Review ~ Others of My Kind by James Sallis

No Exit Press
2013

James Sallis is hailed as the master of noir, and this latest novella goes a long way to prove just how expert he is in relating a story which should be quite shocking, but, which is, in the main, an uplifting story of one woman’s determination to rise above an horrendous childhood experience. To say more about the story would be to do both the book and the author a great disservice as Others of My Kind is best read without any preconceptions of either story or character.

The author is clearly a master of the succinct; no words are wasted and each sentence is constructed with such precision that even the most provocative of scenarios, and there are a couple of events in the book which I found difficult to read, are recorded in such an unemotional sort of way, that almost without realising it, a bond forms between reader and protagonist, which lasts until the story is finished.

In any other author’s hands, this story would probably have run on for several hundred pages, but without doubt, James Sallis has said everything that needed be said in just 157 pages of sheer brilliance.

My thanks to Real Readers for my copy of this book to read in advance of its publication.

About the author

 

James Sallis (born 21 December 1944 in Helena, Arkansas) is an American crime writer, poet and musician, best known for his series of novels featuring the character Lew Griffin and set in New Orleans, and for his 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name.