James Sallis

• Born: December 21, 1944
• Place of Birth: Helena, Arkansas

TYPES OF PLOT: Hard-boiled; private investigator

PRINCIPAL SERIES: Lew Griffin, 1992-2001; John Turner, 2003-2007; Driver, 2005-2012

Contribution

One of James Sallis’s major contributions has been his ability to combine hard-boiled and noir elements with literary-quality characterizations and elegant prose. Although often identified as mysteries, Sallis’s intensely introspective novels are only loosely plotted around some puzzle and are primarily explorations of character and the meaning of experience.

Sallis is also notable for being one of the first White authors to explore in depth the life of a Black American protagonist (Lew Griffin). On occasion, Sallis has been criticized for writing so intimately of the Black American experience, but he grew up in an area that was 70 percent Black American and learned at firsthand about the lives of poor and rural Black people in the South. He has also made a long-term study of (1909-1984), the Black American author of nine detective novels and an influence on Sallis’s hard-boiled fiction. In Sallis’s books, Griffin is treated neither stereotypically nor overly sympathetically, but with absolute realism as a complex, flawed individual. The character was initially modeled on the life of Himes but has developed to include aspects of many men that Sallis has known, from blues musicians to intellectuals, from family men to petty criminals.

Sallis published seven novels in this Lew Griffin series, with the last being 2001’s Ghost of a Flea. From 2003 through 2007, Sallis published three novels in his John Turner series. Two novels comprise his Driver series: Drive (2005) was made into a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling in 2011, and the following year, a second novel, Driven, was published. Sallis has also published six stand-alone novels, as well as six collections of short fiction. 

Biography

James Sallis was born December 21, 1944, in Helena, Arkansas, which sits on Crowley’s Ridge on the banks of the Mississippi River. The nearest big city is Memphis, about seventy miles away. Helena, a river port, lies in mostly rural Phillips County, one of the poorest areas in the United States. Sallis protects his privacy, but some sources list his parents as Chappelle Horace Sallis and Mildred C. Liming Sallis. He has an older brother, John Sallis, who has a doctorate in philosophy and is widely published in his field.

When Sallis was growing up in Helena, the city was 70 percent Black American and had a reputation as a gathering place for delta blues musicians such as Sonny Boy Williamson and Roosevelt Sykes. However, it was also a highly conservative town, noted for the dramatic contrast between the abject poverty of many inhabitants and the wealth of others. Sallis used his childhood experiences to develop the Lew Griffin character.

As a child, Sallis was a voracious reader and knew he wanted to write. His first love was poetry, although he also was interested in music. Helena was not easy to escape, but Sallis earned a scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans, where he had his first success as a writer of short stories. New Orleans also became a spiritual home for Sallis, and he has returned several times to live there for brief periods.

Sallis left Tulane without finishing his degree, then briefly attended the University of Iowa before leaving to write independently. He met Michael Moorcock, who invited him at twenty-one to move to London and become fiction editor for New Worlds, a seminal science-fiction magazine of the period. While in England, Sallis’s first book was published, a short-story collection entitled A Few Last Words (1970).

After New Worlds folded, Sallis returned to the United States. With markets for short fiction hard to find, he turned to nonfictional works about music, writing The Guitar Players: One Instrument and Its Masters in American Music (1982) and editing Jazz Guitars: An Anthology (1984). He also taught guitar and string instruments with various club bands while living in cities such as New Orleans, New York, Boston, and Fort Worth, Texas. In 1992, Sallis’s first novel, The Long-Legged Fly, was published. This, the first Lew Griffin book, earned Sallis critical acclaim and spawned a series. Sallis has averaged less than one novel a year since 1992, but he has also released several collections of his stories and poetry and has written several nonfiction works.

In addition to his roles as a musician, music teacher, and writer, Sallis has taught creative writing, worked as a screenwriter and translator, and even served as a respiratory therapist. His writing spans just as wide a range. Besides literary, mystery, and science-fiction novels, he has published poetry, essays, book reviews, biographies, musicologies, and French translations. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award for one of his short stories and the Anthony, Edgar, Shamus, and Gold Dagger awards in mystery. Sallis has been married three times. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona, with his third wife, Karyn, in 1999.

Analysis

James Sallis has carved a niche as a literary novelist who can cross over to genre writing, especially mysteries. His books work consistently as entertainment yet are filled with wordplay and complex characters that even the most sophisticated reader can appreciate. A lifelong music lover, Sallis writes with a spontaneous and inventive style similar to the playing styles of his favorite jazz and blues musicians. His plots are minimal, and his stories are almost always told nonlinearly. Sallis believes this reflects the realistic, meandering course of life. Sallis’s essay “Where I Live,” from the collection Gently into the Land of the Meateaters (2000), perfectly expresses the writer’s attitude. He is little interested in plot and traditional forms of narration but is much more drawn toward works with a unique voice.

Physical location also plays a vital role in Sallis’s work, especially in his two series. Griffin and Turner are from rural Arkansas, specifically the Helena area, where Sallis grew up. Griffin flees that world for New Orleans, and it is clear from Gently into the Land of the Meateaters, and especially in an essay entitled “Gone So Long,” that Sallis did the same thing in leaving Helena for Tulane University. Sallis hated the casual racism and abject poverty that he saw growing up, and his leaving Helena for cosmopolitan New Orleans was his way of both escaping and protesting those inequities. His Lew Griffin mysteries were a way of dealing with such experiences and were best told through the point of view of a Black American protagonist. Notably, John Turner, the White protagonist of his second series, also leaves the rural South for the city—Memphis—but then returns to the same country he once fled. Through Turner, Sallis is, at least metaphorically, returning home.

Another characteristic of Sallis’s writing is his frequent and playful use of literary and musical references. In one sentence, he may reference a European poet who is obscure to most readers in the United States; in another, he alludes to hard-boiled American writers such as Jim Thompson or David Goodis. He mixes quotes from blues musicians with those from country stars. This reflects the enormous range of Sallis’s reading and musical experiences and his ability to make meaningful connections between diverse lives and viewpoints.

Some critics dislike the relentless connectivity of Sallis’s work, perhaps because many of the allusions are not familiar to them. For many readers, however, the allusions create a fleeting familiarity, a feeling of near revelation, as if they have just made a connection that deepens their understanding of the world. The Lew Griffin series is particularly rich with such connections, but it perfectly reflects the narrator's character, Griffin. Griffin is much like Sallis. He is a self-taught writer with a huge interest in music. The references come naturally to Griffin because they reflect how he understands his world. This is a near-seamless meld of character and author.

Sallis’s improvisational style, especially his nonlinear storytelling, also draws occasional criticism. This presentation style requires work from the reader, but there is always a logical pattern in how the story proceeds. For example, the chapters alternate in Cypress Grove (2003), the first John Turner mystery. Turner is shown in real time in Chapter 1; Chapter 2 explores the past. In Ghost of a Flea (2001), the sixth Griffin novel, the nonlinear portion of the work “bookends” the rest. The first and last two chapters are told by Griffin’s son, David, out of sequence to the remainder of the tale.

Like the best literary fiction, Sallis’s work can be read on two levels. On the first level, he tells an interesting story, albeit focused more on character than plot. The second level requires effort from the reader. There is meaning, but it must be extracted through critical reading. Perhaps it is best to read each Sallis's work twice, once for story and mood and again for the deeper meaning.

Ghost of a Flea

Ghost of a Flea is the sixth and final Lew Griffin mystery. It begins with Griffin’s death, although the reader does not know this until the last two chapters when the opening scene is revisited to show that Griffin’s son, David, is narrating. It is unusual for mystery writers to kill their main characters, but little about the Griffin series is typical. Even the way Griffin dies defies the conventions of the hard-boiled genre. Sallis’s hero does not go out with guns blazing; he dies in his bed from the aftermath of a stroke. However, it is a fitting end for a series that consistently shaped the genre into new forms.

The Turner Mysteries

Cypress Grove is the first John Turner mystery, published two years after Sallis ended the Lew Griffin series. It was not clear even to Sallis whether Cypress Grove would begin a new series or whether it would be another nonseries novel like those he had been writing since the mid-1990s. Something in the character caught the interest of both Sallis and his readers, however, and a second Turner book, Cripple Creek, appeared in 2006. The second book's ending seems to cement Sallis’s plans for a series. 

John Turner—though his first name is rarely used and appears only on the last page of the second book of the series—is similar to Lew Griffin in some important ways and different in others. Turner is White but comes from the same part of rural Arkansas as Griffin. Like Griffin, Turner listens to classical and blues music but does not appear to know as much about those forms. Turner is widely read but not interested in writing nor as engulfed in literature as Griffin. Accordingly, the Turner books are not as saturated with literary allusions. This makes them more accessible to general readers but may disappoint those who enjoyed wrestling with Sallis’s literary references in the Griffin books. Finally, Turner is not as driven by internal anger as was Griffin. This is probably meant to reflect the different childhood experiences of Black and White people in the rural South.

Drive

Drive (2005) may well be Sallis’s most accessible novel, although it is more a novella in length. It was named one of the top ten books of the year by Entertainment Weekly and has generated considerable discussion on the Internet. Drive is a noir thriller featuring a character known only as Driver. As a child, Driver watches his mother cut his criminal father’s throat with a knife. At sixteen, Driver leaves a thank-you note to his foster parents, takes the family car, and heads to California. He becomes a stunt driver, and his skill behind the wheel leads to a second life driving getaway cars in robberies. A robbery goes wrong, and some mobsters come after Driver.

Drive is different in many ways from Sallis’s previous novels. The pace is faster, and the plot is tighter, although it is certainly not a plot-driven novel. The character Driver is also a departure for Sallis. Driver is uneducated and not much of a reader or music buff. He is certainly streetwise and very tough. Staying true to the character, Sallis uses few literary allusions in Drive. However, in keeping with his attitude toward traditional narrative, he still employs nonlinear storytelling techniques as he moves between present and past.

Principal Series Characters:

• Lewis “Lew” Griffin is a Black American man from rural Arkansas who left for New Orleans at sixteen. Sometimes employed as a detective, he becomes involved in investigations, such as finding a missing person, through the network of people he knows or has helped. Griffin is physically tough but has some psychological flaws. He has trouble maintaining relationships with women and is an alcoholic, although he mostly controls his drinking. He is highly literate and a part-time writer interested in classical music and the blues.
• John Turner is a country boy from Crowley’s Ridge in eastern Arkansas. He fought in Vietnam and later became a police officer in Memphis. He was involved in a shooting and was sent to prison, where he earned a master’s in psychology. After serving almost ten years, he was released and became a therapist. Although successful, he burned out after six years and retired to the country near his childhood home.

Bibliography

Duncan, Paul. “Professional Liar.” In The Long-legged Fly/Moth Omnibus Edition. Harpenden, England: No Exit Press, 2000.

Haut, Woody. Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction. New York: Serpent’s Tail, 1999.

Sallis, James. Gently into the Land of the Meateaters. Seattle: Black Heron Press, 2000.

Silet, Charles L. P. Talking Murder: Interviews with Twenty Mystery Writers. Princeton, N.J.: Ontario Review Press, 1999.

“10 Questions with James Sallis.” LitReactor, 5 Nov. 2013, litreactor.com/interviews/10-questions-with-james-sallis. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.

Wilwol, John, and James Sallis. “In Sequel To 'Drive,' Sallis Delivers A Thrill Ride.” NPR, 25 Apr. 2012, www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151221200/in-sequel-to-drive-sallis-delivers-a-thrill-ride. Accessed 1 Aug. 2024.