I read. I read a lot. And finish only books I enjoy. If a book loses my interest, I move on. If a book is not well-crafted, I move on. Once in a while, a book affects me profoundly. Every Cloak Rolled in Blood by James Lee Burke is one of the few that touches my soul and doesn’t let go.
James Lee Burke is an American treasure. His body of writing combines autobiographical moments with history, the supernatural and a yearning for America, mankind and especially himself to strive to be better.
My first introduction to James Lee Burke was through his Robicheaux series. I eagerly look froward to the next installment in the often violent life of Detective Dave Robicheaux, a tortured, recovering alcoholic with a blurred but rigid moral code, and his best friend, Clete Purcell, also a tortured soul. Dave’s unerring belief in the good of man while staring the worst of man in the face never wavers. His loyalty to Clete is unconditional even when Clete’s choices are fueled by alcohol. The Man and I have read the entire series, all twenty-three, in order.
The Holland series (actually three series) begins with Texas Sherriff Hackberry Holland (three books), progresses through Billy Bob Holland (four books) and continues with a saga of the Hollands from 1934 forward. Every Cloak Rolled in Blood is the
latest installment in the series with Aaron Hollard Broussard (whom we met as a teen-ager in The Jealous Kind) mourning the death of his daughter, Fannie Mae. Mr. Burke lost his daughter, Pamala, in 2020 and that piercing loss parallel’s the grief of Aaron.
In 2006, my younger brother died at the age of fifty. He became a diabetic at the age of thirteen; a “disability” he neither accepted nor conquered. To complicate his life, he became an alcoholic, telling himself that increasing his insulin was enough to allow him to drink to excess. It finally caught up with him one weekend filled with excessive drinking in a hotel in Helen, Georgia. His heart literally burst from the burden of the alcohol. My parents, especially my mother, never recovered from the loss. There were days when I thought my mother would not live to see tomorrow. My dad’s once sparkling eyes, never lost their sadness. The death of my brother haunts me daily and contributed to my love of this book.
In Every Cloak Rolled in Blood, Aaron can’t accept his daughter’s death and when she visits he begs her to stay or let him join her. In this story Mr. Burke returns to the themes he loves: the good of man versus the cruelty of man, the destruction of “Eden” by greed. Aaron, a novelist, quotes a passage from Ecclesiastes and follows with the comment that he’s been borrowing themes from the Bible for sixty years. And that is the essence of James Lee Burke.
While Aaron deals with his grief, the toll of evil and drugs in his community play out in real life and the supernatural world that recurs through most of Burke’s books. Use of the supernatural is an effective tool showing that evil never changes while man continues to fight to be better. A former Klansman and drug dealers posing as holy rollers fight in the real world as Aaron, with Ruby Spotted Horse (his love interest) and daughter’s spirit fight the leaders of a Native American massacre that occurred on Aaron’s ranch in the late 1800’s. Aaron also fights to save two teenagers whose lives are being destroyed by adults exploiting them.
If you can only read one author this year, it should be James Lee Burke.
Read this May 2022 interview with James Lee Burke.
In addition to being a member of the Internationale Guilde des Fromagers (Jura and Garde) and an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional, I am a Certified ServSafe Food Production Manager. I am available for cheese events, cheese program development, cheese training, food safety training and 3rd party food safety auditing. See my About Me and Resume pages for more details or call me at 360 921 9908 to discuss availability.
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