
House of the Rising Sun
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $22.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Will Patton
-
By:
-
James Lee Burke
About this listen
Includes an exclusive interview with James Lee Burke!
New York Times best seller James Lee Burke returns with his latest masterpiece, the story of a father and son separated by war and circumstance - and whose encounter with the legendary Holy Grail will change their lives forever.
From its opening scene in revolutionary Mexico to the Battle of the Marne in 1918, and on to the bordellos and saloons of San Antonio during the reign of the Hole in the Wall Gang, House of the Rising Sun is an epic tale of love, loss, betrayal, vengeance, and retribution that follows Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland on his journey to reunite with his estranged son, Ishmael, a captain in the United States Army.
After a violent encounter that leaves four Mexican soldiers dead, Hackberry escapes the country in possession of a stolen artifact, earning the ire of a bloodthirsty Austrian arms dealer who then places Hack's son, Ishmael, squarely in the crosshairs of a plot to recapture his prize, believed to be the mythic cup of Christ.
Along the way, we meet three extraordinary women: Ruby Dansen, the Danish immigrant who is Ishmael's mother and Hackberry's one true love; Beatrice DeMolay, a brothel madam descended from the crusader knight who brought the shroud of Turin back from the Holy Land; and Maggie Bassett, one-time lover of the Sundance Kid, whose wiles rival those of Lady Macbeth. In her own way, each woman will aid Hackberry in his quest to reconcile with Ishmael, to vanquish their enemies, and to return the Grail to its rightful place.
House of the Rising Sun is James Lee Burke's finest novel to date and a thrilling entry into the Holland family saga that continued most recently with Wayfaring Stranger, which the New York Times Book Review described as "saturated with the romance of the past while mournfully attuned to the unholy menace of the present".
©2015 James Lee Burke (P)2015 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Flags on the Bayou
- A Novel
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Michael Crouch, Dana Gourrier, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi river. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is in disarray, corrupt structures are falling apart, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, a formerly enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
-
-
Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
- By Craig on 07-19-23
By: James Lee Burke
-
Cimarron Rose
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billy Bob Holland is a lawyer for the people of sunbaked Deaf Smith, in southern Texas. Although occasionally he is haunted by memories of a violent past, his life is serene—until a local guitarist, Lucas Smothers, lands in jail for raping and murdering a young woman. As Billy Bob gathers information to defend him, the evidence soon points to the son of a wealthy local businessman. In the ensuing battle, money is pitted against the law. But a deeper struggle also arises, for Lucas is Billy Bob’s illegitimate son.
-
-
Burke Grabs you from the start
- By Damian on 10-27-24
By: James Lee Burke
-
White Doves at Morning
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.
-
-
Where's Will?
- By Luke on 03-01-17
By: James Lee Burke
-
Two for Texas
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.
-
-
So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
- By Tim on 01-04-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.
-
-
Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
- By Clif on 03-09-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
To the Bright and Shining Sun
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this novel, Burke brings his brilliant feel for time and place to a stunning story of Appalachia in the early 1960s. Here Perry Woodson Hatfield James, a young man torn between family honor and the lure of seedy watering holes, must somehow survive the tempestuous journey from boyhood to manhood and escape the dark and atavistic heritage of the Cumberland Mountains.
-
-
Classic!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-09-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
Flags on the Bayou
- A Novel
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Michael Crouch, Dana Gourrier, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi river. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is in disarray, corrupt structures are falling apart, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, a formerly enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
-
-
Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
- By Craig on 07-19-23
By: James Lee Burke
-
Cimarron Rose
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billy Bob Holland is a lawyer for the people of sunbaked Deaf Smith, in southern Texas. Although occasionally he is haunted by memories of a violent past, his life is serene—until a local guitarist, Lucas Smothers, lands in jail for raping and murdering a young woman. As Billy Bob gathers information to defend him, the evidence soon points to the son of a wealthy local businessman. In the ensuing battle, money is pitted against the law. But a deeper struggle also arises, for Lucas is Billy Bob’s illegitimate son.
-
-
Burke Grabs you from the start
- By Damian on 10-27-24
By: James Lee Burke
-
White Doves at Morning
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.
-
-
Where's Will?
- By Luke on 03-01-17
By: James Lee Burke
-
Two for Texas
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.
-
-
So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
- By Tim on 01-04-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.
-
-
Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
- By Clif on 03-09-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
To the Bright and Shining Sun
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this novel, Burke brings his brilliant feel for time and place to a stunning story of Appalachia in the early 1960s. Here Perry Woodson Hatfield James, a young man torn between family honor and the lure of seedy watering holes, must somehow survive the tempestuous journey from boyhood to manhood and escape the dark and atavistic heritage of the Cumberland Mountains.
-
-
Classic!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-09-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
The Cold Dish
- A Walt Longmire Mystery
- By: Craig Johnson
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Introducing Wyoming's Sheriff Walt Longmire in this riveting novel from the New York Times best-selling author of Dry Bones, the first in the Longmire series, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. Johnson draws on his deep attachment to the American West to produce a literary mystery of stunning authenticity, full of memorable characters.
-
-
Not Your Ordinary Western Novel (Series)
- By Dataman on 09-12-12
By: Craig Johnson
-
The Son
- By: Philipp Meyer
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries. Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive.
-
-
Five Stars for the Lone Star, The Son, & Meyer
- By Mel on 06-04-13
By: Philipp Meyer
-
Thirteen Moons
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This magnificent novel by one of America's finest writers is the epic of one man's remarkable journey, set in 19th-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life. At the age of 12, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home.
-
-
Best Novel of 2006!
- By Thomas on 10-23-06
By: Charles Frazier
-
The Black Echo: Special Edition
- Harry Bosch, Book 1
- By: Michael Connelly
- Narrated by: Titus Welliver
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.
-
-
Titus Welliver has really stepped in it!
- By George Moneo on 04-08-20
By: Michael Connelly
-
Nightwoods
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated authors in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine. Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape....
-
-
Beautiful writing and powerful narration
- By MB2312 on 10-20-11
By: Charles Frazier
-
The Convict and Other Stories
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Steven Boyer, Louis Moreno, Richard Poe, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"America's best novelist" ( The Denver Post), two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke is renowned for his lush, suspense-charged portrayals of the Deep South – the people, the crime, the hope and despair infused in the bayou landscape. This stunning anthology takes us back to where Burke's heart and soul beat -- the steamy, seamy Gulf Coast -- in complex and fascinating tales that crackle with violence and menace, meshing his flair for gripping storytelling with his urbane writing style.
-
-
Haven't read a a Jee Burke I didn't like
- By Toni R. on 09-15-12
By: James Lee Burke
-
Of Mice and Men
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 3 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrating its 75th anniversary, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels. Here is Steinbeck’s dramatic adaptation of his novel-as-play, which received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1937-1938 and has featured a number of actors who have played the iconic roles of George and Lennie on stage and film, including James Earl Jones, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.
-
-
KETCHUP
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Trackers
- A Novel
- By: Charles Frazier
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office.
-
-
So Good
- By Ray Stewart on 04-28-23
By: Charles Frazier
-
Rising Sun
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crichton
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting thriller of corporate intrigue and cutthroat competition between American and Japanese business interests. On the forty-fifth floor of the Nakamoto tower in downtown Los Angeles - the new American headquarters of the immense Japanese conglomerate - a grand opening celebration is in full swing. On the forty-sixth floor, in an empty conference room, the corpse of a beautiful young woman is discovered.
-
-
THESE DAYS, EVERYBODY IS BUILDING WALLS
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 06-14-17
By: Michael Crichton
-
News of the World
- A Novel
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own.
-
-
News of the World
- By R. Storey on 09-07-20
By: Paulette Jiles
-
No Country for Old Men
- By: Cormac McCarthy
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cormac McCarthy, best-selling author of National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, delivers his first new novel in seven years. Written in muscular prose, No Country for Old Men is a powerful tale of the West that moves at a blistering pace.
-
-
Exceptional, engrossing, frightening.
- By P. Giorgio on 07-27-13
By: Cormac McCarthy
-
Across the Nightingale Floor
- Tales of the Otori, Book One
- By: Lian Hearn
- Narrated by: Kevin Gray, Aiko Nakasone
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A tour-de-force novel set in ancient Japan filled with passion, fantasy, and feuding warlords. The first volume in the highly anticipated Tales of the Otori trilogy.
-
-
Wonderful epic story
- By Jody R. Nathan on 10-04-03
By: Lian Hearn
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.
-
-
Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
- By Clif on 03-09-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie
- A Novel (Holland Family Series, Book 5)
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Amanda Stribling
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of the 20th century, as America grapples with forces of human and natural violence more powerful than humanity has ever seen, Bessie Holland yearns for the love that she has never known. She finds a soulmate and mentor in a brilliant but tormented suffragette English teacher, who inspires Bessie to fight the forces of evil that permeate her world.
By: James Lee Burke
-
Lay Down My Sword and Shield
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.
-
-
The Publisher's Summary is Anemic
- By Cat F. on 02-25-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
Two for Texas
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.
-
-
So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
- By Tim on 01-04-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
Flags on the Bayou
- A Novel
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Michael Crouch, Dana Gourrier, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi river. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is in disarray, corrupt structures are falling apart, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, a formerly enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
-
-
Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
- By Craig on 07-19-23
By: James Lee Burke
-
White Doves at Morning
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.
-
-
Where's Will?
- By Luke on 03-01-17
By: James Lee Burke
-
The Lost Get-Back Boogie
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.
-
-
Bought all Burkes's Audiobooks- Wish Not this one
- By Clif on 03-09-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie
- A Novel (Holland Family Series, Book 5)
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Amanda Stribling
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of the 20th century, as America grapples with forces of human and natural violence more powerful than humanity has ever seen, Bessie Holland yearns for the love that she has never known. She finds a soulmate and mentor in a brilliant but tormented suffragette English teacher, who inspires Bessie to fight the forces of evil that permeate her world.
By: James Lee Burke
-
Lay Down My Sword and Shield
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney Hackberry Holland yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat - and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers.
-
-
The Publisher's Summary is Anemic
- By Cat F. on 02-25-10
By: James Lee Burke
-
Two for Texas
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.
-
-
So Good... and a bonus! Clete is here!
- By Tim on 01-04-13
By: James Lee Burke
-
Flags on the Bayou
- A Novel
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Michael Crouch, Dana Gourrier, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1863, the Union army is in control of the Mississippi river. Much of Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is occupied. The Confederate army is in disarray, corrupt structures are falling apart, and enslaved men and women are beginning to glimpse freedom. When Hannah Laveau, a formerly enslaved woman working on the Lufkin plantation, is accused of murder, she goes on the run with Florence Milton, an abolitionist schoolteacher, dodging the local constable and the slavecatchers that prowl the bayous.
-
-
Difficult Engagement, Stretching Credulity
- By Craig on 07-19-23
By: James Lee Burke
-
White Doves at Morning
- By: James Lee Burke
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.
-
-
Where's Will?
- By Luke on 03-01-17
By: James Lee Burke
Don't say masterpiece unless you really mean it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Entertainment and education
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Would you listen to House of the Rising Sun again? Why?
Amazingly written book about Good, Evil, and the Old \west. I would definitely read it again and expect, as in reading Shakespeare's Dramas based on complicated heroes and heroines, find it more interesting each listening.What did you like best about this story?
Burke's style of writing with his unbelievable attention to describing total scenes - down to such fine nuances as the smells of the scene can be mesmerizing. He also captured so well the eternal battle of good and evil as they rage in the behavior and emotions of a large and smart man.Which character – as performed by Will Patton – was your favorite?
This is hard since they were all done so well. Obviously Hack and Ruby as well as Ishmael and the assorted side characters. I think I will always think about Andre as well.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I did react strongly to the narrative and the agony of the characters. There is little to cry or laugh about but plenty of empathize with.Any additional comments?
Patton's narration was spot on. Perfect accents and clear distinction between characters helped in the mental visualization of the action.Shakespeare writing about Texas
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Will Patton
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What a Character!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So Good
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Where does House of the Rising Sun rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
House of the Rising Sun ranks in the top 10 among all the audiobooks I've listened to. I listen to at least 2 audiobooks each month as I hand stitch embroidery or quilts. .What other book might you compare House of the Rising Sun to and why?
I feel it could only be compared to another unabridged James Lee Burke book. Mr. Burke is a true wordsmith, painting pictures I feel you just don't get with other authors. You can not only visualize the scenery but at times you'll smell the atmosphere when he describes it. I've never had that experience with another author.What does Will Patton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
It was suggested to me by another fan that in order to fully experience the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke I needed to listen to Will Patton narrate them.He was correct: Wow: I'm originally from the south and it was like going home again. Mr. Patton's southern accent is perfect. I was an instant fan. I've ever written to authors and suggested that Mr. Patton would be the perfect narrator for their series.
As I've listened to him read other books, and especially this 'Hackberry Holland' series, I've come to realize that he brings a depth and understanding to the words that Mr. Burke puts on paper that other narrators sometimes miss. He becomes the conduit for the words, but you're the one who is the part of the story, and what is going on. You hear him, but he's not intrusive, he doesn't take away from the story. He never breaks your immersion into the story.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Absolutely, it entices you with the settings, the historical events and the characters. I can almost bet you'll listen more than once because its so enjoyable, and you get so caught up in parts of it that you're still processing a scene when something else happens and is almost over before you're aware of it. I learned to hit the pause button to absorb scenes before moving onto something else.Any additional comments?
There are a lot of interviews with Mr. Burke about this book and how much of it is fiction and how much is part of his actual life or lives of his ancestors. I found it helpful to read those interviews. I liked knowing which scenes were family history and found it added a lot to the story as I listened. I love history, and perhaps that is why I enjoyed this part of of the book so much.Written From His Heart
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Awesome!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Who makes it such a great one, Burke or Patton?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.