Saturday, November 20, 2004

"It's not so much accent as rhythm that gives us away. Where stresses fall, the momentum towards sentence's end, pauses on nouns or verbs"

Just finished James Sallis's Cypress Grove. This is an amazing book. (I was tipped off to it by Ken Bruen, who as far as I am concerned is a genius with impeccable literary taste.) Excellent, excellent noir. Wonderful first-person narration. Elegant weaving-together of past and present narratives to sum up a life. Imagine a more lyrical version of Pete Dexter. This is a fantastic novel! Must get all of his others from the library ASAP. This is ridiculously better, too, than much of what's out there in the detective fiction aisles--why isn't this guy more famous?!? (Or maybe I've just been oblivious to it. But seriously, get this book and read it, you won't regret it.)

2 comments:

  1. Sallis is great. I just finished reading his new anthology from Point Blank Press. You should check out his webiste for poems, short stories, articles, etc.

    One educator to another, this is not to be missed.
    Aldo

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  2. Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely check it out. I'm looking forward to reading everything of his I can get my hands on, for sure.

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