"Drive" By James Sallis

Title: Drive
Author: James Sallis
Published Year: 2005
Pages: 158


Wow, I haven't posted in awhile, but then again I have been busy with my newborn daughter. I was looking at my last posting and I did it two days before she was born. I haven't been reading as much as I like too, and that is one reason why I was able to finish this book. It was short and the print was larger than the books that I am used to, so in between baby naps and feedings it was a breeze to get through.

Just recently this book was released as a movie, one thing I am going to say from the start is that I have not seen the movie and that I am curious to what the movie is going to be like. I went and added it into my saved section of my Netflix queue after reading the book, and after reading the description of the movie on their site, I am wondering how similar the book is to the movie. So I will just wait until it comes out on dvd to compare the two. Hmmm, maybe another blog site based on the movies I watch (and I do watch a ton of those)? Anyways enough of that and onto the actual book.

Drive is based on bits and pieces of a man named Driver's life. He is a stunt driver for movies by day and a getaway driver by night. Sallis' book takes you back and forth through major events in his life and none of them are in any particular order. If you cannot focus and pay attention to the details conveyed in the book you can get lost even with how short the book actually is. Memories of childhood float in and out of what is going on in his current events as well as the events that got him to where he is at the present. Somehow Sallis manages to bring all of this together and succeeds in getting Driver's general story across. I was amazed at the detailed development of Driver in the limited amount of pages that were there. Sallis could have just detailed the situation Driver finds himself in during the present and left the rest out, but then there would be no character development. I like depth in my characters when I read books and for a stunt driver/getaway driver, the main character actually has depth thanks to the outstanding storytelling of Sallis.

Of course like every other book out there, this book will not be for everyone. It can be easy to get lost in if you are not wanting to pay attention and some people may just not get it. I can personally think of people that I would not recommend it to just because their attention spans would not be able to appreciate the book as I did. Looking at some of Sallis' other works, in the future I may have to venture further into his works and see if he continues to weave good stories with strong characters.