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11/20/02

Burke changes course with memorable historical fiction

By Jeff Minick
White Doves Of Morning by James Lee Burke.
Simon & Schuster, 2002. $25 — 320 pp.


Sometimes a writer who seems slotted for a certain genre — mystery, westerns, romance, science fiction — will attempt to break out of the corner of the library to which his talents and the public have assigned him by writing a completely different piece of work. Often this attempt fails: Elmore Leonard, for example, who writes hard-hitting suspense novels, once wrote a marvelous story about a healer and about faith that never really gained the wider audience of his other books.

In White Doves Of Morning, however, James Lee Burke not only breaks out of his reputation as a writer of thrillers and suspense novels, but he gives his readers a fabulous story with characters whom they will long remember.

White Doves Of Morning tells us the story of the Civil War and the early years of Reconstruction through the eyes of several different characters. There is Willie Burke, the son of Irish immigrants who joins the Army, fights at the Battle of Shiloh, and then remains with the Army for most of the rest of the war, fighting in various battles while at the same time contending with his friend, Robert Perry, for the love of an abolitionist woman. Perry is the son of wealth and privilege, yet he too serves in the war, spending some of the time in a Union prison camp and then helping to organize defeated Southerners in their postwar battles.

The abolitionist whose heart both men try to win is Abigail Dowling from Massachusetts, who has come before the war to Louisiana to try and help free the slaves as well as to fight yellow fever. She remains throughout the war, helping nurse both Union and Confederate soldiers as well as organizing more slave escapes. She befriends Flower Jamison, an extraordinary slave girl — her father is owner of one of the large plantations — and assists her in her education and the realization of her dreams.

Villains walk these pages as well: stonehearted overseers, incompetent officers, merciless nightriders. Ira Jamison is one of Burke’s better creations here, a plantation owner who often seems on the surface torn between right and wrong, but who always surrenders to the wrong.

Burke’s vivid writing helps put this book above many other Civil War novels. Open White Doves At Morning to any page, and the carefully crafted prose instantly snatches your attention. Here is a casual passage about Abigail first becoming aware of a building that will eventually serve as a school:


Abigail Dowling happened to be passing in her buggy when the sheriff tapped down the four corners of the auction notice on the tree and stood back to evaluate his handiwork. But Abigail’s attention was focused on the gallery steps, where Flower Jamison was sitting with two black children, teaching them how to write the letters of the alphabet on a piece of slate. In fact, at that moment, the broad back of the sheriff, the auction notice puffing against the bark of the tree, Flower and the black children arranged like a triptych on the steps and the vandalized and neglected house of a sybaritic artist, all seemed to be related, like prophetic images caught inside a perfect historical photograph.


Burke’s strong nouns, choice of words, and careful attention to the cadences within a sentence all give steel to his writing.

Burke’s novel is also outstanding because he understands the nuances of the war. Abigail remains true to her abolitionist beliefs, for example, but also comes to love many of the Southern people living around her. Willie is no proponent of slavery, yet fights hard and viciously against the Yankees who have invaded his home state. Even the black-hearted Ira Jamison shows us a planter who did not give up with the defeat of the South, but who simply shifted his labor and energy into exploiting both former slaves and the system to his own advantage.

Descriptions of place remain one of Burke’s great strengths as a writer. He has an uncanny ability to bring the landscapes of Mississippi and Louisiana to the reader as very nearly a living thing, as much a character in the book as Abigail or Willie or Ira Jamison. He makes these battlefields, the plantations, the woods and rivers come alive just the way he does in his stories of the Louisiana detective, Dave Robicheaux.

If among your friends or family there is a Civil War buff, a James Burke fan, or anyone who admires good storytelling and writing, you’ll probably want to add White Doves At Morning to your holiday shopping list.

(Jeff Minick is a writer and teacher who lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)