Review of Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke:

It is always a great thing to find an author that one really enjoys, especially one who has written a bevy of books. It is a sad thing when you have read them all and then must wait until the author comes out with another. That was the dilemma I found myself in towards the end of 2020. I had read all my favorite author’s novels and had just finished his most recent one. What was I to do now? I posed my problem to Rick Vetsch, my boss at O’Kelly. He suggested I try James Lee Burke. He said, “Burke is probably the most gifted fiction writer in America today.” But that was his opinion. Others had offered recommendations before that had proved fruitless for me. But then I was listening to Bill O’Reilly’s end-of-the-year podcast in which he listed the best five books he had read in 2020. One was the latest by, surprise, surprise, James Lee Burke! O’Reilly went on to echo my boss’ assessment, that Burke is, “the most gifted fiction writer in America today.” Such confirmation was all I needed. Consequently, Burke has become another favorite of mine, and thankfully he has written a bevy of books, Wayfaring Stranger, being the first in his Holland series. Wayfaring Stranger begins with an episode related by the main character, Weldon Avery Holland, that runs like a thread throughout the novel, a chance encounter with the notorious duo from the 1930s, Bonnie and Clyde, as well as giving the background for his tenuous relationship with his grandfather, Hackberry Holland, who is the only real parental figure in his life, his father being absent and his mother mentally unstable. From there the story moves forward to Weldon’s horrific experiences during World War II in which he and his eventual best friend and business partner, Hershel Pine, miraculously pull through, while rescuing his subsequent wife, Rosita Lowenstein, who is a survivor of one of the Nazi extermination camps. All of which is pretty dour stuff, but it sets the scene for what becomes Weldon’s ongoing battle with evil. The question for him, and for all of us, is will he give himself over to it, becoming the very thing that he abhors? Burke has a wonderful way of developing complex characters and the situations in which he places them. Nothing is clear cut. There is always a degree of ambiguity. As the old native American saying goes, there is good and evil in all of us. The one that wins is the one we feed. The truth is at times we feed one. At other times we feed the other. As my beloved Matin Luther concluded, we are all saint and sinner simultaneously. Which will win out in the end for these plaintive souls? Will the denouement of Weldon and Rosita mirror that of Bonnie and Clyde? In Wayfaring Stranger James Lee keeps us guessing until the very end, leaving us with a host of questions. Thankfully, he does not leave us hanging. He adds his customary Epilogue. Reviewed by Richard Dick, Library Assistant, O’Kelly Memorial Library