Sallis is perhaps best known for the series of six mystery novels that feature private eye Lew Griffin. He ended the series in 2000 because, as he says here, “it was done.” He went on to start a new series with Cypress Grove and Cripple Creek, this one following Turner, a Memphis cop who retires to a cabin in the rural South. There are shades of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux and Steve Hamilton’s Alex McNight in Turner, but thanks to Sallis’ economical prose, the feel of these compact yarns is entirely his own. In between, he penned the taught thriller Drive, which is headed for the silver screen soon.

Eclecticism ought not to be as rare as it is in the literary world, but few take it as far as Sallis. While he doesn't seem to find it an extraordinary feat, he does defend it and decry a business that seeks to pigeonhole writers into one slot. “Literature is not a table with three dishes: it's this huge buffet with all manner of dishes,” he told the Guardian in 2001. “You wander about it at will, take what you want or need, come back for seconds. Everything's there.”

Sallis can stock an entire buffet himself. From his mysteries to science fiction novels like Renderings to musicological studies like The Guitar Players or literary biographies such as Chester Himes: A Life, he seems to have done it all. That doesn’t count the book reviews he writes for the Boston Globe and elsewhere. Oh, and did I mention his various translation projects?

If that’s not enough, he also plays guitar, Dobro, mandolin, banjo and fiddle with the Phoenix-based roots band Three-Legged Dog.

The prolific writer takes a look back with his next book, Potato Tree, which comprises the stories from the now out-of-print Limits of the Sensible World and many previously uncollected stories, which will be published by Host Publications in early 2007. In the meantime, a great place to catch up with the many facets of his work is with The James Sallis Reader from Point Blank Press.

TIRBD: You left the successful Lew Griffin series behind while it still seemed to have plenty of momentum commercially. Was it simply time to move on, or is this indicative of your seeming reluctance to be pigeon-holed into any one genre or style?

JS: I didn’t leave it behind: it was done. Remember that the cycle began as a short story – essentially the first section of The Long-Legged Fly – and continued only because I kept wanting to know more about this character and his world. I thought the first novel was it. Then I thought the second was. With the sixth, Lew’s story had been told. Incidentally, I tend to think of the cycle not as six novels but as one very long one.

It’s not that I’m reluctant to be pigeonholed – I don’t stay up nights figuring out how to dodge bullets – but that I just naturally go back and forth; that’s the way my mind works. And while in my criticism and reviewing I do sometimes carp against categorization, I am speaking up for others. I’ve no problem with being characterized as a crime novelist. It puts me in excellent company.

Regarding that eclecticism in your work, do you consciously choose a particular discipline to write in at certain times – such as deciding to write a mystery or a poem – or do you simply write what comes to you?

The discipline chooses me. If you look at something like The James Sallis Reader or my forthcoming new collection, Potato Tree, you’ll see quite a stew: fantasy, science fiction, poetry, mainstream fiction, “literary” fiction. The substance of the thing comes to you – the feeling of it, the weight of it, the characters, a voice – and you go looking to find the right container.

Drive was a critical and commercial breakout for you. Why do you think it connected so well, and do you have any thoughts about it being made into a film?

A commercial breakout, yes, though in a small way; and I’ve always received great reviews. I’ve no idea why that novel got the attention it did, except for what I tell my students: It’s all the luck of the draw. I think it could make a great film. One could almost film it directly from the novel.

You will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at Bouchercon 2007, recognizing your mystery writing. Any qualms about receiving notice for that part of your work as you try to keep your pen dipped in many different inkwells?

For many years, while being nominated again and again, I’ve successfully evaded receiving any major award. Fast footwork is everything. Now those feisty people at Bouchercon have spoiled a perfect record. Qualms? Well, it’s a lifetime achievement award, which might give one pause – what my friend Larry Block calls the “Look, he’s still alive!” award.

You have another collection on the way (Potato Tree), this time gathering some of your short fiction. Do such glances over your shoulder offer you any insight into your own work, or provide any meaningful context after the fact for what came next?

Not really. It’s rather interesting getting reacquainted with the person who wrote those stories, though. And they do bring a flood of memories. Sometimes it’s like looking at old photos of yourself: “Why did they let me buy those shoes? I wore my hair like that?” Then you come across a story that you just know you could never write today – now that you know how, now that you always look three ways before crossing the street.

Does writing critically about writing and writers, as you do for the Boston Globe and elsewhere, teach you anything about your own work?

Nothing specific. But what it does – as with teaching – is cause you to think about what you are doing, to get out of your own head and gain perspective. Good to climb the tree from time to time and look down on that small clearing you thought was the world. The most important benefit, with both teaching and critical writing, is rededication: remembering why this is important, and why I do it.

Music plays an important role in your work, both in your non-fiction specifically about music and in your fiction. It’s difficult to inject music into fiction without it coming off as a ploy to show how hip the author is, and you are among the few that can pull it off. Any reason why, and why do you make the effort to do so?

Yes, all too often music is brought onstage as a shibboleth, a badge of exception – or is employed in the way that brand names are, as a shortcut to characterization. I never set out to write about music in the stories and novels. Music, obviously, is very much part of the fabric of my life. So it tends to bubble up out of the stew, just as so much else does: my being Southern, my liberalism and skepticism, my disaffection for religion and psychiatry, my love of food and books and those pushed to the margins by our society.

Labels: crime fiction, Monday Interview