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A mesmerizing slice of pure literature, as good as it gets.
Sallis is something of a hidden gem of crime writing...
utterly wonderful from start to finish.
James Sallis has a modus operandi: never to waste a word...
Prose [is] as sharp as salt on a tequila drinker's tongue...
Cool, crisp, non-linear, gritty and dreamlike.
Gorgeous authorial voice...
spellbinding... uncanny insights... stormy poetry.
A new novel by James Sallis is always cause for celebration...
Each book builds on the last one...
And before you know it you have a way of thinking and way of
regarding the world that is, in its own quiet way, revolutionary.
Slim and affecting.
As much a character study as it is a meditation on crime...
Sarah Jane is [a] richly rewarding reading experience. Many
readers will find themselves lingering over paragraphs or
passages simply to admire Sallis's prose before learning what
happens next.
Sallis has a quiet way of narrating a powerful story of
accidents and death.
Author James Sallis has delivered a long list of excellent crime
novels, as well as biographies and books of poetry. With its
spare but insightful prose and probing exploration of the price
of our sins, Sarah Jane fits among his finest.
Hypnotic, meticulously crafted... a powerful look at contemporary
America. Sallis is writing at the top of his game.
On Difficult Lives/Hitching Rides...
There is no one I would rather read on the subject of noir than
James Sallis...
Erudite and informative these essays may be, but they are also
crafted with love. Love of an art form that I share. If noir is
your Driver, this is for you.
The story Sallis gives us (and it is a gift) is one about
small-town life, human relationships, the daily demands of work,
the joys and sorrows of living in this world.
There is a deep poetry that lurks beneath the language, a rhythm that beautifully captures the way real people speak and think.
At this point, it may be fair and best to say James Sallis is
a genre unto himself.
One of the best literary writers in the United States.
[Sallis] might just be one of our greatest living writers.
It doesn't get any better than this...[Willnot] is arguably the
best of [Sallis'] lot to date.
[Willnot] is a beautiful, wonderful puzzle.
A beautiful read from a master.
Willnot isn't the type of novel you're expecting.
It's better than that.
Some books are character driven; others are plot driven. Willnot
is prose-driven — a rarity, and a most welcome one.
What a lovely, unexpected book - taking you safely, not without
loss, where you didn't know it was going.
Jim Sallis's Willnot is a slippery, poetic mystery that becomes
a love story to small town America.
Willnot is, in fact, an extraordinary book, not just
about place, but the interaction between past, present and future.
James Sallis is one of our greatest living crime writers and
Willnot continues an almost unseemly streak of excellence. Try to
get his words, his stories, his people out of your head. Just try.
James Sallis remains at the very top of his game, and I can't
recommend Willnot highly enough.
A profoundly moving, quietly eloquent jewel of a novel.
Willnot packs a big punch for its slim size and spare prose...
Sallis expertly weaves notes of hope throughout his pungent
and often melancholy tale.
Sallis' latest has a lot to recommend it: an ingenious and unusual
use of the Macguffin; pungent dialogue; a world that's either
dark shot through with abundant light or light shot through
with abundant dark; likable, complex characters. A brisk and
sure-handed treat.
Sallis is without peer when it comes to interweaving seemingly
disparate narrative threads, and his work consistently challenges
readers to question their assumptions about themselves and
other people.
Call it a meditation on the closing lines of Rilke's fourth elegy.
A haunting novel, its horrors obscured by darkness.
'Crime fiction' seems too limited a term for the writing
of the American master James Sallis. Despite the rigorously
stripped-down quality of his writing, Sallis manages to incorporate
both considerations of the nature of identity and provocative
engagements with the very form of writing itself — as in this
latest book, a novella crowded with a host of ideas that threaten
to burst its slim 157 pages.
Haunting and immensely readable.
[Others of My Kind]
possesses an emotional depth that Sallis, or any other crime
writer, has rarely reached before. In just 157 pages he creates
a story full of heart, imbued with a warmth of human spirit that
most longer books could only dream of.
Rowan's decision and its consequences inhabit the soul of this
superb story, told with Sallis' exceptional skill that suggests
the human spirit can prevail, no matter the horrors it confronts.
The theme of working with "what you have left,"
a constant in Sallis's world,
permeates every sentence of this slim, insightful work.
A stunning work of art... short, powerful and deeply affecting.
Moviegoers, who may have caught the award-winning film version
of the first book, starring Ryan Gosling, are likely to grab this
to see if Sallis still has his masterful noir touch.
He does; "Driven" is a delicious treat for those seeking dark,
superb escapism.
"Driven" runs on philosophy as well as fossil fuel. Its characters
are thoughtful and flawed, and when they slam against on another,
it's like a demolition derby of ideas as well as vehicles. To
drive, the novel insists, is to be. And to drive is to think.
...lean, tidy sentences, but the effect is electric. Driver knows
how to drive. And Sallis knows how to write.
Lean and lethal.
A switchblade of a little novel... Driven is simply a great ride.
Tight, action-packed prose.
A worthy successor, a crime story that challenges and entertains in equal (very different) measures.
Terse, brutal, poetic, perfectly wrought.
There's a lot packed into the spare, poetic prose. The characters
are fabulously well-fleshed out...
Sentences are carefully wrought and revelatory.
Another extraordinary novel from James Sallis...
An immensely rewarding read.
Hallucinatory, almost visionary...
Through no-nonsense staccato chapters, with minimal action, Sallis does a superb job exploring the workings of his characters' thoughts and motives.
[Sallis is] one of crime fiction's best-kept secrets... It's dark, but Sallis' deep empathy for his sharply imagined characters shines through. Seattle Times, Adam Woog, 13 November, 2011 (Read full review)
I came away from this book feeling the same gratitude I've felt
for other Sallis novels. No other writer renders the texture
of solitude with more uncanny accuracy or brings more poetic
intensity to the everyday.
Beautifully written, the novel maintains an almost dream-like
pacing, and yet the novel itself is tightly-written — racking in
at just 232 pages. Not a word seems to be wasted, and although
the book covers some emotionally devastating territory, Sallis's
tale is restrained and eloquent.
This is an intricate, complex and poignant examination of three
disconnected souls who somehow find consolation in each other
despite remaining separate throughout the novel. It's a wildly
courageous gambit, but Sallis is a sharp and proficient artisan
who makes it all work.
Sublime... Sallis brilliantly uses flashbacks and tangential anecdotes,
but it's the poetic prose ("blackbirds and crows crowded together
at water's edge, covens of diminutive priests") and the richly
described rural Southern backdrop that make this slim book such a
rewarding read.
As we come to expect from Sallis, Salt River is filled with
insight, redemption, and tantalizing passages...
unique and truthful.
Sallis gets every nuance of a small, dying town right...
A meditation on life and death, with some quiet victories and
a lot of unexplained occurrences along the way.
Elegantly wrought prose...
gritty direct prose with a poetic noir sensibility.
A tremendous talent. Which authors will still be read fifty years
from now? Whoever else makes the list, without a doubt Sallis's
name will be on it.
Elegantly combining the raw grit of noir fiction and the lyrical
intensity of Southern gothic, Salt River further confirms the
author's prestigious reputation as exemplary poet, translator,
novelist, and recipient of the Boucheron Lifetime Achievement
Award in 2007.
Sallis writes poetic rings around the subject...
In this slim, dark novel, SALT RIVER gives an unvarnished and
unflinching look at the inevitability of death, the unfairness of
life and man's ability to find some small measure of beauty in the
midst of sorrow and pain. This is not an easy story to read, but it's
one that is hard to forget.
James Sallis might be the "purest" writer of crime fiction in
America today... his books are worth reading solely for what rises from
the inspired use of language.
Salt River
starts out as crime fiction but ends up a beautifully rendered
meditation on aging and mortality.
[Sallis] can convey as much information in one sentence
as most authors convey in a paragraph ...
Salt River is a memorable and beautifully realized novel
which further enhances Sallis's reputation as one of the best
contemporary noir writers out there.
[This] story, of life's joys and ravages, will especially resonate
with anyone struggling with darkness at this cheery time of year.
"We just go on."
These four words hold the power of simplicity and the musical ring
of truth as only Sallis can deliver it — as he has done bravely,
consistently, for the last few decades.
Salt River is a little beauty that has been cut, polished
and crafted into something that sparkles like a rare gem. Few
novels (of whatever length) have either the clarity or value of
this one... Salt River packs the kind of firepower that
really counts —
the kind that touches the heart and revitalizes the soul.
[Sallis] is a graceful writer who spins a poignant and powerful
tale of a man attempting to cope with a fractured life. He brings
to his thriller a lyrical style not often found in the genre.
Salt River...
is every bit as elegant as its predecessors.
Turner's brutally honest investigation is heart-wrenching and
memorable, as is this superb novel.
If you enjoy fine, minimalist prose and thoughtful, intelligent
crime stories, you would be well advised to begin with the first
in the series and read them all.
Marvelous imagery and syntax ... in Potato Tree
a reader will find stories fraught with beauty,
solitude, and strange moments of humor, which haunt and stun and
bear returning to again and again.
...the well-chosen phrases and haunting images can linger on the
mental palate... virtually all the selections have at least
one memorable moment.
Many successfully convey human loneliness and despair
in a way that Cornell Woolrich would have found familiar.
Cripple Creek is a crime novel with a warm-hearted, compassionate
vibe at its core... a novel with the engine of a poem, an ode to
loss.
...make[s] you raise your eyes off the printed page in silent
admiration.
In addition to his masterly novels, Sallis
is known for his work as a poet, and the lyrical beauty of his
words shines through his pages. The story unfolds with the cadence
of the down-home music that plays such an important part in the
characters' lives, weaving stories from the past through the
narrative of the present to create a harmonious melody.
It's a crime that a writer this good isn't better known.
James Sallis weaves another rich tale, with plenty of that fine
embroidery
that makes his stories such pure reading pleasure.
In addition to his masterly novels, Sallis
is known for his work as a poet, and the lyrical beauty of his
words shines through his pages. The story unfolds with the cadence
of the down-home music that plays such an important part in the
characters' lives, weaving stories from the past through the
narrative of the present to create a harmonious melody.
It's a crime that a writer this good isn't better known.
James Sallis' novel — part taut thriller, part ode to small-town
America — may remind readers in its lyrical style of James Lee
Burke, with a dash of Tennessee Williams. By no means a
conventional mystery, this should satisfy those looking for
something different.
Brilliant and poignant... Sallis has a poet's
eye and ear, and his compact prose is redolent with the music
(literal and otherwise) of rural Tennessee.
Spare but eloquent... [A] superior series.
Grade: A.
Sallis is an excellent writer who plays the English language like a
well-tuned country fiddle.
Sallis has succeeded in meeting the challenge of penning a worthy and
delicately written successor to Cypress Grove.
...characters to engage the mind and heart and some of the most
flavorful writing crime fiction has to offer.
Sallis is really on a roll. ...the superb second entry in
his new Turner series.
Poet and master storyteller Sallis has a wonderful command of the
English language, which makes his every book an experience to
savor. Highly recommended.
A tale of crime, cars, and chaos, Drive does not disappoint. James
Sallis' book is an intricate, weaving adventure that crosses
state lines and moral boundaries... Sallis crafts a work of
dark, dirty, fun noir that also manages to transcend the genre.
If Camus had been at all interested in the crime or noir genre,
then you could imagine he might produce something vaguely comparable
to James Sallis' novel, Drive.
Sallis creates an intriguing, enigmatic anti-hero...
Once again, wordmaster Sallis wastes no words, and while the
story is lean, it's haunting and will dig in under your skin.
Drive is a stylistic tour de force. Every moment in the story is
carefully chosen by Sallis to reveal those parts of the story and
of Driver's life that resonate with intensity and insight. Like a
poet carefully deliberating then choosing the right word, the one
that will have multiple meanings and reveal hidden depths under the
guise of perfect clarity, Sallis tells the story of enigmatic
Driver with a surgical precision....
The cover of the trade paperback version is covered with blurbs
that exhort one to buy this book. There are times when such praise
is unwarranted or hyperbolic in nature; this is not one of those
times.
The best noir writing is pared down like good poetry: deceptively
plain prose, surface details substituting for interior monologue;
character revealed through action and subtext. (Only one
Chandleresque metaphor, as Driver flips through an Irish novel:
"Its author peered out squinting from the photograph on the
inside back cover like some life form newly dredged into
sunlight," which has a beat and you can dance to it.) Sallis
has the confidence in the spine of his story to hold the reader as
he strolls through Driver's past (we only know him through his
raison d'etre: "I drive. That's all I do")...
Drive is a sweet, tight read. Roll around in the mud a while.
You'll be glad you did. Highly recommended.
This is what diversionary entertainment is all about!
Fast cars, guns and babes. Just my cup of tea.
Sallis's treatment is minimalist, stylish, and all the more
evocative for it. Essential noir existentialism.
Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared
down prose is distinctive and powerful. The result is a small
masterpiece.
His most accessible novel, a beautifully controlled, lean but
far from skeletal literary gem...
guaranteed to keep a reader enthralled.
"Drive" is full of sly humor, poetic details and plenty of
rude violence... The novel is a terrific ride.
If spare and elegant writing, a breakneck pace and a noir flavor
are more to your taste, go for Drive...
This one's faster than a NASCAR champ.
[Drive] packs a wallop that far outweighs its page count. Sallis
injects so much meaning and emotion into his carefully selected
words that the power of his prose exceeds its volume.
Writing in such a compact, constricted format has energized
Sallis's work, making "Drive" as taut and gripping a novel as he
has ever written. For those who have not yet had to chance to read
one of crime fiction's most underappreciated writers, now is the
perfect opportunity.
Sallis doesn't let his fans down with this semi-noir
tour de force.
The excellently crafted thriller is fast-paced and as cool as one
hundred and twenty pages can get.
Drive transcends the simplistic label of revenge or double-cross
into a fantastic hardboiled noir with colorful characters and
prose that jumps off the page. Excellent book.
Sallis' slim novel Drive underscores what power this author
commands with
spare, gemlike prose, brisk action and a Camus-like hero. Sallis
says all
he needs to -- and more -- in just 158 pages.
A dark, poetic action tale that can't help but draw
comparison to noir books of the '40s and '50s.
Some novels are said to be plot-driven, others character-driven.
While it provides both of the above, this short novel is
primarily style-driven, with superb fiction noir prose and a fine
sense of locale, be it Phoenix, Los Angeles, or Brooklyn.
James Sallis is one of our best writers. Period.
[Drive is] spare, it's rich and it's knock-out good writing.
A compact, beautifully written little noir gem.
Imagine the black heart of Jim Thompson beating in the poetic
chest of James Sallis and you'll have some idea of the beauty,
sadness and power of "Drive"...
"Drive" is short — a novella —
but has more thought, feeling and
murderous energy than books twice its length.
James Sallis has written a perfect piece of noir fiction.
A taut page-turner ...
Sallis's lean tale (158 pages) and flat-voiced prose are
refreshing, even startling...
It's a lovely piece of work that makes you wish some other writers
would take lessons from him.
James Sallis' riveting novella reads the way a Tarantino or
Soderbergh neo-noir plays, artfully weaving through Driver's
haunted memory and fueled by confident storytelling and keen
observations about moviemaking, low-life living, and, yes,
driving. Short and not so sweet, Drive is one lean, mean,
masterful machine. Grade: A
A taut novella inspired by the noir fiction of the 1930s and '40s.
The language always sparkles in the works of James Sallis. Drive
also benefits from haunting descriptions and turns of phrase...
Bottom line: Drive is a chopped and channelled,
foot-to-the-firewall, hardboiled ride.
...masterfully convoluted neo-noir...
Sallis gives us his most tightly written mystery to date,
worthy of comparison to the compact, exciting oeuvre of French
noir giant Jean-Patrick Manchette.
This satisfying collection of dark dream parables fans out a
fistful of
snapshots from times and places foreign to us — yet unsettlingly
familiar.
By turns dark, apocalyptic, comic, melancholy, surreal and
provocative... his always lyrical language and eye for telling
detail dominates.
Wonderful characters and character interactions are Sallis's strengths,
but we also find lovely language and beautiful imagery...
His characters are alive and his tales stir both the emotions and
the imagination. I highly recommend them.
...almost irresistibly readable... expect to be surprised!
But once you read the first selection, one thing won't surprise you
— the high quality of the writing on display here. Sallis is
a true original, and he deserves to be read by fans of
speculative fiction as much as by fans of mystery fiction.
Readers in the market for a powerful collection of
unpredictable short fiction should start lining up now.
Sallis' sublime meditation regarding rural southern crime and the
force the past exerts on the present...
Cypress Grove is also the only novel published in 2003 to inspire
not just a second and a third, but a fourth reading.
Sallis's deceptively easy style disguises the skill with which he
has produced a satisfyingly complete portrait of a man's life.
[These works] illustrate the author's intimate understanding of
nostalgia as a smoking gun loaded with fear, wistfulness,
ephemerality and deep mystery. The novel's wry minimalism
communes with profound insights... At his best, which lies clearly
at the genius level, Sallis uses language as an uneasy echo of
time, a palimpsest-like reservoir of psychic overload. The novel
proves that the solid shadows of crime fiction can overflow the
cave of categorization.
We float along and can't let go because Sallis won't let go of us
as we are hooked into the protagonist named Turner, an ex-con,
former cop and psychotherapist who has come to unknowingly redeem
himself in a small town in Tennessee — between Memphis and nowhere...
With spare prose and dialogue Sallis has refined the art of
illuminating certain universal truths.
Superbly written and featuring outstanding dialogue, this novel
earns the label of an outstanding example of noir with a backwoods
flair.
[Sallis] is one of the best writers publishing today. His work is
beautifully written, melodic; simple sentences speak volumes...
just plain haunting. Bewitching from the beginning.
Sallis knows his music, knows his dialogue, and knows one
helluva lot about people. Like the excellent Lew Griffin books,
Cypress Grove is filled with all of these things in the
wonderfully brief but telling style Sallis has brought to all of
his poetry and fiction...James Sallis just keeps "pouring his
heart" into every word. Listen.
Sallis' atmospheric, poetic prose delineates the complexities of
human relationships, often between the lines. Though his
characters build from loss, this story is less dark than
previous novels, but his sense of place is as deeply orienting
as ever. ...A fine novel.
Sallis is back in the mystery game with "Cypress Grove," which
features another complex protagonist and a story brimming with
Southern atmosphere... related in gems of short, evocative prose.
Although welcome news to Sallis' coterie of loyalists, "Cypress
Grove" should attract an even broader audience for the author's
visually tantalizing, astute observations on crime and the human
condition.
Sallis, whose expansive body of work also includes poetry, essays
and criticism, masterfully mixes the language of the South with
delightful characterization.
One of the best-written mysteries of our time.
Sallis is a writer worth discovering.
...[a] masterfully composed novel ...[Sallis'] interest lies
elsewhere than in the wit-matching puzzle at the heart of the
detective genre. It lies higher.
Sallis again demonstrates that he's a master of any environment.
Here he sketches in quick strokes the feel and flavor of the
small-town country South, and he gets every line right.
Told in the hushed tones of quiet observation, Cypress Grove ...
is a tone poem of redemption.
Turner is a dense and complex character, and Sallis takes us on a
wild ride through his past, ending with a great plot twist.
Sallis
is one of our best detective genre authors and these three books
[Black Hornet, Moth, and Cypress Grove] are gems.
[An] affectingly rendered, elegiac tale...
Sallis secures his position as a smart and seductive writer whose
lines and characters linger long after you put aside his books.
Arguably the best so-called crime novel so far this year, Cypress
Grove may also qualify as one of 2003's top 10 novels, period.
Sallis writes some
of the most intelligent mysteries out there today.
Almost every page produces a sentence, phrase or paragraph so
deliciously right that readers will want to reread it. Sallis
fans will pounce on this
one. If you're not acquainted with his work, this is a fine place to
begin. As Turner's memories are unlocked, so are his feelings — and
his language... Although he
went out to find a killer, Turner earns his redemption by finding
his own lost voice. Intriguing...Sallis's quirky sense of plot rhythms and careful
prose make this an outstanding and unpredictable literary
thriller.
James Sallis swept me away... I couldn't put CYPRESS GROVE down.
This compelling book is beautifully written. It flows naturally
off the pages like a lazy Southern river on a hot, steamy summer's
night ... Its style, story-telling, psychological elements, are
all masterful... a book to be savoured.
This author loves language... whatever he says captivates you.
This is a quiet story, but one told brilliantly. The author ls
a wonderful storyteller.
Sallis combines
an intensely introspective hero with a detail-rich plot...
A strong series debut from one of the
genre's most original voices.
A beautifully written tale of murder and redemption. Sallis...pulls off the story with panache...fast and stylish.
As always with James Sallis his is bewitching from the beginning. Cypress Grove is one to add to the collection or the one to start with, either way you can't own one Salllis without wanting to own them all. And I am speaking from experience. StoryTeller: A Novel View, Tammy Michaels Brilliant, disturbing...
Sallis seems completely comfortable in this solid, lyrical and
very human-scale mystery. Fans who appreciate his more quirky
touches won't be disappointed... This one may well draw a larger
readership to his work. Sallis shines again...appealingly complex characters, and a
prose style to savor.
The narrative enters the intersections of observation and
memory, of dream and confused perception, of delusion and
hallucination and hyper-awareness. Because of Griffin's
own varied experience and the texture of this particular narrative,
the fragmented speech of the dispossessed and the demented is
juxtaposed seamlessly with the very succinct and incisive comments
of a broad range of writers, from novelists and poets to
songwriters and social observers...It is a truly compelling,
seemingly effortlessly complex story...one of the great
contemporary novels on the passing of a series protagonist and of
the milieu which has been made his own. Ghost of a Flea is much
more thought-provoking and soul-shaping than much of what passes
for "serious" fiction.
James Sallis's Lew Griffin series has distinguished itself by
the moodiness of its New Orleans atmosphere, the jagged elegance of
its
narrative style and the expansiveness of its anti-hero's literary
citations...
Dead men don't tell tales, or so the saying goes. But
the tale told by this one is extraordinary.
The poet Sallis betrays himself on every page with an
inordinate desire to capture a nuance of light, essence of cat or
waver of a farewell. His prose style is witty, elliptical and
heady with image and allusion; his bedrock underlying purpose is
nothing less than an exploration of meaning and identity ...
"Ghost of a Flea" bears the marks of a fierce and original writer
working at full power. Sallis writes as much as anything about the splendour of
books, and the splendour of life and people. He writes about
the search for meaning in words and in faces, gestures,
touches, kisses, words shared, exchanges all of this thrown
up and examined and found both life-affirming and wanting at
the same time. Of course all great Noir is essentially
existential, and Sallis writes the poetry of the weary
existential outsider with a sparkling mix of the coolest
prose in the warmest of lonely hearts. ...this is a superb book: beautiful, lyrical, moving... Ghost
of a Flea sets an impressive yardstick Allusive and stylish, this stark metaphysical landscape will
leave a resounding impression. ...a stunning book...literate, intelligent, deeply moving, his
exploration of what it is to be human is incisive, heartbreaking
yet ultimately uplifting.
Sallis'
book achieves that perfect biographer's balance between admiration and
honesty. [Sallis'] keen appreciation for Himes's work gives the book an
understanding many literary biographies lack. James
Sallis' new biography, "Chester Himes: A Life," deserves three
reviews, one for its story of an American life, a story about race that,
as Himes would have it, is also about life and family, without race; one
for Sallis' fair analysis of Himes' work, setting a context for his triumphs
and his misses; and then the last review, to praise without reserve a
book every young writer should be given before starting out, as a warning.
As a book about the difficulty of writing, which is about a man who wrote
because in no other sphere was he free, this biography is at its strongest. Smart,
conscientious, often stylish biography ... As a biographer Sallis is admirably
tentative about motive and explanation, always vigilant to the limits
of his knowledge, research and judgment. He never conceals his occasional
reliance on Himes's fiction as a source of information; striding amid
the contradictions of his subject's life, Sallis tends to advance provocative
questions rather than reductive conclusions. It
is hard to understand why Himes has remained neglected for so long: it
is just as hard to believe that a biography as good as this one won't
bring him the attention he deserves. Sallis provides everything from genuine
enthusiasm and critical clarity to an affection for the least-affectionate
aspects of his subject. As a result, Chester Himes: A Life is as
intelligent, and as much fun to read, as a book by Himes himself. There
is no higher praise.
On Gently into the Land of Meateaters... In
this clear and poetic collection of personal essays, Sallis ... recounts
the beauty and pain he has experienced as a writer and as a human being.
Best known for his Lew Griffin detective novels, Sallis has a talent for
conveying sadness and humor simultaneously. In a piece entitled "Literary
Life,'' he claims, "I distinctly remember being happy for almost 5 minutes
in the winter of 1976.'' Striking the same ambivalence, he continues,
"Every day I receive letters that say, You write so well, so beautifully.
And every day I send letters that say, Where is my money?'' Whether describing
the beans he savored directly from the can as a starving writer or remembering
a few words shared with a woman in the laundromat, Sallis is unfailingly
honest, intelligent, and without pretense in his recollections. As for
the human characters he describes, their brief dialogues are reminiscent
of Raymond Carver's work, as is Sallis's provocative minimalist style.
Each piece is carefully crafted and understated, and the author roots
his ideas in philosophy and an appreciation of nature. Rain, tall trees,
and poetry play recurrent roles. Many of the essays are elegiac and cathartic,
dedicated to individuals who have touched his life: his first wife, his
father, a young friend who suffered from cystic fibrosis, and a high school
music teacher. He communes intimately with memory, with those he loves
and has loved, and with his own writing, revisiting buried emotions, unresolved
relationships, and unpublished works. In "Temporary Life,'' for example,
Sallis reworks painful material from a manuscript written after his wife
attempted suicide: the story is a touching mix of old and new work, as
a writer calls upon old feelings and the words he uses to express them.
From literary and emotional standpoints, the essays are charming and memorable.
Alternately
chilling and manic, always bizarre, the stories show Sallis at his best. Sallis's
blackly humorous science fiction explores both druggy surrealism and philosophical
paradox, offering us visions of fantastical possible worlds which are
as wise as they are weird. Like Jorge Luis Borges, he knows how to extend
a metaphor until it illustrates how insect-like and insignificant human
endeavour must seem when measured against cosmic time. He warns us that
sooner or later time's hammers will smash everything.
Sallis take us on a journey we won't soon forget....
[he] is one of the true masters
of the game. His Lew Griffin series is a form of penance for the
soul, and something that reminds us what it means to be human.
Anyone who loves good writing should read these books (and this
writer). They're thoughtful — although not light on the
action — and well written expositions on the U.S. now, where
we've been, and where we're going. Do not miss out.
Brimming with eloquent musings and well-phrased truths, Sallis'
'The Long-Legged Fly' starts a truly sensational series.
Beautifully spare, atmospheric novels...
You can smell the streets of New Orleans, hang out in the dives,
see the grand, collapsing architecture of the French Quarter. You
can feel the humidity rotting Lew's wooden bungalow, see the
roaches scurrying when he flips the light switch in his kitchen,
taste the muddy café au lait he brews, and feel his slight
sense of relief when he plops down in a chair to enjoy the two
things he says he's good at: drinking and literature.
Griffin is always a vehicle for a larger truth.
It doesn't surprise me that James Sallis is also a poet. Sallis
excels the way few writers do. His stories are lush — his use of
language is engaging and rich and alive.
My hat is off to James Sallis for penning a poignant,
riveting series that keeps me breathless.
These
are stories the world should know about. Poetic,
complex and multidimensional, James Sallis' crime novels about New Orleans
detective Lew Griffin ... are unlike any you are likely to crack open. Richly
atmospheric, haunting, utterly compelling, the Lew Griffin novels are
really cool. James Sallis is an outstanding crime writer - an outstanding
writer period. James
Sallis is doing some of the most interesting and provocative work in the
field of private eye fiction. His New Orleans is richly atmospheric and
darker than noir.
On James Sallis & his oeuvre... Sallis'
writing hovers just at the edge of brilliance. James Sallis's extraordinary fiction is distinguished by its
honesty and meticulous artistry. With his highly imagistic stories, he has regularly displayed a finely honed mastery of sophisticated
literary techniques and sharply etched psychological portraits. Sallis is one of the finest crime writers around ... If you
like your novels on a higher level, Sallis is your man. Sallis is a fine talent, introspective, sardonic, a master of quick
characterization and narrative compression. Sallis is a rare find ... a fine prose stylist with an interest
in moral struggle and a gift for the lacerating evocation of
loss. A strong and inventive writer with a certain sensitivity to
language as well as an understanding of the deeper workings of
the psyche. Sallis is a masterful writer, vigorously exploring the seemingly inexhaustible territory of the post-modern detective novel. James Sallis is one of the best writers in the United States. Poetry smuggled in at the back door. Sallis, an accomplished
musician, has a beautiful sense of the pitch and rhythm of
language. He knows precisely how to make use of what he calls
'the battery of affects available: alliteration, syllabics,
alexandrines, slant rhymes, simple euphony'. Then there's James Sallis - he's right up there, one of the
best. It is quite possible that speaking of Jim Sallis in the same tone
as Poe and Dostoevski is not overblowing on my part. His early
work indicates a mind and talent of uncommon dimensions. Ever among the most unconventional and interesting writers of
crime fiction. Sallis might be one of the best writers in America.
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