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Title: To the Bright and Shining Sun

Author: James Lee Burke

Narrator: Tom Stechschulte

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-01-12

Publisher: Whole Story AudioBooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

For generations, Perry James' family, staunch unionists, has lived under the shadow of the Cumberland range and worked in the coal mines. To escape from the cycle of poverty, Perry signs up with the Jobs Corps, where they begin to teach him a skilled trade and how to read and write. But Perry is torn between family honour and the lure of seedy beer joints where he can drink and escape.

Members Reviews:

Great writing, Burke captures the fight of the miners with brilliance

Burkeâs novel encapsulates the struggle of the coal miners in Kentucky, who hope for better job conditions and better wages. We are thrust into this struggle and fight within the first pages of the novel.

After finishing this novel, Iâve been thinking quite often about the title. What is the significance, I ask myself? I looked up song titles and there are several named âTo the Bright and Shining Sunâ, one bluegrass and one from an Irish band, The Walls, a top ten hit in Ireland in 2006. Somehow, Iâm thinking the reference is not to the Irish band (good tune though, nonetheless).

However, in many ways, I think the title is a symbol of optimism amid very bleak and quite fleeting conditions for the miners, with Perry, a flawed, but compelling main character as the light for that hope.

Maybe Iâm overselling Perry. In fact, I probably am. Heâs very flawedâand stubborn, pig-headed, and sometimes just down right stupid, especially in his decision making. But, I think he carries a certain pride and humanness, and if a character doesnât turn the corner at all in a book, or change from point A to point B, then are they really that compelling? Perry does. Yes, this is coming of age tale, and he does see the bigger picture at points. It just takes him quite a bit of failure and life lessons to get there. There is a constant internal conflict running within him, his pride often ruins many chances to break the cycle of poverty and bleak living conditions. At times, Perry reminds me a bit of Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, a sort of rebel who has a vision for better times. At one point, Perry ponders about the cycle that never seems to break:

âThere ainât nothing that goes along this good for so long without something happening. Things just donât stay straight like that. At least not for us. Thereâs always something thatâs going to shove a stick between your feet when you feel your almost there.â

I thought Burkeâs writing so powerful and human. He really can paint a picture of a realistic struggle and conflict, and does so with spot-on prose that illustrates the bleak, difficult lives of his characters.

James Lee Burke is brilliantly gifted ...

I don't know when this was written as I read it on a Kindle and didn't have a title page.. but I'd have to guess it was an earlier work by JLB. As in most of his writing this is a "David vs Goliath" story.. the struggle of those that have versus those without. I absolutely love JLB's descriptive powers though I felt they were a bit under developed in this story compared to his other books.. I admire his sense of justice and agree in his vision of how the world works. I'm no literary genius but I rank him as my favorite in contemporary literature...