A Few Last Words About Sallis

His publisher, Soho Press, shared the news last evening that James Sallis, Arkansas-born author of the Lew Griffin private-eye series and popular standalone novels such as 2005’s Drive (later made into a movie of the same name), died on January 27 at age 81:

In many ways Jim was the platonic ideal of what a writer can be, though he probably would not like it put thus. As an artist the work was everything to Jim, and he worked without boundaries or careerism. Perhaps best known for his existentialist crime fiction and neo-noirs ..., Jim was also a poet, musicologist, literary historian, critic, editor and teacher.

His career began writing science fiction for publications edited by the likes of Damon Knight and Harlan Ellison, who was an ardent fan of Sallis and championed his work in the 1960s and ’70s. At this time Jim helped edit the influential New Worlds publication under the direction of Michael Moorcock.

As a reader and appreciator of culture, Jim was as curious and uninhibited as he was as a writer. It was a joy to talk about art in all forms with him, but his grand view of literature matched his personal approach to craft. To Jim it didn’t matter where or how good work came into existence, or how it was shelved. His groundbreaking collection of short biographical work on Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Chester Himes, collected as Difficult Lives Hitching Rides [originally published in 1993], had no critical precedent and helped usher in a new era of appraisal for now legendary writers who at the time were nearly or totally out of print. He collected and played with alacrity an impressive number of string instruments and his love of the blues and jazz was lifelong.

Sallis’ first novel starring New Orleans’ Lew Griffin, a Black “professor, poet, novelist, and occasional private eye” was The Long-Legged Fly, which saw print in 1992. It was followed by what Kevin Burton Smith, of The Thrilling Detective Web Site, calls “six dark, defiantly literate novels that brought author James Sallis instant comparisons to Walter Mosely, Chester Himes and James Lee Burke. But for once the comparisons are apt. Lew’s obsession with missing children—and his quest to find them—may permeate the series, but the real thrust seems to be the art of writing itself.” The final Griffin tale, Ghost of a Flea, was released back in 2000. Sallis was presented with Bouchercon’s Lifetime Achievement award in 2007, and received the Hammett Prize for his 2011 novel, The Killer Is Dying.

Beyond those works, Sallis penned a trilogy of novels about a different gumshoe, Tennessee’s John Turner, beginning with Cypress Grove (2003). Among his other books are Death Will Have Your Eyes (1997), Others of My Kind (2013), and Sarah Jane (2019). He remembered, too, for his biography Chester Himes: A Life, published in 2001.

Soho Press reports that “No funeral is planned. If you feel moved to donate in [Sallis’] memory, the family suggests the ACLU or the Humane Society as worthy charities that Jim valued. He was preceded in death by his parents, his brother (the philosopher John Sallis), and his son, Dylan. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Karyn.”

World’s Edge, Sallis’ “mosaic novel” comprising five linked science-fiction stories, is still due out out from Soho Press next month. And the James Sallis Web site says it will continue to “be maintained as Jim’s work continues to be published, shared, and appreciated.”

(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)