What You Were Fighting For James Sallis 9781915798503

WHAT YOU WERE FIGHTING FOR is a wonderful collection of short stories that provokes the mind with its weird and intriguing tales. We catch glimpses of worlds that are similar to our own, but always different enough to make you wonder and sit at the edge of your seat. Reading this collection you often have to work out what is truly happening as Sallis weaves his imaginative portrayals of idiosyncratic characters with all the subtlety of the mind that spawned the Lew Griffin novels, Willnot, Sarah Jane, and Drive.

James Sallis has published sixteen novels, multiple collections of short stories, essays, and poems, books of musicology, a biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau's novel Saint Glinglin. He has written about books for the LA Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, and for some years served as a books columnist for the Boston Globe. He has received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon, the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing, and The Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere.

'Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared-down prose is distinctive and powerful. The result is a small masterpiece' Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph

'Sallis's lean mystery and flat-voiced prose are refreshing, even startling. A lovely piece of work' Paul Skenesay, Washington Post Best Books of the Year

'The poet Sallis betrays himself on every page with an inordinate desire to capture a nuance of light, essence of cat or waver of a farewell. His prose style is witty, elliptical and heady with image and allusion; his bedrock underlying purpose is nothing less than an exploration of meaning and identity'

'There is a deep poetry that lurks beneath the language, a rhythm that beautifully captures the way real people speak and think'

'At this point, it may be fair and best to say James Sallis is a genre unto himself'

'One of the most enjoyable and most important writers working today, James Sallis has quietly revolutionised an entire genre of literature'