Moth

At the outset Lew Griffin's former lover, Laverne, has just passed away. But she leaves a message for Lew asking him to find her recently pregnant and drug addicted daughter who has disappeared. Lew feels that he has to fulfill this request and gets pulled back into the work that he used to do, like a moth to the flame. This is a New Orleans college professor, missing work to go intimidate thugs and break some faces in the process of finding Laverne's daughter. What really made this story so intriguing was Sallis' ability to pack a lot of meaning into just a few words. None of the words felt unnecessary, and Lew emits such an aura of understanding people that he creates a lot of powerful moments without saying much. I loved this book and have since been seeking out all of Sallis' other Lew Griffin novels. How this series could slip so far under the radar is beyond me.

I ordered Black Hornet and Moth after reading Cypress Grove and Drive. What I didn't realize at the time was that I would be reading bookends of the career of Lew Griffin, an accidental private eye fumbling foward into maturity without an immediate need to know why doing what seems right is improbably its own reward. And the writing. This is the reward. There is the plot. There are the characters. And there are the sentences. This book is about Lew Griffen taking stock and making sense of what took him from the Black Hornet to 50 as an adjunct professor in French literature who still finds himself the moth drawn to the flame. The man understands how to break a jaw, remembers the difference between drinking and drinking, mixes in the difference between French and Amaerican fiction, and, finally accepts that being alone is neither noble nor romantic, although ineveitable, all while not resorting to a single cliche or allowing tedium to cause a page to be turned.

Yes, James Sallis seems to have gotten it right. This detective story featuring private eye, Lew Griffin, presents more than your typical follow-the-trail-of-clues but rather it offers social commentary on the state of America (without being didactic), depth of character, as well as insights into how characters perceive themselves and the worlds in which they live. Ironically, Sallis is described as a white author, and his protagonist is African American. As an African American myself who has read Walter Mosely, I have to say that Sallis' writing is more meaty. Kudos to Sallis! I've already started collecting the rest of the books in this series.

This is the second appearance of Lew Griffin,an Afro-Amrecan private detective in New Orleans. In Moth,Griffin searches for missing daughter of late LaVerne,his ex-lover. Griffin interviews and tracks daughter's trail,though,Mr.Sallis seems to be not interested in who done it nor why done it nor what is hiding behind the case. Instead,Mr.Sallis forcuses deep into Griffin. Mr.Sallis writes about despair and trauma of a person who chose to be a PI,a profession to inevitably touch and face the dark and evil side of the human soul. Mr.Sallis's previous novel,The Long- Legged Fly,was wrote on Lew Griffin's fall,how he fell into the dark pit of despair. And its sequel,Moth,is a story of recovery.In searching for a missing person, Griffin struggles to search and grab for the lost part of himself. Mr.Sallis's prose has cool lyricism,and with that,he draws Griffin's despair and the portrait of lonesome detective who tries to get over the despair. Not only the protagonist,but other characters are also well portraited,their life get resonant with Griffin's,and the sound of resonance must hit the emotion of readers. In the groomy rain of New Orleans,Mr.Sallis presents us a well-crafted story of a depressed man,a story of desperate hope. A private-eye novel played in blue note. Very original