An Interview with James Sallis

James Sallis is pretty much the complete man of letters. Probably best known as a crime writer – in which role Ian Rankin has called him “one of the best of the best” – he has written sci-fi and literary fiction too. His non-fiction includes poetry, biography and criticism. And nor should one overlook here his work as a translator: if you should ever read Queneau’s Saint Glinglin in English, in the edition published by Dalkey Archive Press, you will be reading James Sallis’ prose. This wide-ranging interview – touching on various aspects of Sallis’ work and life, on the writing process itself and on the fate of the city of New Orleans – took place in July 2007.

A review of Broken Blossoms

David Wark Griffith’s Broken Blossoms, or the Yellow Man and the Girl (1919) is about a girl abused by her father, a girl who knows little joy until she meets a Chinese shopkeeper who befriends her; and the film’s themes, which encompass the differences between east and west, spirituality and materialism, and compassion and brutality, remain interesting; and the film’s narrative movement gains in complexity; and the film’s compositions—dynamic frames featuring expressive actors in settings full of detail—make compelling viewing.

A review of The Best Australian Stories 2006

Good short fiction works a quite a different dimension to novels – it needs a fast denouement, and the language has to be sharper, cleaner, more exacting because of the limited space. All of this stories in this collection are complete – leaving the reader with some kind of denoument. Drewe has chosen well, and the book contains a good range of material, from the modern to the traditional, funny, serious, intense, lighthearted – funky or political.

Cowboy Junkies, At the End of Paths Taken

The songs on At the End of Paths Taken attempt to suggest the complexities—complications and contradictions, coincidences and correspondences—that are to be found in an individual mind, in a relationship, in a society. That is a respectable mission, but it is not as unusual as I have sometimes thought—it may be the most lasting goal of serious, modern artists.

Tribute: Joan Armatrading, Into the Blues

Does it matter when a mature musician decides to explore a musical genre, such as the blues, that has become somewhat neglected?  On the album Into the Blues, Joan Armatrading’s song “A Woman in Love” is about the power of love, its ability to calm, to correct; and the blues notes in the song do not forbid rhythmic propulsion or Armatrading’s distinctively contemplative—austere, open, and pleasantly thoughtful—vocal tones.  It is possible to hear a difference in her sound and yet it is a difference that does not obscure Joan Armatrading’s temperament or the nature of her much-loved gifts (it is simply a new accent, a new tonal color).