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Title/Author

Driven

James Sallis

Average Review Rating Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)
Book Details

Publisher : No Exit Press

Published : 2012

Copyright : James Sallis 2012

ISBN-10 : PB 00
ISBN-13 : PB dd

Publisher's Write-Up

Drive, James Sallis's critically acclaimed thriller about a movie stunt-man who moonlights as a getaway driver for the mob, became an award-winning film, directed by Nicholas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan and introduced Sallis to a worldwide audience - this is the stunning sequel.

Seven years have passed since Driver ended his campaign against those who double-crossed him. He has left the old life, become Paul West and founded a successful business back in Phoenix. But walking down the street one day, he and his fiancee are attacked by two men and, while Driver dispatches both, his fiancee is killed. Sinking back into anonymity, aided by his friend Felix, an ex-gangbanger and Desert Storm vet, Driver realises that his past stalks him - and will not stop. He has to turn and face it.

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Reader Reviews

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Review by Ben Macnair (310715) Rating (7/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Rating 7/10
Seven years have passed since the events of Drive, and Driver has found a new life, a new identity, and has put his past behind him. He is now Paul West, and is a successful business man fixing cars in Phoenix, but his old life is not ready to surrender its hold over his future.

Two men are sent to kill him; Driver, seemingly able to remember his old skills, kills them both, but pays the heaviest price, Shannon his fiancee is dead, and Paul West, as false as he always was, is no more.

Driver is still only 26, a young man by any standard, but out of necessity, he has had to pack a lot of experience into those years.

Sallis uses the same language, and writerly techniques to describe Driver and his life that made Drive such an outstanding piece of Neo Noir fiction. We are in the same underworld of cars, film sets, and dodgy deals going wrong, but there is a lot more humanity here. We see Driver more at ease with himself, his life, and the high price he has had to pay for what he does.

There are a lot of telling details in the book, how Driver has to go looking for those he is after, how each little character in the novella leads to another character. It is a labyrinthine story-line, and although the story telling style is completely linear, there is a lot to get through in this short, 150 page book. Driven is modern day Neo Noir of the highest order, and if you liked the recent film of Drive, you could do a lot worse than reading the source material.
Ben Macnair (31st July 2015)

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