You can't depend on a beginning, you can't depend on an end
April 18, 2016
Anthony Rainone: But let's talk about The Lost Get Back Boogie, which I think was rejected -- what, 110 times? What was that whole ordeal like? How did you cope with it day in and day out?
James Lee Burke: By the time I was 34, I had published three novels in hardback in New York, and had a fair amount of success, and I was a Bread Loaf Fellow. I thought I was on board. With The Lost Get Back Boogie, I assumed it would be published. But, boy, I went 13 years before I was back in hardback again. And the agency that was handling my works sent everything back. They cut bait. It was pretty depressing.
With The Neon Rain, my first Dave Robicheaux mystery. I'd been out of hardback print for a long time, nearly 13 years. A friend of mine named Rick DeMarinis said, "Why don't you try a crime novel?" I thought about it, and three days later Pearl and I were in San Fran, right down by Ferlinghetti's bookstore City Lights. I bought a yellow legal pad and walked down to this Italian café that's right across from the Catholic Church there on the boulevard. I ordered an espresso, and I sat down and started writing the first chapter of The Neon Rain. That's a fact.
As soon as I started writing, I knew it. I knew it when it started.
James Lee Burke: By the time I was 34, I had published three novels in hardback in New York, and had a fair amount of success, and I was a Bread Loaf Fellow. I thought I was on board. With The Lost Get Back Boogie, I assumed it would be published. But, boy, I went 13 years before I was back in hardback again. And the agency that was handling my works sent everything back. They cut bait. It was pretty depressing.
-- James Lee Burke profiled by Anthony Rainone for January magazine, October 2004.
With The Neon Rain, my first Dave Robicheaux mystery. I'd been out of hardback print for a long time, nearly 13 years. A friend of mine named Rick DeMarinis said, "Why don't you try a crime novel?" I thought about it, and three days later Pearl and I were in San Fran, right down by Ferlinghetti's bookstore City Lights. I bought a yellow legal pad and walked down to this Italian café that's right across from the Catholic Church there on the boulevard. I ordered an espresso, and I sat down and started writing the first chapter of The Neon Rain. That's a fact.
As soon as I started writing, I knew it. I knew it when it started.
-- James Lee Burke to David Langness of Paste, November 18, 2014