The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read – it is part of that compilation you see on the internet – although on The Greatest Books of All Time site, it is only 9440th, which may provoke a reader to wonder how do they come up with these contradictory assessments, the answer must be it is a question of taste and ‘de gustibus non disputandum est’ – I liked this, if I did not find it dazzling. You could read out of more than five thousand reviews of books from the aforementioned and other web pages, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other compilations on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html perhaps you have opinions to share

 

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read – it is part of that compilation you see on the internet – although on The Greatest Books of All Time site, it is only 9440^th, which may provoke a reader to wonder how do they come up with these contradictory assessments, the answer must be it is a question of taste and ‘de gustibus non disputandum est’ – I liked this, if I did not find it dazzling. You could read out of more than five thousand reviews of books from the aforementioned and other web pages, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other compilations on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html perhaps you have opinions to share

 

 

9 out of 10

 

The Tin Roof Blowdown is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, at least you find it on that list, together with Neon Rain https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/11/neon-rain-by-james-lee-burke-is-alleged.html James Lee Burke is the author and he has not become one of my all-time favorites, but he has my respect

 

The background for The Blowdown is the devastation brought on by Hurricane Katrina, and the novelist is very clear and vehement in his condemnation of the politicians who stood by and did almost nothing to help the victims, New Orleans had become like Baghdad, patients were abandoned to die in hospitals and it all looked like Armageddon

Indeed, it may seem, if not futile, then much less significant to pay attention to the pain suffered by individuals – I met Dave Robicheaux in Neon Rain: “he was once an officer for the New Orleans Police Department and before that a U.S. Army infantry lieutenant who fought in the Vietnam War, now works as sheriff's deputy in New Iberia, Louisiana”

 

Young black looters enter the house of a gangster, and two of them are shot and killed, the deputy sheriff investigates and the suspect seems to be the man living across the street – his daughter had been raped, and it looks as if the three have been responsible, except one of them, the dead teenager has a clean record

Bertrand Melancon survives the robbery, while his brother Eddy dies, only the mafiosi would be looking to recuperate their ‘blood diamonds’ and all else that the unfortunate criminals had taken…the blood diamonds come from Africa, they have this name because people had been murdered, tortured for them and more will suffer

 

Outsiders are brought in to find the loot, creatures without scruples, one is a ‘specialist in interrogation’, which means he uses torture, some have been with the mob, others had been discharged from the army because of their cruelty, acts committed; one of these villains is also a sexual predator, actually, they may all be

He abuses the daughter of the main character, and she kicks him in his teeth and a game of cat and mouse ensues: this creep sends his partner into their house, and this one breaks the computer, destroys the book the girl is working on (fortunately, she has back up), printer and other things are smashed and he urinates over them

 

What is enticing is the fact that James Lee Burke has this sincere, intelligent, creative and captivating insight, he says something like ‘you never know what a psychopath thinks, psychiatrists try to put themselves in their place and they get sick in the process, but the mind of the psychopath remains a mystery’

Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-pursuit-of-perfect-by-tal-ben-shahar.html invited his students to accept their feelings: “those do not feel are either dead or psychopaths’ 

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’