Customer Reviews

Drive

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Every word counts in this "sunshine noir" by noted mystery writer James Sallis. Drive is that rare thing, the proverbial novel you cannot put down. Yet, Sallis never cheats by loading up on worn plot devices. Instead, this slim volume pares the story down to its barest essestials, just plot and character, stripped of artifice. And drive. Yes, the story hurtles along, moving fast, but always under control. Do you think you have seen it all with noir? If you think so, then you owe it to yourself to pick up Drive. Sallis uses some familiar devices, but the story he tells and the character he tells it through, the "Driver," are new. Drive will keep you hanging until the last sentence. That's drive enough for anyone.

Los Angeles based Drive lives up to his name day and night. During the day he works in films as an action drive while at night he drives the getaway car in criminal activities. His current evening job has Drive working a heist just north of Phoenix. As he sits in the vehicle waiting for his teammates, The New Guy who cooked up the job and hired Drive, Dave Strong who aptly provides muscle, and Blanche, who offers the sexy distraction, he notices another car sitting in the nearby alley, mirroring what Drive is doing.

Shots are fired; Blanche races into Drive's car with the money; urging him to take off. Drive leaves with the other vehicle on his back; he gets rid of the tail by cleverly using the police to stop the other car. However that night at the motel, the thugs from the other car arrive shooting at Drive and Blanche leaving her and the two adversaries dead; Drive has a ton of money, but first must clean up the double cross if he is to use it without someone trying to murder him.

DRIVE is a throwback tale to the Noirs of the late 1940s and 1950s starring a tough individual who steps over the legal line, but only so far until the double-cross and attempts on his life turn him into a retaliatory machine. The story line is action-packed with a strong support cast that provides a look at the support Hollywood role of a driver as well as a first class criminal tale. Fans will want to hitch a ride with James Sallis as he provides an excellent hardboiled crime thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Readers who delight in noir have a treat in store.

This short novel moves back and forth in both time and place, following a few weeks in the life of Driver - a character who provides no other name. He has a double career - first as a stunt driver for the LA film industry, self trained and among the best in the highly skilled group of specialists. And in the evenings and between film jobs he drives for thieves and con men. But that is all he does - drive. No burglary, no guns, no other participation.

A moonlighting venture goes wrong and sends Driver in search of those who double crossed him. In spare prose, important people in Driver's past and present life are clearly drawn and believable, some presented only as traces from Driver's memory. Although fragmentary, these brief references provide perfect motivation for Driver's actions as he moves toward his moments of revenge. He is a man not always on the right side of the law, or even of a just society, yet in Sallis' hands he becomes a man worthy of respect.

Moody, dark, and atmospheric, "Drive" is the perfect refresh of the pulp crime masterpieces of McBain, Westlake, and Block; a raw and rugged little novel of a guy we know only as Driver, Hollywood stunt driver by day and getaway man for criminals by night. A simple tale - Driver gets set up on a robbery gone bad and plots his revenge on the mobsters who, as it turns out, have badly underestimated their mark. But here the story takes a back seat to form. For as a writer, James Sallis has serious chops. Seedy characters and shady deals twisted around lean and mean prose lurching from halting street talk to phases that turn so slick you'd think Cormac McCarthy was reinvented. And throw into this mix a nonlinear story line that hooks and jabs and keeps you off balance while building the mystique of this surrealistic little gem. Charlie Huston, Dean Swierczynski, and Victor Gischler - new masters all of contemporary noir. Add James Sallis to the head of that class. Unsettling, disturbing, brilliant - read it.

Driver, the damaged main character of this minimalist noir novel, works as a stunt man by day and as the driver of getaway cars at night. Purely pragmatic, he has no real dreams and no long-term goals, the result of his violent childhood, which was not a childhood at all. No one gets close to him, though he occasionally shows signs that he has some feelings for other damaged creatures. When it comes to his work, however, he is all business--"I don't know anyone, I don't carry weapons. I drive."

Opening dramatically with Driver leaning against a wall in a Motel 6 room, his arm wounded so badly it is useless, with three dead bodies around him, the novel repeats these images like a bizarre refrain, as the background for this scene and the action which follows it are revealed. In terse prose, as efficient in conveying information as Driver is in killing those who threaten him, Sallis follows Driver as he moves between Los Angeles and Phoenix, doing jobs. Episodes from his life hit the reader with the force of gunfire and in random order, connected not by transitions but through the character and violent background of Driver as his life unfolds. Scenes from Driver's film assignments overlap with scenes from his real life, sometimes inspiring Driver to reminisce or to try to look forward to see how and why he ended up where he is.

Actions speak louder than words here, but the dialogue, when it occurs, is memorable and dramatic. Scenes in which Driver tries to visit his estranged mother and later his foster family are intensely moving because they emphasize an emotional connection which is otherwise lacking in his life. He is intelligent, and he keeps trying to communicate with people through words, though the circumstances of his life are almost entirely violent. He has no dreams, forced to believe instead in a brutal reality--he is Borges, the writer/realist, not Don Quixote, the tilter at windmills, he notes. "I don't think [however], our lives are thrust upon us," he explains in one conversation. "What it feels like to me is, they're forever seeping up under our feet."

An exciting, thoughtful, and powerfully moving examination of the life of someone who has few choices, this novel transcends its darkness and violence to show the continuing desire for connection even among life's most violent people. Mary Whipple

Here's a man who can write, this James Sallis. Why he isn't perennially on the best-seller list is a mystery in itself. Maybe not. This novel is short, intense, laconic and spare with language. It features a man who you might not want living next door. He epitomizes the anti-hero in our modern society. DRIVE is a kind of anti-novel. The man's name is, well they call him Driver. Not THE driver, just, Driver. That's what he does for a living. He drives stunt cars in Hollywood.

It's not a full-time occupation, so he also drives for people who rob banks and other establishments where there are frequently large amounts of cash to be scooped up. The book is set in Arizona and California, of course. And it features a classical noir protagonist who never really had a chance, given his background and the people he falls in with.

Driver has a conscience and he has a certain ethical creed. When he drives for a heist, that's it. He acquires the vehicle, plans escape routes, delivers the bad guys and takes them away after the job. But he doesn't participate in the planning and he doesn't know who is being robbed. He's a tightly focused very bright and very experienced specialist who is constantly learning, mostly from others' mistakes.

The story begins with a rush and doesn't let up. Ever. Sallis grabs you on page one and never lets you go. Chapter One, first sentence. "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." Take a ride with a wonderful writer. You won't be disappointed.

Congratulations to Poisoned Pen Press for its willingness to go against the currents and publish fine literature that doesn't quite fit the mold.

Driver, the damaged main character of this minimalist noir novel, works as a stunt man by day and as the driver of getaway cars at night. Purely pragmatic, he has no real dreams and no long-term goals, the result of his violent childhood, which was not a childhood at all. No one gets close to him, though he occasionally shows signs that he has some feelings for other damaged creatures. When it comes to his work, however, he is all business--"I don't know anyone, I don't carry weapons. I drive."

Opening dramatically with Driver leaning against a wall in a Motel 6 room, his arm wounded so badly it is useless, with three dead bodies around him, the novel repeats these images like a bizarre refrain, as the background for this scene and the action which follows it are revealed. In terse prose, as efficient in conveying information as Driver is in killing those who threaten him, Sallis follows Driver as he moves between Los Angeles and Phoenix, doing jobs. Episodes from his life hit the reader with the force of gunfire and in random order, connected not by transitions but through the character and violent background of Driver as his life unfolds. Scenes from Driver's film assignments overlap with scenes from his real life, sometimes inspiring Driver to reminisce or to try to look forward to see how and why he ended up where he is.

Actions speak louder than words here, but the dialogue, when it occurs, is memorable and dramatic. Scenes in which Driver tries to visit his estranged mother and later his foster family are intensely moving because they emphasize an emotional connection which is otherwise lacking in his life. He is intelligent, and he keeps trying to communicate with people through words, though the circumstances of his life are almost entirely violent. He has no dreams, forced to believe instead in a brutal reality--he is Borges, the writer/realist, not Don Quixote, the tilter at windmills, he notes. "I don't think [however], our lives are thrust upon us," he explains in one conversation. "What it feels like to me is, they're forever seeping up under our feet."

A dramatic, thoughtful, and powerfully moving examination of the life of someone who has few choices, this novel transcends its darkness and violence to show the continuing desire for connection even among life's most violent people. n Mary Whipple

Occasionally #1 comes up with the correct rating for a book even though, in this case, she is confused about the central character's name. James Sallis has crafted an excellent noir thriller -- like a complicated mosaic -- from small, tantalizing fragments in the life of Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver who moolights behind the wheel of getaway cars. Driver is so cool his pores exude frost rather than sweat.

As the story begins, people are trying to kill Driver because of a Phoenix heist that went wrong. Flashbacks from Driver's past life are interspersed with those from the robbery and his present efforts to extricate himself from his predicament.

Sallis transmutes a simple double-cross and revenge plot into a stylish tour de force. Highly recommended.

A few paragraphs in and you can smell the musty 40s. Gooseneck lamps, gently rounded cars, double-breasted suits. Everyone smoked. Everyone drank. Everyone ate steak.

But it's the modern day in LA. Driver leaves his foster home at 16. Makes it to L.A. Becomes a stunt driver. Along the way he develops a sideline of driving getaway cars.

A robbery goes wrong. Driver escapes with the loot and a woman robber. Someone tries to kill Driver: doesn't succeed, but takes out the woman.

Driver is a gentle soul. I drive, that's all is his ethic. But someone wants more and Driver doesn't like anyone on his trail.

Sallis is a master of noir. In 158 pages, he bangs out a complete morality play in which there is no good, no bad: just is, just what is there. Driver doesn't have a past or a future. Just a moment that demands certain things be done. Rootless, but not souless, Sallis paints his portrait in subtle strokes, all the more telling for that.

Sallis dedicates this work to Ed McBain, Donald Westlake and Larry Block, three great American writers. Sallis is, in my opinion, matched only by Block. McBain was great, but Sallis is better at noir.

"Drive" is a pleasant escape into a different reality, a true gem.

Jerry

The unnamed narrator, Driver, lives in a low-rent apartment, moves frequently, and works as a stunt driver, and getaway driver. His driving skills are superb. He gets his jobs by reputation, just ask for 'Driver'.

Born in Phoenix, Driver was left homeless when his crazed mom killed his father. The Smith family took him in, they were kind, but he left one day when he was ready, taking their car and leaving a note to say he was sorry. Off to LA to find his dream or to find something, Driver is not sure which. The story seems straight out of the '50s, but some of the references point it to the 80's. It has a crime-noir feel, and you will find you cannot stop reading. Driver finds the right kind of people who can help him. He has a feel for finding these people just as he has a feel for the people who cross him. He is one of the best stunt drivers, he can drive on a building sideways and end up on all four wheels. And, then he is in demand, and they want more, but he says, "I drive. That's all I do". That is not all he can do, but he is a man of few words and that gives him good stead. He runs into bad business, and many try to take him out, but he survives. Driver is a strong, violent guy who does his job and expects that no one will meddle with him. He has depth, and the flashbacks with his mother and father make him all the more real. In this book, everyone is a tragedy of his own making. Driver is violent prone, and we know that will be his downfall, but not here, not now.

This is one of the books of the year for me. I am anxious to read the next one, because I know Driver has a future, something tells me so.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 1-01-12

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