Redemption

 

Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke is set in the fall of 1863. Much of Louisiana is occupied by the Union Army. The Civil War rages, and bitterness runs high with rampant brutality and property destruction. Slaves still toil and plantation owners still practice cruelty, espousing lofty excuses. Increasing numbers of southerners realize the war’s end won’t deliver peace for the South.

The book is a masterpiece, focusing on a small area between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and a few months of the war while encompassing themes that resonate today. One observer of a battle, a schoolteacher abolitionist from Boston, observes: “I think we may be watching a prelude to our nation’s ultimate fate. Civilization follows the sun. We have scorched our way to the other end of the continent. No matter how much we took, no matter how many living things we killed, there was never enough.” 

Six characters of various backgrounds narrate, and each has reasons for tremendous resentment and distrust. All struggle regret and guilt, having colluded in murder, maiming and entrapment, at times targeting one another.  As one character observes that “the content of your dreams does not take orders, and a stone bruise on the soul can be forever.”

Two are women of color who have suffered horrific abuse. “I have just seen too many women hurt by men,” says Hannah Laveau, a woman searching for an infant son separated from her during a battle. “See they cain’t abide what they are; it’s not who they are, it’s what they are. They are full of hate when they come out of the womb. And if they’re not, it’s taught to them. The only thing valuable in their lives is the belief they are better than us.” 

The six characters eventually expose their vulnerabilities, pain and grief with one another. By the end, forgiveness is the only way forward. Suffering and thoughts of escape via suicide are set aside. “You can become part of the Milky Way just by looking at it," notes the abolitionist. "Do you want to throw that away?”

The misfits in southern society eventually wage battle against a common enemy, discovering that working together is far better than any righteous insistence on a pointless cause based on power and divisions. Rejecting and escaping the South’s rigid class system and ways is the only way to find peace and redemption.    

Of course, many other characters in the book, not to mention the world today, cannot overcome cultural differences and feelings of insecurity and superiority so easily. Burke foreshadows the conclusion by noting in the early pages: “Voltaire had no answer for mankind other than the suggestion that we tend our own gardens and let the lunatics go about their own way.”