She Treads Softly: Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie

Monday, May 12, 2025

Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie

Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie by James Lee Burke
6/3/25; 368 pages
Grove/Atlantic
Holland Family Saga #5

Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie by James Lee Burke is a very highly recommended historical fiction family drama/coming-of-age/good vs. evil story set in Texas opening in 1914 during the WWI time period. This is the fifth novel in the Holland Family Saga.

Young teen Bessie Holland is struggling through life with an alcoholic, former Texas Ranger father, Hackberry Holland, and her brother Cody. Their mother is deceased. An ongoing feud with the Fowler family results in Cody losing an eye via Jubal Fowler and his slingshot. Cody runs away to NYC. Hackberry confronts Jubal's father Winthrop, which result's in Bessie shooting Winthrop. She ends up in jail, but is later released, but the violence around her continues. Bessie flees to stay with Cody in NYC where more trouble awaits. She later returns to Texas where the ongoing violence there escalates.

The writing is exceptional as Burke descriptively captures the setting (in Texas and NYC) and the time period. This is when oil drilling was new in Texas and cars were becoming more common. Women were often dismissed and/or abused by men. Bessie is fourteen when the novel opens so this is set during her teen years. The violence and corruption around her is overwhelming, yet she always speaks her mind, stands up for herself, doesn't back down from conflict and fights back against the bullies and thugs.

Bessie is a fully realized, complicated character with both strengths and weaknesses. She finds a friend and mentor in her former English teacher, Ida Banks, and Mr. Slick, a spirit/drifter/haint who helps her again and again. Most of the characters around her are unethical, evil, threatening men. The few exceptions stand out.

Even though this is the fifth book in the Holland family series, it can be read as a stand alone novel. I was unsure when supernatural elements appeared early in the narrative and almost stopped reading, but Mr. Slicks appearance and on-going presence in the plot isn't distracting and ends up adding to the plot. Ultimately this is a very violent plot where any justice is hard fought with moral ambiguity, but it also showcases a strong, young female protagonist.

Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie would be an excellent choice for those who like westerns and family dramas with strong women. Thanks to Grove/Atlantic for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.