Drive [Paperback]

'Fast cars, guns and babes. Just my cup of tea.' Mark Timlin, The Independent
'Sallis's treatment is minimalist, stylish, and all the more evocative for it. Essential noir existentialism.' Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian
'A small masterpiece.' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
'Sallis's treatment is minimalist, stylish, and all the more evocative for it. Essential noir existentialism' --Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

A small masterpiece. --Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

Fast cars, guns and babes. Just my cup of tea. --Mark Timlin, The Independent

'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 'Sallis's lean mystery and flat-voiced prose are refreshing, even startling. A lovely piece of work.' - Paul Skenasy, Washington Post Books World - Best Books of 2005 'a minor masterpiece... minimalist, stylish, and all the more evocative for it. Essential noir existentialism.' - Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian 'James Sallis has written a perfect piece of noir fiction.' - Marilyn Stasio, New York Times 'The novel is a terrific ride, and true to form, Sallis leaves us with an enigmatic teaser of an ending.' - Scott M Morris, Los Angeles Times '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' - Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune 'a compact, beautifully written little noir gem...' - Seattle Times

James Sallis has written a perfect piece of noir fiction --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Now a major film starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

Set mostly in Arizona and L.A., Drive is about a man who does stunt driving for movies by day and drives for criminals at night. Sallis combines murder, treachery and payback in a sinister plot with resonances of 1940s pulp fiction and film noir. Told through a cinematic narrative that weaves back and forth through time and place, the story explores Driver's near-existential moral foundations, intercut with moments of bloody violence.

The basis for the film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, recent winner of Best Director for Drive at Cannes. The film is provisionallyv targeted for release in the UK September 23rd 2011.

James Sallis is a renowned poet, critic, essayist, editor, translator, musicologist, biographer and novelist, author of Salt River, Cripple Creek, Cypress Grove, Drive and a series of books set in New Orleans featuring private detective Lew Griffin. He lives in Arizona with his wife Karyn.

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.
The blood was coming from the woman, the one
who called herself Blanche and claimed to be from
New Orleans even when everything about her except
the put-on accent screamed East Coast--Bensonhurst,
maybe, or some other far reach of Brooklyn. Blanche's
shoulders lay across the bathroom door's threshhold.Not much of her head left in there: he knew that.
Their room was 212, second floor, foundation and
floors close enough to plumb that the pool of blood
advanced slowly, tracing the contour of her body just
as he had, moving toward him like an accusing finger.
His arm hurt like a son of a bitch.This was the other
thing he knew: it would be hurting a hell of a lot more
soon.
Driver realized then that he was holding his breath.
Listening for sirens, for the sound of people gathering
on stairways or down in the parking lot, for the scramble
of feet beyond the door.
Once again Driver's eyes swept the room. Near the
half-open front door a body lay, that of a skinny, tallish
man, possibly an albino. Oddly, not much blood there.
Maybe blood was only waiting. Maybe when they
lifted him, turned him, it would all come pouring out
at once. But for now, only the dull flash of neon and
headlights off pale skin.
The second body was in the bathroom, lodged
securely in the window from outside. That's where
Driver had found him, unable to move forward or
back. This one had carried a shotgun. Blood from his
neck had gathered in the sink below, a thick pudding.
Driver used a straight razor when he shaved. It had
been his father's. Whenever he moved into a new
room, he set out his things first. The razor had beenthere by the sink, lined up with toothbrush and comb.
Just the two so far. From the first, the guy jammed
in the window, he'd taken the shotgun that felled the
second. It was a Remington 870, barrel cut down to
the length of the magazine, fifteen inches maybe. He
knew that from a Mad Max rip-off he'd worked on.
Driver paid attention.
Now he waited. Listening. For the sound of feet,
sirens, slammed doors.
What he heard was the drip of the tub's faucet in the
bathroom.That woman weeping still in the next room.
Then something else as well. Something scratching,
scrabbling...
Some time passed before he realized it was his own
arm jumping involuntarily, knuckles rapping on the
floor, fingers scratching and thumping as the hand
contracted.
Then the sounds stopped. No feeling at all left in the
arm, no movement. It hung there, apart from him,
unconnected, like an abandoned shoe. Driver willed it
to move. Nothing happened.
Worry about that later.
He looked back at the open door. Maybe that's it,
Driver thought. Maybe no one else is coming, maybe
it's over.Maybe, for now, three bodies are enough.