Katrina Recalled

I haven't read any of James Lee Burke's books, yet. But I might take a look at his latest - The Tin Roof Blowdown, which is set in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina batters into the city.

On BBC Radio 4 this morning, Burke described Katrina as

"the worst scandal in American history....people drowned for three days while the most powerful men in this country were fishing." "There is no mystery to the human personality. Forget Freudian analysis, people are either what they do or what they don't do."

Burke's books reflect his native Louisiana,littered with corruption and
organised crime and set in its fevered climate and swamps. The state, he says, is a gift from God for a writer because the American past is replicated there as a microcosm.

"Look for the larger story in the smaller. Study one grain of sand to discover the nature of the coastline."