Perry James is a boy in danger of becoming a man in the tradition of all the men before him. Kin to both Frank James and the Hatfields (as in Hatfields and McCoys), he has the pressures of life and the expectations of heritage bearing down on him. In the mining country of Kentucky, you must be tough to survive at all, and the evidence of what happens if you are not tough enough is all around you in every home and in every hollow.

I was in physical pain through most of this novel. I felt suffocated in the mining shaft, frightened by the men, even those who were supposed to be on your side, and wrenched by the poverty that confronted this boy when he looked at his parents, his siblings and his neighbors. I wanted to scream at him, “Get out of Here”, and yet I knew how hard it would be to turn your back and put everything you ever knew or loved behind you.

I do not know if James Lee Burke grew up around mining towns or ever knew the hard-working poverty of such places, but he has a clear and realistic picture of exactly what such a life is. It is a life in which most are born rabbits and the wolves and hawks and snakes and bobcats are all around, hungry and devouring, and the poor rabbits are defenseless. The only hope they have is not to be noticed, or that the predator will miss and they will scuttle away, or that just when it might be their turn to die some other rabbit will enter the predator’s sights and make the meal instead.

To say I enjoyed this book would seem wrong. It is Southern Gothic at its best, and it is not meant to be “enjoyed”, it is meant to be heeded. It is meant to shine a bright light upon the inequities and inequalities and ask the hardest questions of all, the ones about who we are as a people when this kind of dog-eat-dog world can be accepted at all. And, it left me in awe of the human spirit, the thing within a man that makes him survive this kind of life, and enables him to continue to even try in the face of so much adversity.

This is my first encounter with Mr. Burke. I will gladly read more of his works. My library had a shelf of them, and I can imagine tackling them over time...but not too close together, because I need to do a lot of deep-breathing after this.

My thanks to the Southern Literary Trail that continues to expose me to high-caliber Southern writers.
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Absolutely quality atmospheric storytelling, you see sense smell taste everything the characters do, and superb characterisation adds to this outstanding book, and only his second published work. A coming of age tale of Perry Woodson Hatfield James, quite a name and quite a story, authentic with occasional casual graphic violence a grim existence, with appalling living conditions, but storytelling of the highest order.
Totally recommended. ( )

Before this was chosen as a group reading choice I had no idea that [author:James Lee Burke|7031] had written any books that weren't part of his Dave Robicheaux or Hackberry Holland series. It’s one of Burke’s first books, based in the coal towns of Kentucky. Perry James is called home from Job Corps training to the deathbed of his father after mining company thugs set off a bomb at a union meeting. A descendant of both Frank James and Devil Anse Hatfield, Perry is not one to take his father’s killing lying down. What follows is a high-tension tale of revenge and redemption. That this is Burke’s sophomore effort is apparent but it is still worth reading. ( )

James Lee Burke is well known for his Dave Robicheaux books set in (mostly) Louisiana but he has written non-series books and this is one of them. It was written in 1989 but Simon and Schuster, Burke’s publishers, decided to republish it. As I understand it JLB said it was one of his favourite books and S & S decided it deserved to be better known.
Perry James was only fifteen years old, but big for his age, when he started working underground in the Kentucky coal mines. His father had been hurt in a mine cave-in and couldn’t work underground any more. With five younger siblings Perry had no choice but to go to work. Now the miners are on strike and tensions are high. Perry gets caught up in a scheme to blow up a pile of slag called a tipple to scare the bosses. Problem is a man was on the pile when it blew so all the people involved could be convicted of murder. Perry finds out he can get a job with the Job Corps which will educate him, teach him a trade, give him spending money, put money in the bank and also send money home to his family. He gets sent to a camp in North Carolina where, after a few hiccups, he does well. Then comes a letter from his mother saying his father was injured when the schoolhouse where the union was meeting about the strike was blown up. Perry leaves the Job Corps camp and goes home where he is just in time to see his father before he dies. His father begs him not to seek revenge against the men who caused the explosion but Perry is determined to find the three men responsible and kill them. When he finally comes face to face with them he has to find out what kind of man he is.
Burke does a great job of describing the life coal miners and their families endured back in the days before safety laws and good union representation. The mine bosses kept the miners in debt by controlling the stores and the real estate. When the miners were thrown out of work or the mine went on strike they could lose the ability to look after their family and even lose their homes. Making moonshine was one way to add income but the feds were always looking to find the stills and imprison the people operating them. Small wonder that many miners resorted to violence when they were unable to support themselves and their families. ( )

Perry Woodson Hatfield James is age seventeen and is a minor in Harlan County, Kentucky.

At the start of the story he helps three other men set an explosive device that will go off and shut a mine that has been hiring scab workers. The union workers feel that the scabs are taking food off their table and resent them.

With the miners on strike and no work to be found, Perry joins the job corps. He makes mistakes but owns up to them and eventually earns a commendation and is on his way to a successful career.

A letter arrives from home that his father had been badly injured when some men blew up a school house where there was a union meeting being held. By the time Perry gets home, he only has a short time with his father.

Perry vows revenge. Perhaps it's his Harfield blood. We see him take steps to find those responsible for the school house explosion and we hope that he doesn't sacrifice his future.

There is a well plotted conclusion and the book is a very easy and entertaining read.

The story of the economically deprived people and the big business bringing in machines to take the jobs of the minors reminded me of "The Grapes of Wrath." ( )