White Doves at Morning: A NovelFor years, critics have acclaimed the power of James Lee Burke's writing, the luminosity of his prose, the psychological complexity of his characters, the richness of his landscapes. Over the course of twenty novels and one collection of short stories, he has developed a loyal and dedicated following among both critics and general readers. His thrillers, featuring either Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux or Billy Bob Holland, a hardened Texas-based lawyer, have consistently appeared on national bestseller lists, making Burke one of America's most celebrated authors of crime fiction. Now, in a startling and brilliantly successful departure, Burke has written a historical novel -- an epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the novel are James Lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willie Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite their personal and political conflicts with the issues of the time, both men join the Confederate Army, choosing to face ordeal by fire, yet determined not to back down in their commitment to their moral beliefs, to their friends, and to the abolitionist woman with whom both have become infatuated. One of the most compelling characters in the story, and the catalyst for much of its drama, is Flower Jamison, a beautiful young black slave befriended, at great risk to himself, by Willie and owned by -- and fathered by, although he will not admit it -- Ira Jamison. Owner of Angola Plantation, Ira Jamison is a true son of the Old South and also a ruthless businessman, who, after the war, returns to the plantation and re-energizes it by transforming it into a penal colony, which houses prisoners he rents out as laborers to replace the slaves who have been emancipated. Against all local law and customs, Flower learns from Willie to read and write, and receives the help and protection of Abigail Dowling, a Massachusetts abolitionist who had come south several years prior to help fight yellow fever and never left, and who has attracted the eye of both Willie and Robert Perry. These love affairs are not only fraught with danger, but compromised by the great and grim events of the Civil War and its aftermath. As in all of Burke's writings, White Doves at Morning is full of wonderful, colorful, unforgettable villains. Some, like Clay Hatcher, are pure "white trash" (considered the lowest of the low, they were despised by the white ruling class and feared by former slaves). From their ranks came the most notorious of the vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Knights of the White Camellia. Most villainous of all, though, are the petty and mean-minded Todd McCain, owner of New Iberia's hardware store, and the diabolically evil Rufus Atkins, former overseer of Angola Plantation and the man Jamison has placed in charge of his convict labor crews. Rounding out this unforgettable cast of characters are Carrie LaRose, madam of New Iberia's house of ill repute, and her ship's-captain brother Jean-Jacques LaRose, Cajuns who assist Flower and Abigail in their struggle to help the blacks of the town. With battle scenes at Shiloh and in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia that no reader will ever forget, and set in a time of upheaval that affected all men and all women at all levels of society, White Doves at Morning is an epic worthy of America's most tragic conflict, as well as a book of substance, importance, and genuine originality, one that will undoubtedly come to be regarded as a masterpiece of historical fiction. |
From inside the book
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Page 2
... inside the redness behind her eyelids, a powerful little brown boy with liquid eyes and a mouth that would seek both milk and power from his mother's breast. She caught the baby in her palms and sawed the cord in half with a stone and ...
... inside the redness behind her eyelids, a powerful little brown boy with liquid eyes and a mouth that would seek both milk and power from his mother's breast. She caught the baby in her palms and sawed the cord in half with a stone and ...
Page 3
... inside her told her she would never outrun them. Learn from critters, her mother had always said. They know God's way. Don't never ax Master or his family or the mens he hire to tell you the troot. Whatever they teach us is wrong, girl ...
... inside her told her she would never outrun them. Learn from critters, her mother had always said. They know God's way. Don't never ax Master or his family or the mens he hire to tell you the troot. Whatever they teach us is wrong, girl ...
Page 4
... inside the bottom of the deerhide handle. “She done dropped it, huh?” he said. “That's keenly observant of you, Clay, seeing as how the woman's belly is flat as a busted pig's bladder,” Rufus Atkins replied. “Marse Jamison says find ...
... inside the bottom of the deerhide handle. “She done dropped it, huh?” he said. “That's keenly observant of you, Clay, seeing as how the woman's belly is flat as a busted pig's bladder,” Rufus Atkins replied. “Marse Jamison says find ...
Page 7
... inside her shirt like swollen eggplants walked along the banks of the slough until late afternoon. The sun was warm now, the trees filled with a smoky yellow light, as though the ice storm had never passed through Ira Jamison's ...
... inside her shirt like swollen eggplants walked along the banks of the slough until late afternoon. The sun was warm now, the trees filled with a smoky yellow light, as though the ice storm had never passed through Ira Jamison's ...
Page 13
... inside, then a paint-skinned, two-story frame house with a sagging gallery that served as New Iberia's only bordello. The owner, Carrie LaRose, who some said had been in prison in the West Indies or France, had added a tent in the side ...
... inside, then a paint-skinned, two-story frame house with a sagging gallery that served as New Iberia's only bordello. The owner, Carrie LaRose, who some said had been in prison in the West Indies or France, had added a tent in the side ...
Contents
1 | |
8 | |
20 | |
32 | |
Chapter Five | 42 |
Chapter Six | 60 |
Chapter Seven | 67 |
Chapter Eight | 84 |
Chapter Sixteen | 167 |
Chapter Seventeen | 174 |
Chapter Eighteen | 185 |
Chapter Nineteen | 194 |
Chapter Twenty | 202 |
Chapter TwentyOne | 219 |
Chapter TwentyTwo | 229 |
Chapter TwentyThree | 239 |
Chapter Nine | 92 |
Chapter Ten | 103 |
Chapter Eleven | 117 |
Chapter Twelve | 128 |
Chapter Thirteen | 140 |
Chapter Fourteen | 146 |
Chapter Fifteen | 156 |
Chapter TwentyFour | 249 |
Chapter TwentyFive | 265 |
Chapter TwentySix | 275 |
Chapter TwentySeven | 284 |
Chapter TwentyEight | 297 |
Epilogue | 303 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abigail Dowling ain’t Angola arms Baton Rouge bayou Bayou Teche breath butternut Camellia chest Clay Hatcher clothes Colonel Confederate coulee cypress dark dead didn’t dirt door ears eyes face father feet fellow felt fingers fire Flower front gallery gonna gray hair hand HAPTER head heard horse Iberia inside Ira Jamison Ira’s Jarrette Jean-Jacques Jim’s kepi live oak looked Louisiana man’s Martinville McCain minié balls Miss Abby Miss Abigail morning mother mouth Negro never nigger night Orleans paddy rollers pants plantation pulled rain Red River parishes rifle river road Robert Perry Rufus Atkins saloon sergeant shirt shoulder side skin slaves smell smoke soldiers stared stood street tell There’s thought throat Tige trees turned Uncle Royal wagon walked watched What’s Willie asked Willie Burke Willie replied Willie’s wind window woman wood y’all Yankee yard you’re
Popular passages
Page 48 - not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.
Page 47 - 'Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ,'
Page 85 - from the crowns of their heads to the soles of their feet,
Page 88 - she felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life. She
Page 16 - sit down? I'm getting a crick in my neck looking up at you,
Page 258 - in her eyes that made him want to reach out and touch her.
Page 303 - 1905 she became a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World,