Jesus Out to Sea

(Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 291 pages)

by James Lee Burke WHEN a tragedy as monstrous as Hurricane Katrina befalls us, journalism can tell us what happened, and occasionally it can even explain why. But it cannot take us to that quiet place where spirit goes to heal.For that, we need art. Katrina has inspired a fair amount of it — some good, most not. Thankfully, there are two special works we can cling to, and if we’re lucky, they just might be enough.

One is Levee Prayer<$>, an elegy by bluesman Jimmy Thackery. The other is Jesus Out tea<$>, the signature piece in a new short story collection by James Lee Burke, a writer better known for hard-boiled detective novels.

Both are simple, personal, spiritual and hauntingly beautiful, and they are best experienced together. First read Burke’s story; then pop Thackery’s In the Natural State album in the CD player and skip to the fourth cut. Afterwards, you’ll want to sit quietly with your own thoughts for a while.

Thackery helps us grasp the magnitude of the tragedy through the wail of a solitary man:

“Got my right hand on the good book,

and my left hand on my gun.

When I call out, nobody answers,

and I don’t know which way to run.”

For solace, he turns to Jesus, asking only, “let me see just one more day”.

Burke helps us come to terms with the incomprehensible abandonment of victims by asking us to share a roof with two junkie musicians.

Despite the horrors they see all about them — the bloated body of a priest, a dead baby in a tree — they peacefully reminisce about good times in their once-beautiful city.

“You woke in the morning to the smell of gardenias, the electric smell of the streetcars, chicory coffee, and stone that turned green with lichen. The light was always filtered through the trees, so it was never harsh, and the flowers bloomed year-round. New Orleans was a poem, man, a song in your heart that never died.”

As the water rises and the house buckles beneath them, each prays in his own way for the help that will not come.

The story is one of two about Katrina in this collection of 11 short pieces written by Burke over the last decade. Most touch on his usual theme: the courage of ordinary people in the face of evil.

Each piece is a gem, but one worth singling ois Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine, about two kids who enlist the famous mobster in their struggle against a neighbourhood bully.

The book represents the author at his best, the images lush, the emotions wrenching, the prose lyrical.

Meanwhile, Burke is not done with Katrina. The Tin Roof Blowdown, a crime novel that will be published in July, unfolds in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm.