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"Drive" On

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes the best writing is a mixture of pleasure and pain that changes things in your skull on a permanent basis.
You can't forget it. You don't want to.
The rush of great writing long ago made me into a junkie scrounging for fix.
"Drive" is the last book that got me tripping something fierce, hypnotized by the story but howling internally in anticipation of the bad ending that just had to be coming.

Littered with good bookstores, D.C. is a book lover's dream.
But Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe & Grill at Dupont Circle seems like it's got my demographic.
I was poking around the mystery section there last week, trying to decide if I wanted to spring for another George Pelecanos book since "Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go" had made the grade.
A few books down, a woman plucked William Gibson's "Neuromancer" off the shelf and waved it in a guy's face.
"I never read stuff like this, but someone told me this was really good, so I did. And you just can't believe someone can be so creative. It's a great book," she said.
"I don't usually read books like that," the guy said, wrinkling his nose like a bad smell was in the room.
I guess that means books some might refer to as so-called "low culture" because they weren't written by say, Dickens, Shakespeare or even Twain.
I felt sorry for that guy at the bookstore. I really did. I've spent half a lifetime trying to catch up on the low culture I missed while slaving away as an English major in college, reading "To the Lighthouse" and Emily Dickenson's oft twisted musings.
That meant I knew nothing of Stephen King's "The Stand," Poppy Z. Brite's "Lost Souls," Susanna Moore's "In the Cut" and dozens of others who've since enriched my life.
I don't regret that I'm formally schooled in high culture one bit. Just the other day, I snagged a new book of ee cummings poetry.
I just wish this attitude of "it's gotta be one or the other" would get off the bookshelf.
Some of the coolest, best writing percolates between the covers of popular fiction -- and nonfiction.
"Neuromancer" is a book to be devoured. The writing shines with a poetic flair, and Gibson's imagination fuels the story. It's basically a sad story. I often try to avoid sad stories in the written word or at the movies because I've seen enough misery.
But I couldn't stop reading "Neuromancer." I was hooked from the first taste.
In Kramerbooks, I turned away from the poor sot who was too much of a literary snob to dig into the cyberpunk classic.
My hand found a slick paperback by James Sallis with "Drive" on the front.
And I went for a ride.
I read the whole thing in about four hours. It's a masterpiece of noir crime fiction about a guy called Driver with a really crappy childhood who turned out pretty good -- considering.
He drives for a living, first as a stunt driver and then more and more as a crook.
You know a writer's rocking if he gets you rooting wholeheartedly for someone who's an unabashed criminal you wouldn't want to meet in an alley, light or dark.
But heck, Driver's really a pretty good guy, even likeable, except for a laundry list of crimes against man and society.
But that's the thing.
Driver is a fleshed-out character, so when the blood starts flowing, you understand why.
Not that you approve of it.
But you understand.
Sallis has a clean, fast style that stays away from being a caricature of Raymond Chandler.
"Drive" is a soaring piece of low culture.

Posted by Trish Choate at 12:37 PM | Permalink