out for them.
