Review:
SALT RIVER by James Sallis
Review by Sandra Ruttan
Many books are written as man against the world, fighting to shape his own destiny and overcome whatever obstacles threaten him. Within crime fiction, most books involve a quest for answers, a protagonist determined to find the missing pieces to put the puzzle together and figure out whodunit, or why the guilty party did it.
In other words, many books – even character-driven books – rely on action to propel the storyline. The plot follows a series of events and reactions to those events.
Reading Sallis is refreshingly different. In SALT RIVER John Turner does not doggedly hunt down leads, question every person who might even remotely be connected to the events unfolding. Nor does he lose himself in a bottle as he struggles to deal with his own grief. As tragedy strikes again and again how the events unfolding affect Turner on a personal level, how he processes them, how he feels, is never sacrificed to the plot. In fact, the story is more about his journey than anything else. The way Sallis writes embodies the spirit of the idea that the universe will unfold as it should, the truths eventually reaching Turner through incidents often out of his control without seeming contrived or unrealistic because Sallis sets up those scenes so subtly you don’t predict them but have been prepared for them.
SALT RIVER is a beautifully written portrait of the journey of the dying: the dying man, the dying town. The prose is hypnotically spellbinding. As a bass player I know the silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves, an understanding Sallis translates to his writing effortlessly, making the revelations of the book all the more powerful. A tremendous talent. Which authors will still be read fifty years from now? Whoever else makes the list, without a doubt Sallis’s name will be on it.
About the Reviewer:
Sandra Ruttan's novel, WHAT BURNS WITHIN, will be released by Dorchester in May 2008, to be followed by THE FRAILTY OF FLESH November 2008. Ken Bruen declared her work "totally mesmerizing" while Clive Cussler concluded, "Ruttan has a spellbinding style." She is also an editor with Spinetingler Magazine. For more information, visit her website at www.sandraruttan.com