Drive

I drive. That's what I do. All I do.'
'Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward him, Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake. Later still, of course, there'd be no doubt. But for now Driver is, as they say, in the moment. And the moment includes this blood lapping toward him, the pressure of dawn's late light at windows and door, traffic sounds from the interstate nearby, the sound of someone weeping in the next room....'
Thus begins Drive, by James Sallis. Set mostly in Arizona and LA, the story is, according to Sallis, '...about a guy who does stunt driving for movies by day and drives for criminals at night. In classic noir fashion, he is double-crossed and, though before he has never participated in the violence ('I drive. That's all.'), he goes after the ones who double-crossed and tried to kill him.'
NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING RYAN GOSLING AND CAREY MULLIGAN which won Best Director (Nicolas Winding Refn) at the Cannes Film Festival
'Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared-down prose is distinctive and powerful. The result is a small masterpiece.'
- Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
'a minor masterpiece... minimalist, stylish, and all the more evocative for it. Essential noir existentialism.'
- Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian

James Sallis has published sixteen novels, multiple collections of short stories, essays, and poems, books of musicology, a biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau's novel Saint Glinglin. He has written about books for the LA Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, and for some years served as a books columnist for the Boston Globe. He has received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon, the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing, and the Grand Prix de Littérature policière.