Neon Rain by James Lee Burke Agree or Disagree to Be Hemingway Disciple

Burke Hemingway

Burke as a Disciple of Hemingway

In interview, New York Times best-selling novelist James Lee Burke (2002) has been quoted as identifying Ernest Hemingway as among his favorite authors. This is in clear evidence in the first of 19 books which would go on to feature Dave Robicheaux, a Vietnam veteran, a recovering alcoholic and a renegade Louisiana Sheriff's Deputy. In Robicheaux, and in the world that we are introduced to with 1987's The Neon Rain, Burke truly betrays his affinity for Hemingway's thematic and stylistic impulses.

As Lowe (2012) observes, "Burke's novels are painted with vivid descriptions of the land, pithy dialogue and sudden acts of physical violence. The combination of action, description and dialogue makes for a page-turning read. The common criticism made against his work is that there is too much violence." (Lowe, p. 1)

This is a criticism perhaps not unlike that often visited upon Hemingway, whose works were also brimming with themes of appeal to the male sense of excess. Images of bullfighting, boxing and mass consumption of alcohol distinguished Hemingway's content long before the noir-revivalism of James Lee Burke's Robicheaux series became fashionable. In this regard, Lowe accurately compares Burke to such contemporaries as Elmore Leonard who have used the crime fiction genre to explore many of the themes that marked Hemingway's most important works.

Indeed, from Burke's own observation, the implications of this content is far more important even than the uniquely terse style of expression that Hemingway pioneered. On his Facebook page, Burke (2011) posted a meditation on the role that Hemingway has played in crafting modern writing predilections. Here, Burke points to a scene in A Farewell to Arms where the impending violence of war is present from the novel's outset, owing to Hemingway's own battle-scars during WWI. Burke underlines the influence that Hemingway would have on works like The Neon Rain, noting that "others tried to imitate his style, concentrating on his short sentences, his monosyllabic language, his seeming inconsequential dialog. But his imitators never understood that Hemingway's prose style had more to do with vision than choice of language. To paraphrase his words, he accomplished more by what he left out than what he left in." (Burke, p. 1)

This is a strategy used to tremendous effect in The Neon Rain. Here, Burke uses the same blunt but emotive descriptive styles that mark Hemingway's work. Using physical observations to suggest some degree of unseen character, Burke offers concise, rapid-fire attributes that suggest more about the characters than is immediately visible to the eye. Robicheaux's meeting with Johnny Massina in a maximum security prison, for instance, describes a man in "a white shirt, a pair of black slacks, and black Air Force shoes with white socks. His wiry gray and black hair was dripping with sweat, and his face was the color and texture of old paper." (Burke, 1987, p. 3)

As Burke observes of Hemingway, there is much to be gained by reading that which is left out. In the description here above, Burke employs a markedly similar strategy, leaving us at the outset to imagine the age and experience that has been Johnny's. And of course, in Robicheaux, we are given the classic and conflicted hero, bound by a code of honor that defies traditional convention but makes him a reluctant moral center in an otherwise treacherous world.