Every so often I go off for a while in my reviewing and book comments about good writers who are far too obscure. I don’t understand why – and don’t expect ever to understand why – some authors hit and others don’t. And while it would be easy to rant about how crappy everyone’s taste is, it’s never that simple. If everyone had bad taste, we would only see Danielle Steel on the best seller list or whoever it is that writes the same book 37 times, or those endless diet books. I honestly cannot comment or judge what works there – I just looked up this week’s best sellers and saw Mary Higgins Clark and Alexander McCall Smith and Anne Tyler. AND Harlan Coben and Philip Roth. AND Charlaine Harris. AND Lee Child sitting comfortably at #3. These are not horrible talentless writers. Some of them are damn good. (Lee doesn’t read this blog so I can tell you that we had a long conversation some time ago where he said “but you don’t like my books and I had to clarify that no, I didn’t exactly. But it wasn’t because he’s a bad writer; I think Lee Child is an EXCELLENT writer. I told him I just couldn’t buy Reacher; Reacher is too perfect for me. Anyone who’s heard Lee talk about Reacher or has read an interview with Lee knows that Reacher is intended to be pretty near perfect, as an antidote to all the Angst Boys of fiction. I get that, I truly do, but I guess I’m angst-prone. But the guy can write, don't ever doubt it.)

So it’s not that I sneer at best sellers, even if I don’t tend to get along with most of them. (I’m given to waving my hands around a lot explaining that the last major mainstream BS I tried was THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP which left me gasping in stunned amazed befuddlement. And I didn’t make it past page, I dunno, 10? I Do NOT get Irving. Period. Paragraph.) (I tried one other, as I recall, so don’t even start.)

But as I’ve posted here in the past, there are writers whose command of the English language is so fine that they are above and beyond. I always cite Ursula Le Guin as someone who writes so beautifully that I tend to stop, and go back and read what I just read for the elegance of it. It’s not that she write using big William Buckley words (or as he’s known Chez Roscoe “William F’Buckley, thank you Lily”) but she just, I don’t know what she does but she does it. She puts words together with grace and elegance and respect for the language and respect for the reader.

As does the guy I want to talk about here – James Sallis. I came to reading Sallis’ work late; I recall trying one of his Lew Griffin books and finding it just too damn depressing. Given that – see above – I tend to understand depressing, I’m not sure what it was that turned me away from the book at that time – probably just too hard a time in my own life. But a few years later, I tried again. I don’t know if it was just that I got a review copy and owed it a try (I really do try to start almost everything I’m sent – I admit that I’m dumping more books unread lately because I can tell when I’m not going to finish something – those fantasy tomes, or cutesy wootsey pooh far too cozy mysteries that either have craft themes (sorry, but I just so HATE TRENDINESS) or cutesy wootsey little villages with cutesy wootsey little constables….ANYWAY….

Jim Sallis. The man writes like an angel. He’s hugely hugely talented. The Lew Griffin books while dark were rich with emotion and description and “the human condition” whatever the hell that is. People who know themselves, people who look around and see where they are. The guy just MAKES IT. And he’s a poet. And he’s a biographer, and he writes science fiction and he writes reviews. And Rob at Poisoned Pen, bless him, took a risk and published a novella Jim Sallis had written. A novella. You don’t hardly see them ‘round here anymore. (really. When was the last time you read a novella? Aha, I see a hand back there. I’m betting you are a science fiction reader, are you not sir?)

I listed that novella, DRIVE, as one of my best of the year books. I listed CYPRESS GROVE as one of my best books – a book that was so complex that anyone else trying it would have made a hash of it. But it rose above. It flew. It soared. And it did every time I read it.

I celebrate that I just went to the website of my public library and saw that there are 68 holds on Sallis' CRIPPLE CREEK. Thank you Seattle.

I read Sallis’ biography of Chester Himes and would never have finished it had it been written by a lesser writer but Sallis made me get through the pain and the ugliness and see the guy.

So I just wanna know why Jim Sallis isn’t HUGE. I’m not the only one. A few weeks ago, a piece appeared in the LA Times written by Judith Freeman and the article entitled “American Gothic” had the subhead “James Sallis writes crime novels that read like literature. So why isn’t he better known?“

Well, fuck that. I mean I hate that whole “it’s not really genre, it’s literature” snot-headed talk. Like Le Guin isn’t a fantasy or science fiction writer, she writes too well. Or Margaret Atwood who apparently for a while denied ever writing that sci-fi stuff (right, honey, there there, pat pat pat) until finally acknowledging that perhaps that was a touch of it in a few of her books. Ya think? THE HANDMAID’S TALE and ORYX AND CRAKE just perhaps had been tainted by the brush of science fiction? Ooooo.

Jim Sallis is a writer. He writes whatever he writes. Apparently “Drive” has come ot the attention of god help me Hugh Jackman who’s apparently seriously looking at it as a film project. Maybe that will bring his books to the attention of people who should read them. I swear to you I tried reading about the project in “Variety” but I just about had a seizure. I cannot, or okay okay, WILL not read articles where people are “”repped” and they “pen” things, where someone is the “prexy” of some agency and a movie where someone is a featured movie is a “Jackman starrer”. You would think that when “Drive” meets “Variety” there would be a huge, planet-ending explosion. Words meet anti-words. Language meets anti-language and all life is obliterated.

If it sells some books, oh please, let it be so. Let’s see a world where talent rules for just a short while, so that instead of sequels of junk and remakes of garbagey pukey 60s tv shows that sucked to begin with, instead of remaking perfectly fine films and destroying whatever was good about them, let’s see maybe if this might help the good guys inch forward for once.

And if not, well, at least I’ve told you about the guy. My work here is done. Maybe you’ll try him some day. You don’t have to. Our taste isn’t always going to be the same. I recently posted some nominations for the Barry Awards over on “Deadline News” and after seeing the list was once again reminded of how, um, quirky my taste is. Of those books I had finished, I would never have nominated a single one. I had tried and rejected more than I had completed – in every category. None of my “best of choices made any list. So maybe you shouldn’t listen to my advice.

Except this time.