ja m e s sa l l i s

one man’s drive
The adaptation of James Sallis’s book Drive turned
Ryan Gosling into a superstar. ShortList’s Howard
Calvert meets the man who penned the noveli l lu st r at i o n :C r i st i a n a

C o u c e i roames Sallis recently finished his
15th novel. Within these tightly
written, critically acclaimed
masterpieces you will findguns, violence, detectives andbrooding lines such as “As he struggles, he looks
down. An ingot of bloody flesh, his flesh, drops
on to his chest.” You will know him as the man
who wrote Drive.
ShortList meets the 68-year-old author in therefined setting of the British Library over a cup oftea. The softly spoken American may not seem
like the type of man to write the book that madeRyan Gosling an A-list actor, but as we heargripping stories about finding discarded ears
under bar stools (“It looked like a shrivelled, driedfruit”) it’s clear that, behind the grey beard andoval glasses, Sallis has lived a life less ordinary.

J4 6w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

How do you come up with the initial ideas foryour books?
I’ve always been an improviser. I never have anoutline. I start with an image, which tends tocome out of nowhere, then ask myself questions
about that image, and by answering thosequestions the story narrates itself. I spend a lot oftime just watching the cursor blink at me
thinking, “Oh Lord, what am I going to now?”
Have you had an image for every bookyou’ve written?
Almost every book. Drive started with what is thefirst page – the bodies and Driver trying to figureout what to do. That was first scribbled on a legal
pad in New Orleans four years before I picked itup and started writing. The only exception is[upcoming novel] Others Of My Kind. I was out

walking and the voice just fell into my ear.
It was the main character talking about being
abducted and put in a box. I rushed homeand typed it almost exactly the way it appears
in the book.
At what point do you come up with abook’s title?
Often I have the name when I start. DriveI didn’t know until I’d finished it. I came up withall sorts of fanciful names. I used Blue At The
Back Of My Head one time, which is from aRobert Creeley poem. I love the quote, but it’sa bit uppity for a book like Drive. Eventually, mywife said, “It’s Drive, you idiot!”
What advice do you give to new writers?
When in doubt, cut. We all tend tow w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

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ja m e s sa l l i sYour descriptions of violence are very
authoritative. Were you involved in many fights
as a younger man?
I had one fight in my life. I was 11 years old, and a bully
began verbally assaulting and pushing me. Oneday, he started and I just grabbed his shoulders
and slammed him into a cement embankment andstarted beating his head against the cement, very
coldly. I realised then that the violence was inside
me, and I did everything I could to keep from everletting that happen again. A lot of what I write about
concerns the violence that is inside all of us.
Have you seen many fights while playing on stage
in your blues band, Three-Legged Dog?
My highlight was in Dallas, many years ago. I wasplaying steel guitar, and someone dropped on thedancefloor, I thought they were seizing – I’m a trained
medical technician. The band leader told me to get
down and help. So the band kept playing and I did
CPR on the man until the ambulance showed up.
I got back on stage and did my little steel guitar break
while they were hauling the man out of the door.
The other notable time was one night, as we wereputting our equipment out, I found something underthe table. I pulled it out and it was a human ear. I took
it to the bartender and he said, “We’ve been looking
for that.” It was from a fight the night before.
What is about Drive that made it perfect fora film adaptation?
Frankly, it was Hossein Amini’s script. The idea with
Drive was to have a very simple story with a lot ofmomentum. It’s very cinematic – visual and actionorientated. [Years ago] they tried to make the bookinto a blockbuster. Scripts were written that had
explosions and multiple car chases and heroism. Itwould have been dreadful. Hugh Jackman was being
talked about in the main role, but he was involved withso many other things that he couldn’t do it and it wasshelved. Then Ryan Gosling came aboard. He waslooking for something different, something action/adventure, a strong, ‘Steve McQueen’ part. He really
liked it, and he wanted Nicolas Winding Refn to direct.
No one had any idea what was going to happen.
Did Nic and Ryan do anything to thank you, suchas present you with a scorpion jacket?
My experience with the whole thing was so gracious
and nice – I was kept in the loop constantly. I did notread the script, I didn’t want to, and at the premiere in
LA the first thing Nic did when he went onstage wasto thank me and say I was responsible for all of this,and I was bowled away. I have a scorpion sweatshirt,actually. I wear it – it has the scorpion on the sleeve.
Did you see Ryan’s band play?
No, we didn’t talk much. When I was on set he wasso focused – you didn’t want to mess with him – so
we said hello and shook hands. I was so entrancedby his eyes. I just kept staring at them.
What about talk of the pair of them making thesequel, Driven?
Nic has finally said he is not going to make the sequel,and I never really expected that he would. Driven waswritten largely at the request of the studio. I feel thatlightning strikes once, and maybe we should leave it
alone, because it’s such an individual, fine film.
Has the popularity of Drive changed you?
It has, because it has brought so many readers to myearly work and got it back into circulation. I was in theUK last year, and people were handing me stacks ofbooks to sign. Guys would come up to me and say,
“I went to see Drive because my girlfriend made me.
Hell of a movie!” It’s made me so visible as writer.
Have you been asked to sign anything unusual?
An exact copy of the scorpion jacket, in Germany.
I was surprised at that.

others of my kindallis’s next book follows
the story of a TV editor,
Jenny Rowan, who wasabducted aged eightand held captive in awooden box under a bed for two years.
She escaped and lived in a shopping
centre before being rescued and taken
into care. The police have now tracked
her down and want her help on asimilar case. The following is an extractfrom the opening chapter.

STwo years after I was taken, we went
to Westwood Mall, the first outing
we’d ever had. It was our second
anniversary, Danny explained, andhe wanted to do something special
to celebrate. He gave me a pearl
necklace, real pearls, he said, andI promised to behave. He’d evenbought a pretty blue dress and shoes
for me. At Acropolis Greek I stabbed
his hand with a plastic knife, kicked
off the shoes, and fled. I was
surprised at how easily the knife
went in, at the way it broke off
when I twisted. Flesh should not bethat vulnerable, that penetrable.
After that, I lived in the mall.
Found safe places to hide fromsecurity guards, came out at nightor during the rush hours to dine off
an abundance of leftover fast food,
had my pick of T-shirts, jackets andall manner of clothing left behind,read abandoned books andnewspapers. I had turned from genie
to Ms Tarzan. Periodically I’d watch
from various vantage points as
Danny prowled the mall hoping to4 8w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o mfind me. You
may remember
apocryphal talesof Mall Girl,sightings ofwhich were firstreported at
Westwood thenquickly spreadthroughout thecity’s othermalls. Eventually everyone cameto believe the whole thing was ex
nihilo, spun from vapour to whole
cloth, no more than a self-serving
stunt. The journalist who firstreported these tales and devoted
weeks of her column to following
up on them, Sherry Bayles, wassummarily fired. Lack of journalisticintegrity, the paper cited. Later,when she was working as a
substitute teacher, more or less by
simple chance we became friends.
She’s the only one I ever told about
my days on the mall. Endearingly,
she did no more than smile and nod.
My Edenic time at Westwood
ended after 18 months. A newly
hired security guard gave credence
to the stories and lay in wait for melong after his shift was done. I wasbiting into half a leftover hamburger
I’d fished out of one of the trashcontainers when he came up behindme and said, “I’d be happy to buy you
a whole one.” His name was Kevin,a really nice man. He bought methat hamburger, complete withfries and shake, on the way to thepolice station. There a Mrs Cabot

e xc lu s i v e
extractfrom Family Services picked me up.
So the second – third? fourth?
– act of my life began.
Next morning I woke up in what
they call a holding facility. Whatever
they called it, it was an animal pen,
30 or 40 kids all stuffed in there. Oneof them came snuffling around mybed like a pig after truffles around
3am and left with a bloody nose,
down one tooth. At eight theygave me a breakfast of underdone,
runny eggs with greasy bacon
mixed in and carted me off to see
a social worker.
She said her name was Miss
Taylor. “The report states that you’vebeen living on your own in the mall.
Is that right?”“Yes, ma’am.”“And you’re 11?”
“Almost 12.”
“You told the admitting nursethat before this, you spent two years
in a box under someone’s bed.”
Miss Taylor was sitting behinda desk in an office chair. She rockedback and forth, staring at me. Whenshe rocked back, she went out ofsight. There she was. Gone. There
she was again.
“The nurse thinks you madethat up.”
“I don’t make things up.”
Others Of My Kind will be released on
27 October. A new special edition ofDrive is out now, priced £7.99 (No Exit)

photographs: corbis

overwrite, and nothing got worse by being cut;it only gets better.