I'm not sure why, but I cringe at the thought of writers tackling recent events in their fiction. It seems as if we need more temporal separation before diving into such charged material. The post 9/11 books and stories seemed rushed; who could adequately process something like that so quickly? Of course, that's the beauty of fiction, offering a tangential way of looking at an event by offering the view through someone else's eyes.

With that in mind, I've been waiting with dread for the inevitable Katrina fiction. I'd usually steer clear, but I stumbled into a new James Lee Burke story in the April issue of Esquire and realized that, done well, fiction that tackles current events can be illuminating. The story, "Jesus Out to Sea," tells the story of two Vietnam vets from New Orleans who find themselves on a roof waiting for rescue in the days after Katrina struck. The story works because it tackles many of the same themes Burke addresses so skillfully in his Dave Robicheaux novels: isolation, class differences and the profits and perils found in straddling the line between legal and illegal. Katrina makes the story more powerful, but it really could be set in any similar catastrophe and work.

The good news for Burke fans is that the story will be part of an upcoming short story collection., according to a posting on his web site.