On its surface, life in 1950s Houston is as you’d expect: stoic fathers, restless teens, drive-in movies, and souped-up Cadillacs. But underneath that surface lies a world shifting under high school junior Aaron Holland Broussard’s feet. The underlying class war between the haves and have nots is growing steadily, along with the menace of conflict overseas in Korea, providing a harrowing backdrop to his growth to manhood. But when Aaron spots the beautiful Valerie Epstein at a drive-in, he steps in when he sees her fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson. Aaron’s newfound confidence helps catch Valerie’s eye, and the two begin dating. Grady is a live wire though, and presents a looming problem for Aaron.
You will recall the feelings and inspirational power of your first love, and empathize with Aaron’s extraordinary challenges to protect himself and the ones he loves in “this dark, atmospheric story” (Publishers Weekly). The Jealous Kind illustrates how first loves, friendship, violence, and power can alter what traditional America means for the people trying to find their way in a changing world.
On its surface, life in 1950s Houston is as you’d expect: stoic fathers, restless teens, drive-in movies, and souped-up Cadillacs. But underneath that surface lies a world shifting under high school junior Aaron Holland Broussard’s feet. The underlying class war between the haves and have nots is growing steadily, along with the menace of conflict overseas in Korea, providing a harrowing backdrop to his growth to manhood. But when Aaron spots the beautiful Valerie Epstein at a drive-in, he steps in when he sees her fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson. Aaron’s newfound confidence helps catch Valerie’s eye, and the two begin dating. Grady is a live wire though, and presents a looming problem for Aaron.
You will recall the feelings and inspirational power of your first love, and empathize with Aaron’s extraordinary challenges to protect himself and the ones he loves in “this dark, atmospheric story” (Publishers Weekly). The Jealous Kind illustrates how first loves, friendship, violence, and power can alter what traditional America means for the people trying to find their way in a changing world.
The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Series)
The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Series)
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Overview
On its surface, life in 1950s Houston is as you’d expect: stoic fathers, restless teens, drive-in movies, and souped-up Cadillacs. But underneath that surface lies a world shifting under high school junior Aaron Holland Broussard’s feet. The underlying class war between the haves and have nots is growing steadily, along with the menace of conflict overseas in Korea, providing a harrowing backdrop to his growth to manhood. But when Aaron spots the beautiful Valerie Epstein at a drive-in, he steps in when he sees her fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson. Aaron’s newfound confidence helps catch Valerie’s eye, and the two begin dating. Grady is a live wire though, and presents a looming problem for Aaron.
You will recall the feelings and inspirational power of your first love, and empathize with Aaron’s extraordinary challenges to protect himself and the ones he loves in “this dark, atmospheric story” (Publishers Weekly). The Jealous Kind illustrates how first loves, friendship, violence, and power can alter what traditional America means for the people trying to find their way in a changing world.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781508234852 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster Audio |
| Publication date: | 08/29/2017 |
| Series: | Holland Family Series , #11 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Will Patton’s film credits include Halloween, Boarding School, Megan Leavey, American Honey, Meek’s Cutoff, A Mighty Heart, Remember the Titans, The Mothman Prophecies, Armageddon, and No Way Out. He starred in Swamp Thing on the DC Universe streaming platform and was seen in five seasons of the TNT series Falling Skies. He has won Obie Awards for his performances in Fool for Love and What Did He See? He is also known for his audiobook recordings of the work of Stephen King, James Lee Burke, Denis Johnson, and William Faulkner.
Hometown:
New Iberia, Louisiana and Missoula, MontanaDate of Birth:
December 5, 1936Place of Birth:
Houston, TexasEducation:
B.A., University of Missouri, 1959; M.A., University of Missouri, 1960Website:
http://www.jamesleeburke.com/Read an Excerpt
The Jealous Kind
THERE WAS A time in my life when I woke every morning with fear and anxiety and did not know why. For me, fear was a given I factored into the events of the day, like a pebble that never leaves your shoe. In retrospect, an adult might call that a form of courage. If so, it wasn’t much fun.My tale begins on a Saturday at the close of spring term of my junior year in 1952, when my father let me use his car to join my high school buds on Galveston Beach, fifty miles south of Houston. Actually, the car was not his; it was lent to him by his company for business use, with the understanding that only he would drive it. That he would lend it to me was an act of enormous trust. My friends and I had a fine day playing touch football on the sand, and as they built a bonfire toward evening, I decided to swim out to the third sandbar south of the island, the last place your feet could still touch bottom. It was not only deep and cold, it was also hammerhead country. I had never done this by myself, and even when I once swam to the third sandbar with a group, most of us had been drunk.
I waded through the breakers, then inhaled deeply and dove into the first swell and kept stroking through the waves, crossing the first sandbar and then the second, never resting, turning my face sideways to breathe, until I saw the last sandbar, waves undulating across its crest, gulls dipping into the froth.
I stood erect, my back tingling with sunburn. The only sounds were the gulls and the water slapping against my loins. I could see a freighter towing a scow, then they both disappeared beyond the horizon. I dove headlong into a wave and saw the sandy bottom drop away into darkness. The water was suddenly frigid, the waves sliding over me as heavy as concrete. The hotels and palm trees and the amusement pier on the beach had become miniaturized. A triangular-shaped fin sliced through the swell and disappeared beneath a wave, a solitary string of bubbles curling behind it.
Then I felt my heart seize, and not because of a shark. I was surrounded by jellyfish, big ones with bluish-pink air sacs and gossamer tentacles that could wrap around your neck or thighs like swarms of wet yellow jackets.
My experience with the jellyfish seemed to characterize my life. No matter how sun-spangled the day might seem, I always felt a sense of danger. It wasn’t imaginary, either. The guttural roar of Hollywood mufflers on a souped-up Ford coupe, a careless glance at the guys in ducktail haircuts and suede stomps and pegged pants called drapes, and in seconds you could be pounded into pulp. Ever watch a television portrayal of the fifties? What a laugh.
A psychiatrist would probably say my fears were an externalization of my problems at home. Maybe he would be right, although I have always wondered how many psychiatrists have gone up against five or six guys who carried chains and switchblades and barber razors, and didn’t care if they lived or died, and ate their pain like ice cream. Or maybe I saw the world through a glass darkly and the real problem was me. The point is, I was always scared. Just like swimming through the jellyfish. Contact with just one of them was like touching an electric cable. My fear was so great I was urinating inside my swim trunks, the warmth draining along my thighs. Even after I had escaped the jellyfish and rejoined my high school chums by a bonfire, sparks twisting into a turquoise sky, a bottle of cold Jax in my hand, I could not rid myself of the abiding sense of terror that rested like hot coals in the pit of my stomach.
I never discussed my home life with my friends. My mother consulted fortune-tellers, listened in on the party line, and was always giving me enemas when I was a child. She locked doors and pulled down window shades and inveighed against alcohol and the effect it had on my father. Theatricality and depression and genuine sorrow seemed her constant companions. Sometimes I would see the cautionary look in the eyes of our neighbors when my parents were mentioned in a conversation, as though they needed to protect me from learning about my own home. In moments like these I’d feel shame and guilt and anger and not know why. I’d sit in my bedroom, wanting to hold something that was heavy and hard in my palm, I didn’t know what. My uncle Cody was a business partner of Frankie Carbo of Murder, Inc. My uncle introduced me to Bugsy Siegel when he was staying at the Shamrock Hotel with Virginia Hill. Sometimes I would think about these gangsters and the confidence in their expression and the deadness in their eyes when they gazed at someone they didn’t like, and I’d wonder what it would be like if I could step inside their skin and possess their power.
The day I swam through the jellyfish without being stung was the day that changed my life forever. I was about to enter a country that had no flag or boundaries, a place where you gave up your cares and your cautionary instincts and deposited your heart on a stone altar. I’m talking about the first time you fall joyously, sick-down-in-your-soul in love, and the prospect of heartbreak never crosses your mind.
Her name was Valerie Epstein. She was sitting in a long-bodied pink Cadillac convertible, what we used to call a boat, in a drive-in restaurant wrapped in neon, near the beach, her bare shoulders powdered with sunburn. Her hair wasn’t just auburn; it was thick and freshly washed and had gold streaks in it, and she had tied it up on her head with a bandana, like one of the women who worked in defense plants during the war. She was eating french fries one at a time with her fingers and listening to a guy sitting behind the steering wheel like a tall drink of water. His hair was lightly oiled and sun-bleached, his skin pale and free of tattoos. He wore shades, even though the sun was molten and low in the sky, the day starting to cool. With his left hand he kept working a quarter across the tops of his fingers, like a Las Vegas gambler or a guy with secret skills. His name was Grady Harrelson. He was two years older than I and had already graduated, which meant I knew who he was but he didn’t know who I was. Grady had wide, thin shoulders, like a basketball player, and wore a faded purple T-shirt that on him somehow looked stylish. He had been voted the most handsome boy in the school not once but twice. A guy like me had no trouble hating a guy like Grady.
I don’t know why I got out of my car. I was tired, and my back felt stiff and dry and peppered with salt and sand under my shirt, and I had to drive fifty miles back to Houston and return the car to my father before dark. The evening star was already winking inside a blue band of light on the horizon. I had seen Valerie Epstein twice from a distance but never up close. Maybe the fact that I’d swum safely through a school of jellyfish was an omen. Valerie Epstein was a junior at Reagan High School, on the north side of Houston, and known for her smile and singing voice and straight A’s. Even the greaseballs who carried chains under their car seats and stilettos in their drapes treated her as royalty.
Get back in the car and finish your crab burger and go home, a voice said.
For me, low self-esteem was not a step down but a step up. I was alone, yet I didn’t want to go home. It was Saturday, and I knew that before dark my father would walk unsteadily back from the icehouse, the neighbors looking the other way while they watered their yards. I had friends, but most of them didn’t know the real me, nor in reality did I know them. I lived in an envelope of time and space that I wanted to mail to another planet.
I headed for the restroom, on a path between the passenger side of the convertible and a silver-painted metal stanchion with a speaker on it that was playing “Red Sails in the Sunset.” Then I realized Valerie Epstein was having an argument with Grady and on the brink of crying.
“Anything wrong?” I said.
Grady turned around, his neck stretching, his eyelids fluttering. “Say again?”
“I thought maybe something was wrong and y’all needed help.”
“Get lost, snarf.”
“What’s a snarf?”
“Are you deaf?”
“I just want to know what a snarf is.”
“A guy who gets off on sniffing girls’ bicycle seats. Now beat it.”
The music speaker went silent. My ears were popping. I could see people’s lips moving in the other cars, but I couldn’t hear any sound. Then I said, “I don’t feel like it.”
“I don’t think I heard you right.”
“It’s a free country.”
“Not for nosy frumps, it isn’t.”
“Leave him alone, Grady,” Valerie said.
“What’s a frump?” I said.
“A guy who farts in the bathtub and bites the bubbles. Somebody put you up to this?”
“I was going to the restroom.”
“Then go.”
This time I didn’t reply. Somebody, probably one of Grady’s friends, flicked a hot cigarette at my back. Grady opened his car door so he could turn around and speak without getting a crick in his neck. “What’s your name, pencil dick?”
“Aaron Holland Broussard.”
“I’m about to walk you into the restroom and unscrew your head and stuff it in the commode, Aaron Holland Broussard. Then I’m going to piss on it before I flush. What do you think of that?”
The popping sound in my ears started again. The parking lot and the canvas canopy above the cars seemed to tilt sideways; the red and yellow neon on the restaurant became a blur, like licorice melting, running down the windows.
“Nothing to say?” Grady asked.
“A girl told me the only reason you won ‘most handsome’ is that all the girls thought you were queer-bait and felt sorry for you. Some of the jocks told me the same thing. They said you used to chug pole under the seats at the football stadium.”
I didn’t know where the words came from. I felt like the wiring between my thoughts and my words had been severed. Cracking wise to an older guy just didn’t happen at my high school, particularly if the older guy lived in River Oaks and his father owned six rice mills and an independent drilling company. But something even more horrible was occurring as I stood next to Grady’s convertible. I was looking into the eyes of Valerie Epstein as though hypnotized. They were the most beautiful and mysterious eyes I had ever seen; they were deep-set, luminous, the color of violets. They were also doing something to me I didn’t think possible: In the middle of the drive-in, my twanger had gone on autopilot. I put my hand in my pocket and tried to knock down the tent forming in my fly.
“You got a boner?” Grady said, incredulous.
“It’s my car keys. They punched a hole in my pocket.”
“Right,” he said, his face contorting with laughter. “Hey, everybody, dig this guy! He’s flying the flag. Anyone got a camera? When’s the last time you got your ashes hauled, Snarfus?”
My face was burning. I felt I was in one of those dreams in which you wet your pants at the front of the classroom. Then Valerie Epstein did something I would never be able to repay her for, short of opening my veins. She flung her carton of french fries, ketchup and all, into Grady’s face. At first he was too stunned to believe what she had done; he began picking fries from his skin and shirt like bloody leeches and flicking them on the asphalt. “I’m letting this pass. You’re not yourself. Settle down. You want me to apologize to this kid? Hey, buddy, I’m sorry. Yeah, you, fuckface. Here, you want some fries? I’ll stick a couple up your nose.”
She got out of the car and slammed the door. “You’re pathetic,” she said, jerking a graduation ring and its chain from her neck, hurling it on the convertible seat. “Don’t call. Don’t come by the house. Don’t write. Don’t send your friends to make excuses for you, either.”
“Come on, Val. We’re a team,” he said, wiping his face with a paper napkin. “You want another Coke?”
“It’s over, Grady. You can’t help what you are. You’re selfish and dishonest and disrespectful and cruel. In my stupidity, I thought I could change you.”
“We’ll work this out. I promise.”
She wiped her eyes and didn’t answer. Her face was calm now, even though her breath was still catching, as though she had hiccups.
“Don’t do this to me, Val,” he said. “I love you. Get real. Are you going to let a dork like this break us up?”
“Goodbye, Grady.”
“How you going to get home?” he said.
“You don’t have to worry about it.”
“I’m not going to leave you on the street. Now get in. You’re starting to make me mad.”
“What a tragedy for the planet that would be,” she said. “You know what my father said of you? ‘Grady’s not a bad kid. He’s simply incapable of being a good one.’”
“Come back. Please.”
“I hope you have a great life,” she said. “Even though the memory of kissing you makes me want to rinse my mouth with peroxide.”
Then she walked away, like Helen of Troy turning her back on Attica. A gust of warm wind blew newspapers along the boulevard into the sky. The light was orange and bleeding out of the clouds in the west, the horizon darkening, the waves crashing on the beach just the other side of Seawall Boulevard, the palm trees rattling dryly in the wind. I could smell the salt and the seaweed and the tiny shellfish that had dried on the beach, like the smell of birth. I watched Valerie walk through the cars to the boulevard, her beach bag swinging from her shoulder and bouncing on her butt. Grady was standing next to me, breathing hard, his gaze locked on Valerie, just as mine was, except there was an irrevocable sense of loss in his eyes that made me think of a groundswell, the kind you see rising from the depths when a storm is about to surge inland.
“Sorry this happened to y’all,” I said.
“We’re in public, so I can’t do what I’m thinking. But you’d better find a rat hole and crawl in it,” he said.
“Blaming others won’t help your situation,” I said.
He wiped a streak of ketchup off his cheek. “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”
Reading Group Guide
This reading group guide for The Jealous Kind includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author James Lee Burke. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
In 1952, Houston, Texas, is as much a city of souped-up pink convertibles and Friday-night ice cream dates as it is a backdrop for violent class warfare and horrendous crime. As seventeen-year-old Aaron Holland Broussard discovers, offending the wrong person—in this case, Grady Harrelson, the son of one of Houston’s wealthiest men—can have deadly consequences. When Aaron gets between Grady and his girlfriend, the beautiful Valerie Epstein, he sets off a chain of events involving the darkest elements of Houston’s criminal underworld—a trajectory that tests his courage, honor, and capacity for violence.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. How does Burke’s portrayal of postwar Houston challenge or complement your preconceived notions about this time period?
2. In the opening scene of The Jealous Kind, Burke writes, “My experience with the jellyfish seemed to characterize my life. No matter how sun-spangled the day might seem, I always felt a sense of danger.” How does this statement set the stage for the rest of the novel?
3. While Aaron’s entrée into Houston’s criminal underworld is inadvertent, he doesn’t shy away from conflict with Grady and Vick Atlas; in fact, at times he dives headlong into the tension. Do you find Aaron sympathetic? What would you do if you were in his shoes?
4. The Jealous Kind takes place in the long shadow of both World Wars and in the midst of the Korean War. Discuss the legacy of wartime violence in the novel, and how the heroic tales of an older generation of veterans impact Aaron and his peers.
5. The fathers of Aaron, Saber, Valerie, and Grady all loom large in their respective lives. Compare and contrast how each of these characters are defined, inhibited, or inspired by their fathers.
6. What is the significance of Aaron’s “spells”? Do you think his memory loss makes him an unreliable narrator? Why or why not?
7. Discuss Burke’s portrayal of class conflict in The Jealous Kind. How are the characters defined by their socioeconomic status? What unlikely alliances bridge differences of class, religion, and race?
8. As two of the most important people in his life, Saber and Valerie exert a certain influence over Aaron’s decision-making; however, they don’t always see eye to eye. How do Aaron’s loyalties shift over the course of the novel? Do you agree with his treatment of Saber, in particular?
9. Aaron’s coming-of-age as a friend, lover, and son is at the heart of The Jealous Kind. How does Aaron evolve over the course of the novel? What major plot points shape his character development?
10. Aaron narrates the novel from an undefined moment in the future. How did his retrospective commentary impact your reading of the novel? Why do you think Burke chose to frame the narrative in this way?
11. The Jealous Kind features a vibrant cast of secondary characters, from the seductive and damaged Cisco Napolitano to scrappy Saber Bledsoe. Which character was your favorite, and why?
12. On p. 90, Valerie tells Aaron, “Some people are the jealous kind. . . . They don’t love themselves, so they can’t love or trust anyone else. There’s no way to fix them.” In light of this statement, what do you think is the significance of the novel’s title? Which characters are “the jealous kind”?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Read another novel in the Holland family series (http://jamesleeburke.com/books/holland-family-stories/) for your next book club meeting. How does this novel complement The Jealous Kind? Which did you prefer?
2. Look up the Houston neighborhoods mentioned in the novel and conduct a virtual tour via Google Maps. How does present-day Houston compare with Burke’s rendering in The Jealous Kind?
3. Cast your film version of The Jealous Kind. Which actors would you want to play the main characters, and why?
4. Learn more about James Lee Burke by visiting his website (www.jamesleeburke.com) or following him on Twitter (@JamesLeeBurke).
A Conversation with James Lee Burke
What was your inspiration for The Jealous Kind?
I wanted to write a book that I believed was an accurate portrayal of the 1950s. I believe most of the books written and the films made about that seminal decade are fictions.
As a Houston native, did you draw on aspects of your own life to write this novel?
The characters and events in a story have their inception in the unconscious. Art is a different kind of reality and in many ways is more truthful than factual reality. Aaron Holland Broussard is one of my favorite protagonists. He’s an emblematic figure rather than a biographical one, as are the other players in the story.
Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? Does it vary from novel to novel, and has it evolved over time?
My writing habits have never changed. I start in the morning, work into the afternoon, rest for a bit, and work some more. I also work in the middle of the night. I do this seven days a week until the book is finished. I can write a book this way in about one year.
While you’re best known as a novelist, you’ve worked in a number of different industries over the years. Has your diverse work experience shaped your writing, if at all?
Yes, I learned a great deal in the oil fields of the Deep South and also as a case worker in Los Angeles. I also learned a great deal about how the poor are exploited.
If you could choose one message or lesson for readers to take away from The Jealous Kind, what would it be?
Love is eternal. So is courage. And sometimes we find both virtues in unexpected sources.
Which character in The Jealous Kind was the most challenging to write? Which came the most easily?
The characters all seemed like old friends. Each took on his own face. This was a novel that seemed to write itself. During its progress I felt more like a spectator than a creator.
Historical context plays an integral role in The Jealous Kind. How much do you think Aaron is a product of his time and place? What aspects of his character are universal?
Aaron, like many of my protagonists, is the everyman of the medieval plays. He’s decent and good and feels unloved and alone until he finds the love of his life, Valerie Epstein. The story may seem historical, but actually it is not. The 1950s were an emanation of the 1920s, and the latter was the more American decade of our history. History doesn’t repeat itself; it is a continuation of itself. Super nation arrived a century ago. We’ve simply replaced the original cast.
When you write, do you picture a particular kind of reader? Do you write for a certain audience, or does an imagined reader not play a role in your writing process?
I think every good writer addresses himself to what is best in people. That way he is seldom disappointed by the reception of his work. Readers of books are loyal, decent, intelligent, and enjoyable to be with. Could one have a better constituency?
Who are your biggest literary influences?
John Neidhardt was my first creative writing teacher. I also had a creative writing teacher named William Hamlin, an admirable man to whom I owe a tremendous debt, although he was not a writer. The writers whom I read the most were Hemingway, Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, James T. Farrell, Thomas Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Somerset Maugham, Flannery O’Connor, and Tennessee Williams. I was also heavily influenced stylistically by the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
When planning your next novel, how do you decide which series, if any, you will work on?
I never plan a novel and never where it is going and never see more than two scenes into its development. When I finish a novel I sometimes have no memory of scenes I have written. This is the case with almost everything I have written.
What are you working on next?
I just finished copyediting the galleys of The Jealous Kind and have no idea what my next project will be.