Salt River [Audio CD]

James Sallis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2008

3 CDs/3.25 hours - Unabridged

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Recorded Books; Library Edition edition (2008)
• ISBN-10: 1436118832
• ISBN-13: 978-1436118835
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Peace is only the time it takes to reload.", January 2, 2008

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salt River: A Novel (Hardcover)

James Sallis, who can convey as much information in one sentence as most authors convey in a paragraph, concludes his John Turner trilogy with this dark, contemplative novel about life's unfinished stories. Turner's own life is a story in the making. A war veteran and ex-con who spent nineteen months in prison, where he studied to become a psychological counselor, Turner eventually worked with the Memphis Police Department before escaping to the small town of Cripple Creek to escape the violence. Persuaded to step in as temporary sheriff, he discovers that violent death makes its way even to small towns, the subject of _Cripple Creek_, the previous novel in the trilogy.

At the outset of Salt River, more than two years later, Turner has seen and done it all, buffeted by fate and his own bad choices. He has remained in Cripple Creek, but his life is dark, sad, and full of the knowledge that unexpected horrors can cripple, if not kill, even the most flickering of one's personal hopes. Though this short novel could be considered a noir mystery, filled with violence, misery, and the inhumane behaviors with which men must deal in their everyday lives, the focus here is primarily on Turner and his "self-narrative."

In many ways a mystery man who refuses wear his heart or his personal history on his sleeve, Turner works on three pressing law enforcement issues here while reminiscing about his life and contemplating his future. Billy Bates, the renegade son of the sheriff, crashes a car into City Hall and is seriously injured. The circumstances under which he acquired the car are a key issue. Isaiah Stillman, who has founded a commune in the hills, learns that his friend Merle has been murdered on his way to see Isaiah. Merle has been carrying an unusual package. And Milly Bates, wife of the sheriff's son Billy, is mysteriously kidnapped and may be dead.

Life, Turner shows us, is messy, and people's lives are always unfinished stories. People do what they can to muddle through, with little expectation that their efforts will bear fruit. "There are mountain men or cowboys inside us all, Henry David Thoreau and Clint Eastwood riding double in our bloodstreams and our dreams," Turner observes. Ultimately, "we don't stub our toes on streets of gold...we don't tell people we love how much we love them when it matters, we never quite inhabit the shadows we cast as we cross this world." Spare with details and minimalist in style, this intelligent and thoughtful novel of ideas and identity further enhances Sallis's reputation as one of the best contemporary noir writers out there. n Mary Whipple

Cripple Creek: A Novel
Drive

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death's Sweet Chords, July 12, 2008

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salt River: A Novel (Hardcover)

I don't think you can read James Sallis and not walk away struck with awe and reverence. While others may major in plot or clever twists and irony, Sallis' triumph is his mastery of the language - his use of simple words effortlessly spun in to passages unlocking emotion and conjuring images that defy the common rural settings and ordinary folk of which he writes. This is the English language at its best - the power of Faulkner told in words that can actually be understood. Or think Cormac McCarthy with punctuation - a less complex, but equally potent rendering of the literature.

"Salt Creek" is the third, and one would think the last, in the series of John Turner, the ex-many-things and reluctant fill-in sheriff of a small Tennessee town where he's returned to settle out his last years. As the homilies and allegories and metaphors compete for precious space across Sallis' scant pages, he tells a dark and remorseful tale of lost youth and death that is as relevant to the dying town as it is to its unfortunate but colorful and well-drawn characters. Sallis slides easily in time - memories and dreams blur and blend and are at least as important as Turner's dealing in the here-and-now. But if you're like me, you'll find yourself only casually interested in the events that led the Sheriff's wayward son to crash an apparently stolen car into the City Hall, or unravel the mystery of Turner's friend Eldon Brown, who shows up after a two year absence telling Turner he may or may not have killed someone - as the soaring prose provides more than enough pleasure to pass the too few hours of reading that end too quickly.

So if you measure your literary purchases in dollars/word, this may disappoint - try "War and Peace". But if your looking for an extraordinarily efficient lesson in how to disguise poetry as engaging prose, along with a keen insight into a disappearing slice of American culture, you have to read this book - and "Cypress Grove" and "Cripple Creek" that precede it. For fiction as an art form, there is no one writing today more adept than James Sallis - it's a shame he isn't more widely read.

2.0 out of 5 stars Reader Beware, October 19, 2011

By 

Clarice - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salt River: A Novel (Hardcover)

This review is primarily a warning to readers NOT to read this book if you have not already read the first two books in the series, CYPRESS GROVE and CRIPPLE CREEK. This is the third book in a trilogy.

I picked this one up on remainder, having heard good things about Sallis. The book is exceedingly brief; and I have no problem with that, as I can find a tight novel very memorable. The problem is that, unless you've read the first two books, attempting to read SALT RIVER is like being dropped down into the middle of a soap opera you've never seen before and know nothing about. Throughout the entire book, I didn't know who the characters were; there is an assumption that you know their back stories, but not having read the first two books, I knew nothing - and the author provides almost no help for the uninitiated.

As a result, I spent the entire reading experience wondering who was related to whom, who had done what in the past, and how all of this was relevant to the paper-thin plot of SALT RIVER. The title, I assume, refers to the tears of self-pity that the narrator, Turner, cries for himself throughout.

Still, I try to write fair reviews so I am basing my rating on what I would likely have given the book if I'd read the first two in the trilogy. I can forgive the watered-down plots, which have little mystery to them but a lot of confusion. I'm less forgiving of the continual pontification/philosophizing of the narrator, and I'm even less forgiving when I feel that the author doesn't consider the reader very much in his writing. This is an extremely author-centric book, and while I know that praise has been heaped on Sallis, I really cannot see what all the fuss is about.

Maybe the book just isn't my cup of tea; but I like hardboiled (I'm a fan of Ken Bruen, Andrew Vachss, et al.). They do a lot that Sallis doesn't: They create complicated characters who aren't just whiners; their people take the law into their own hands and are people of action, which propels the narrative. Reading this book is like listening to an elderly relative tell you stories that you've heard a hundred times before.

Maybe I'll try DRIVE, or one of the other Sallis books, to see if the second time will be a charm.