Book Review : James Lee Burke - The Tin Roof Blowdown (2007)

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There are some things you need to reach a certain age to appreciate. Personally, I’ve developed a taste for liquor, Leonard Cohen and European football when grey hair first landed on my chin. James Lee Burke’s luscious and introspective fiction is another acquired taste I did not particularly indulge either until I discovered the joys of True Detective. Little did I know, it takes patience and maturity to appreciate the most intricate paintings.

I’ve read Burke’s The Tin Roof Blowdown because it was a hurricane Katrina novel first, but it ended up shining a new light on the Caravaggio of crime fiction for me.

The Tin Roof Blowdown is the sixteenth novel in James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series. Set in the midst of hurricane Katrina, Burke’s iconic detective is investigating the shooting of two lowlifes who the local authorities were after. The Melancon brothers are thieves and rapists, but they have picked the wrong number at scumbag lottery and set in motion events bigger than themselves. Events that will threaten Robicheaux and the people he loves.

Tommy Lee Jones was one of the two actors who played Dave Robicheaux on screen and he was great at it. When I think of Robicheaux, I picture him, but with mutton chops. Go figure.

Lawlessness & the South

This was not just a simple mystery. The Tin Roof Blowdown is a genre-bending novel with elements of noir, Southern Gothic and (most important) Western. It explores themes of survival and lawlessness, which are integral to the Western genre. The pandemonium caused in Louisiana by hurricane Katrina caused a failure of local social systems: cops ran away to higher ground, hospitals were flooded and destroyed. Looters prowled the night, etc.

It was every man for himself.

In that particular setting, a person’s values and morals are the only rampart between order and chaos. Dave Robicheaux decided to stay in flooded territory in order to get Eddy and Bertrand Melancon off the street, which would make him the good guy. Robicheaux’s a recovering alcoholic and somewhat of a square in a brutal world, so keeping promises and oaths is very important for him. But the notions of good and bad aren’t clear anymore.

His actions are echoed by those of a man named Otis Baylor, who seemingly decided to take advantage of the ongoing chaos in order to avenge the rape of his daughter and Sidney Kovick, a man who doesn’t believe in law and order. The Tin Roof Blowndown explores the layered moral landscape of lawlessness. Whatever you choose to do, whoever you choose to be, you’ll neither be completely virtuous or completely evil.

Yep. James Lee Burke looks like an older, more shriveled Tommy Lee Jones. Go figure.

Conservative values

The Tin Roof Blowndown is a novel that celebrates and explains conservative values in the best, most non-adversarial way I’ve ever seen. Despite their differences, the main characters all have in common a love for their family and a desire to protect them. They are traditional patriarchal figures fighting for what they love and what is theirs when it matters. It never seem didactic or forceful because of the context. It’s fucking chaos out there.

Female characters are also an integral part of the story and co-lead the fight against the entropy that is swallowing Louisiana. FBI agent Betty Mossbacher, detective Helen Soileau and Robicheaux’s daughter Alafair are all involved in the case. The nuclear family is put forward as the foundational unit of society, but there are not prescribed roles within them. Fathers and mothers are defending it beak and claws against violence and lawlessness.

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I really liked The Tin Roof Blowdown. I didn’t LOVE it because it speaks to an experience that I never had in a flooded city, but I don’t doubt it moved some people to tears. To me, it was a vibrant, atmospheric study of the moral ambiguity of a lawless setting. Full of difficult, complex characters and questions that don’t really have an answer. Sometimes just doing the best you can and shielding the ones you love from disaster is enough.

The rest can wait for better days.

7.6/10