Michael Burke's Reviews > Flags on the Bayou

Ways of War

“It’s meant to be a historical book, and it is meant to be about today. The same monsters are still out there.”

James Lee Burke has recreated the hell our Civil War empowered mankind to muster. There is so much evil in these pages, unimaginable atrocities committed under the guise of patriotism and codes of honor. In recent books, Mr. Burke has used the supernatural to further some plotlines. Here there is no need to magnify what mortal men are capable of.

Memorable characters from all different walks populate this novel: free men, slaves, Union troops, Confederate “irregulars.” Some are pure monsters; some are people finding themselves venturing into areas their consciences would never have imagined going. Hannah Laveau, a former slave searching for her son, is at the heart of the story. She endured repeated sexual assaults and is now not sure if she is the one who brutally murdered her assailant. A white plantation owner, Wade Lufkin, is helping Hannah evade arrest, yet he is single-handedly trying to turn the Confederacy’s fortunes around by bankrolling their fight with his gold.

One of the characters mentions she disagrees with Darwin’s theory of evolution, that we are not all descended from the same line. There are people so deranged who must have evolved from a different tree. This is a theme Mr. Burke has brought up in previous books, as well. War is just the great enabler for evil, “...perpetuated its suffering from the cave to the present.”

James Lee Burke is one of our greatest writers and he says this is his finest book. The South today, as shaped by the Civil War, has often had its gravitational pull in his works. “Flags on the Bayou” is the treatment on the subject he was destined to write. A brilliant work.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic, Atlantic Monthly Press and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #FlagsontheBayou #NetGalley