Moth

New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, 1993. First Carroll & Graf Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Karen Sallis (Author photograph). 205, [3] pages. Signed by the author on the title page. DJ has some wear and soiling and is price clipped. Spurred by a friend's death, Lew Griffin returns from a self-imposed exile to search for his late friend's runaway daughter and to face his troubled relationship with his own father. James Sallis (born December 21, 1944) is an American crime writer who wrote a series of novels featuring the detective character Lew Griffin set in New Orleans, and the 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name. Sallis began writing science fiction for magazines in the late 1960s. Having sold several stories to Damon Knight for his Orbit series of anthologies, and a story to Michael Moorcock by the time he was in his mid-twenties, Sallis was then invited to go to London to help edit New Worlds just as it changed to its large format during its Michael Moorcock-directed New Wave SF phase; Sallis published his first sf story, "Kazoo" there in 1967 and was co-editor from April 1968 through Feb 1969. His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant-garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work limited his appeal in the science fiction world, though he received some critical acclaim for A Few Last Words. Sallis has been influenced by French New Novelists including Michel Butor and Robbe-Grillet. Later short work (uncollected until Time's Hammers) appeared in the USA through the 1970s and 1980s. In Lit Hub Lisa Levy considered his output significant and diverse and ranked him as perhaps alongside Don DeLillo (b.1936) and Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937). Lew Griffin is an African-American amateur detective, functioning alcoholic, sometime teacher and novelist. In The Long-Legged Fly the narrative opens with Griffin committing a murder only obliquely referred to again, creating a pervasive sense of guilt which dogs Griffin throughout the subsequent three decades through several missing-persons cases and his own back story. From a 2017 review by Rob Kitchin posted on-line: Lew Griffin has lived a meandering life of unfulfilled relationships, sorrow and regrets. After years of working as a private detective, scouring the underbelly of New Orleans, he has become a novelist and university professor, transforming his past into fiction. Shortly after the death of one of his past loves her current partner asks Griffin to locate her missing daughter. She has dropped out of school and seemingly gone on a drugs-filled bender. Griffin agrees to try and track her down, returning to his old crafts and haunts, and occasional violence he thought he'd left behind. The trail takes him out of the city and to memories of his parents and his own long-lost son. Moth is the second book in the Lew Griffin series set in New Orleans. In this outing Griffin comes out of retirement as a private detective to track down the missing daughter of an old flame who has recently died. His journey threads him through the underbelly of the city and out into rural Louisiana. There are three real strengths to Moth. The first is the central character of Griffin, who is cloaked in a world weariness, worn down by years of operating as a PI and dealing with oppressors and victims, everyday racism, successive failed relationships sabotaged by his own unwillingness to commit, and his inability to find his missing son, yet remains compassionate and resolute. The second is philosophical observations and asides about human nature and society, as well as some nice intertextuality concerning the authorship and narrative form. The third is the prose and voice; Sallis also writes poetry and it tells in the lyrical nature of his writing. The plot is engaging enough, tracking Griffin's progress in locating the wayward daughter, with a second thread added near the end, though the resolution of both are rather flat. However, Moth is really a tale about Griffin himself rather than telling the story of a compelling mystery. And that focus worked fine for me as he's an interesting character to spend time with, as is Sallis' prose and reflections on life and society.