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Lew Griffin #6
Ghost of a Flea
"A man stands in a darkened room in New Orleans, looking out through a window, seeing the past. There's a body on the bed behind him; wind pecks at the window, traffic sounds drift aimlessly in. The man thinks that if he doesn't speak, doesn't think about what happened, somehow things will be alright again. He thinks about his own life, about the other's, about how the two of them came to be here." Lew Griffin is alone...or almost so. His relationship with Deborah is falling apart; his son, David, has disappeared again, leaving a note that sounds final. His friend Don Walsh, who is leaving the police department, is shot interrupting a robbery. And Lew is He hasn't written anything in years; he no longer teaches...there's nothing to fill his days. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
3 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
About the author
James Sallis
189 books401 followersJames 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.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 6, 2019
Most of this novel is a 3.5 star read. Sallis writes some of the most beautiful sentences and stunning paragraphs always, but the plotless meandering was less compelling than the seven or eight novels of his I’ve read. Then again, New Orleans is a main character in Ghost of a Flea, and it struts and frets all around the reader with such ease, she might gain weight and catch a buzz as the pages turn.
Ultimately, though, there’s that ending. Or to be more accurate, that last thirty pages of mesmerizing, elegant story-telling. The most powerful gut punch I never saw coming, and will never forget. And that’s how a 3 star book earns two more stars instantly.
I can always trust Sallis to write what I didn’t know I needed to read.
Ultimately, though, there’s that ending. Or to be more accurate, that last thirty pages of mesmerizing, elegant story-telling. The most powerful gut punch I never saw coming, and will never forget. And that’s how a 3 star book earns two more stars instantly.
I can always trust Sallis to write what I didn’t know I needed to read.
January 12, 2016
And finally we get to the grand finale of James Sallis's atypical, challenging, and elusive Lew Griffin series. This novel has solidified the feeling that all six books are just part of one large story, a singular investigation into Lew Griffin's own life and purpose. No single book in the series can stand on its own without the others surrounding it. These novels probably shouldn't even be considered crime fiction, but if they are, they should definitely be seen collectively as one of the bravest pieces of crime fiction out there. I believe that not only was Sallis painting us a portrait of a complex man named Lew Griffin, but he was also painting a portrait of himself as a writer, with details for us to discover, or as he puts it many times in his books: he was sending us messages in code. Sallis is a superb writer, and this book is possibly the most impressive in the series in regards to pure prose. Sallis also provides a wonderful conclusion to the series, with a tone that fits perfectly in with the rest of the novels. But I want this review and the 5-star rating to not refer to this book alone, but to show big love to the series as a whole. These six novels might not be for everyone, and can be demanding and at times frustrating, but by its end, you'll know you experienced something special.
Here are my reviews for the rest of the books in the series:
1) The Long-Legged Fly
2) Moth
3) Black Hornet
4) Eye of The Cricket
5) Bluebottle
Out there in the window-world where a moth beat against glass, a man I knew both too well and not at all stood watching. A man dark and ill-defined, with the mark of lateness, of the autumnal, upon him too.
Here are my reviews for the rest of the books in the series:
1) The Long-Legged Fly
2) Moth
3) Black Hornet
4) Eye of The Cricket
5) Bluebottle
July 28, 2015
Re - Reading originally read in 2003.
This copy is signed by the author.
One tends to forget the awesome power in Mr. Salis's writing.
Through the use of recollections, asides, parables, vignettists, and damn good story telling we travel through Lew Griffins history and present as they form the pinnacle of his life and adventures.
Yes characters are shot, but not all die, Characters have heart attacks and health problems. Folks are portrait as being human, even though not all are necessarily good people.
Love wanders in and out of the story be it between our main character or the interactions with the people he cares for are cares for him. And it's genuine and heartfelt love.
An altogether amazing and satisfying series of books.
I would urge anyone interested to read them in order.
This copy is signed by the author.
One tends to forget the awesome power in Mr. Salis's writing.
Through the use of recollections, asides, parables, vignettists, and damn good story telling we travel through Lew Griffins history and present as they form the pinnacle of his life and adventures.
Yes characters are shot, but not all die, Characters have heart attacks and health problems. Folks are portrait as being human, even though not all are necessarily good people.
Love wanders in and out of the story be it between our main character or the interactions with the people he cares for are cares for him. And it's genuine and heartfelt love.
An altogether amazing and satisfying series of books.
I would urge anyone interested to read them in order.
August 9, 2020
This book was challenging, and like the investigations Lew sets himself to work on over this book, appears meandering, but was actually giving us a picture of a man at loose ends.
Lew is a complicated man, deeply caring, but whose intimate relationships never quite manage to last. The friendships that Lew has built up over these six books: Alouette, now married and with a child, retired cop Don Walsh, wryly amused social worker Richard Garcas, are all revisited. These people seem to have progressed on with their lives. Though there seems to be trouble between Lew and his son David, who is again missing.
Lew seems aimless, no longer writing or teaching, and his relationship with Deborah seems to be petering out. And even while Lew begins investigating 1) threats against Alouette, 2) pigeons poisoned in a nearby park, 3) talking to Alouette’s estranged father (whom we met in book 4), and 4) somewhat reluctantly following up on David’s new disappearance, there doesn’t seem to be much forward motion. Lew’s health also degrades further during the book, after a life of hard drinking and many physical injuries.
The conversations are wonderfully constructed, with Lew making allusions to various author’s works as he ambles and chats with people. The language is wonderful in this book, though the story’s structure is challenging, in fact more challenging than any of the previous books, and I will admit to struggling a little, as I couldn’t quite see where things were going. This story doesn’t stand by itself; you have to have read all previous instalments for this story of this complex, violent, loving man to make sense. And much as I loved the previous instalments, this book felt almost as rudderless as Lew.
And then, that last chapter. That last chapter absolutely slayed me. It was a punch to the gut. And that took this book right to 5 stars. This 6-book journey has so been worth it!
Lew is a complicated man, deeply caring, but whose intimate relationships never quite manage to last. The friendships that Lew has built up over these six books: Alouette, now married and with a child, retired cop Don Walsh, wryly amused social worker Richard Garcas, are all revisited. These people seem to have progressed on with their lives. Though there seems to be trouble between Lew and his son David, who is again missing.
Lew seems aimless, no longer writing or teaching, and his relationship with Deborah seems to be petering out. And even while Lew begins investigating 1) threats against Alouette, 2) pigeons poisoned in a nearby park, 3) talking to Alouette’s estranged father (whom we met in book 4), and 4) somewhat reluctantly following up on David’s new disappearance, there doesn’t seem to be much forward motion. Lew’s health also degrades further during the book, after a life of hard drinking and many physical injuries.
The conversations are wonderfully constructed, with Lew making allusions to various author’s works as he ambles and chats with people. The language is wonderful in this book, though the story’s structure is challenging, in fact more challenging than any of the previous books, and I will admit to struggling a little, as I couldn’t quite see where things were going. This story doesn’t stand by itself; you have to have read all previous instalments for this story of this complex, violent, loving man to make sense. And much as I loved the previous instalments, this book felt almost as rudderless as Lew.
And then, that last chapter. That last chapter absolutely slayed me. It was a punch to the gut. And that took this book right to 5 stars. This 6-book journey has so been worth it!
Read
July 22, 2013I've decided this summer to go back and indulge in some favorite series back to back to back - Ian Fleming's Bonds, Freemantle's Charlie Muffin books, O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise series, Travis McGee, Vachss, and I thought I'd start with a return visit to Lew Griffin. Sallis hits the sweet spot for me as an author who honors the genre while using it to express his own personality and take on the world. Sallis is continually paying tribute - to New Orleans, to interesting books and authors, to music - and I wonder how much of my appreciation for this series stems from the fact that he and I (or Lew Griffin and I) seem to enjoy the same things. Among the many literary references made here are Kenneth Fearing (an author with a similar approach to genre, as Sallis notes, playing with "the great divide between high and low art") Blaise Cendrars, Montaigne, Blake, Agee, Whitman, etc etc. - and as often as not he's mentioning some of my favorite folks. I'm not always sure I know what Sallis is up to in this series, and at a second reading I suspect he wasn't always sure either, and I enjoy and respect that. Chandler wasn't always sure either - this business of being a tarnished knight has more to do with an attitude and a way of being right with oneself in a world full of wrong than with any snappy resolutions of plot. (I would suggest - to fans of Lew Griffin - The Driftless Zone and its sequels by Rick Harsch).
February 17, 2013
I've just finished reading this series for the second time, but this is the first time I've read them all back to back. it's a brilliant series with a fascinating denouement.
By the author of Drive which was recently made into an acclaimed movie.
By the author of Drive which was recently made into an acclaimed movie.
December 31, 2008
The end of the Lew Griffin series. Sallis's bravery as a writer shows through here. I was impressed.
April 7, 2025
Note: Book (and series) spoilers ahead.
++
A moth beat against the glass.
A man looks back on his life.
The man’s son, at the very end of Ghost of a Flea and also the very end of these six utterly fascinating novels, begins the final chapter with this line: “This is what happened, this is the truth.”
The man is Lew Griffin, the sort-of P.I. The philosopher. The thinker. The writer who doesn’t write much. The drinker.
The son is David, finally getting (taking) his own voice. And we get a confession.
“He got off the streets finally, though never as far as he thought he had, or as far as he wanted. Nor did he ever, quite, get away from drinking. In those last years it didn’t ride him as it had, didn’t rent out the front room like before, but it was still a frequent and welcome visitor. Many nights, as levels of Scotch or wine fell in their bottles, he talked about books he loved, books he wanted to write. So I guess part of what I’m doing is writing them down for him. Five so far; this, I think, the last.
“David here, if you’ve not realized it yet if not yet realized it.”
Five so far. This, I think, the last.
In smooth and understated James Sallis fashion, the twist is delivered with a sly hand. For all of Ghost of a Flea and for the five books that have preceded it, right up to this last chapter, we have been immersed, or so we believed, in the first-person accounts of Lew Griffin. Accounts, cases (a loose word in Lew’s world), musings on identity and self and memory and time with references to everyone from Eugene O’Neill to Walter de la Mare to Thomas Pynchon.
David:
“Books and women, his friends, had saved him, he said. And then he would quote Blake. The Imagination is not a state: it is the Human Existence itself.”
More David:
“Four years ago now that he died.
“Four years since, on a bleary six-o’clock morn, so hot already that sweat was pooling and hollows of chest and back, I came to the end of that first book and wrote the words, a man I know both very well and not at all. My father was a complicated man, self-educated and bizarrely ignorant of whole swaths of knowledge yet the best-read person I ever met, gentle with those he loved, violent with others and with himself, a man who often seemed to be pursuing redemption with one hand, self-destruction with the other. I know I’ll never understand my father’s life. He came up in a world I can only imagine. Most of all I think, I treasure that single picture of him sitting with his own father on the steps by the train station as they ate their pass-through breakfasts and Grandfather spoke of invisible men. One of many stories he told me. Like others, I urged him to write them down, but he never did.”
Lew Griffin never wrote … a thing?
Ghost of a Flea? Well, you better not start here. I don’t recommend it. You won’t be able to savor it. You won’t have your bearings or know your history with Lew, David, LaVerne, Alouette, Don Walsh. Many others. New Orleans, too. You might know New Orleans but not through Lew’s eyes. Someone should write an essay about Lew Griffin’s New Orleans, the buildings and back streets. Someone should also write a long essay admiring Sallis’ supple prose and his never-ending resistance to traditional plot points and pacing.
There is nothing conventional about the Lew Griffin series. Other than himself and the state of man’s loneliness, Griffin isn’t that interested in investigating. The six novels don’t lend themselves to snazzy book jacket flap copy. One of the main issues in Ghost of a Flea is dead pigeons. There is no “inciting incident.” Well, for Lew, birth might have been the inciting incident. Birth of a Black man, birth of a man fated to contemplate existence and man’s reasons for being.
More David:
“We can never truly know others, of course. We’re condemned without pardon to our own lives and minds, these islands of self. No one believed that more than my father. And no one believed it more important that we keep trying to breakthrough, to break out—even knowing all the time we can’t.”
In Chapter 13, Sallis gives us a key moment with a forensic entomologist Dr. Greevy. (Two swapped-out vowels away from Dr. Groovy.) Greevy meets Lew to tell him about how he’s analyzing a body. Lew is looking for David, fearing that David might be dead.
Greevy: “City has several dozen varieties of roach … All of them as distinct as individual human faces, many of them deriving from one specific area of the city. Not to mention the others. Fleas, mites, lice. Moths and ants. Or our best if most were rapacious friends, flies. Not only different from one another, but vastly different in behavior, diet, where they lay their eggs, how the young developed, gestation.”
The samples that Greevy takes from the body will help him determine the time the death and even tell what parts of the city the victim had been frequenting.
The previous five titles in the Lew Griffin series: The Long-Legged Fly. Moth. Black Hornet. Eye of the Cricket. Bluebottle.
David:
“Finally it doesn’t matter much what’s true here, what imagined. And trying to re-create my father, I’ve used whatever slights and subterfuges seemed to work. The life he lived in the mind was every bit as important to him and as real as, often more so than, the one he lived externally. He loved all blues, the flatness and predictability and emotional charge of them, things like ‘Po Boy Long Way From Home,’ ‘Going Back to Florida,’ ‘Death Letter Blues.’ And he loved improvisation, Sidney Bechet, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Parker, Monk, Lester Young, those unexpected backflips, self-crossings and contradictions.”
Knowing what you know at the very, very end of Ghost Of A Flea, in terms of this being David’s version of Lew’s version of events, it would be fascinating to start over again at the beginning.
“The Long Legged Fly” is also a poem by William Butler Yeats with this key couplet:
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
At the end of chapter 18 in Ghost of a Flea, Lew is writing. Well, he’s writing and deleting. He wipes out a big chunk of text, contemplates a Pynchon quote. And then Lew thinks: “Enough stray words in the world already … And there in the dark (for now I’d shut off the radio, computer and lights to welcome it) I bent my head into the vast silence that is our lives, and listened.”
Lew’s demise? Predictable. That we’re seeing it through David’s eyes, after all the time that Lew thought David was gone, is that backflip. That contradiction. The egg hatching. But Lew is out there, still bending his head into the vast silence that is our lives.
Nobody ever listened better.
The Imagination is not a state: it is the Human Existence itself.
++
A moth beat against the glass.
A man looks back on his life.
The man’s son, at the very end of Ghost of a Flea and also the very end of these six utterly fascinating novels, begins the final chapter with this line: “This is what happened, this is the truth.”
The man is Lew Griffin, the sort-of P.I. The philosopher. The thinker. The writer who doesn’t write much. The drinker.
The son is David, finally getting (taking) his own voice. And we get a confession.
“He got off the streets finally, though never as far as he thought he had, or as far as he wanted. Nor did he ever, quite, get away from drinking. In those last years it didn’t ride him as it had, didn’t rent out the front room like before, but it was still a frequent and welcome visitor. Many nights, as levels of Scotch or wine fell in their bottles, he talked about books he loved, books he wanted to write. So I guess part of what I’m doing is writing them down for him. Five so far; this, I think, the last.
“David here, if you’ve not realized it yet if not yet realized it.”
Five so far. This, I think, the last.
In smooth and understated James Sallis fashion, the twist is delivered with a sly hand. For all of Ghost of a Flea and for the five books that have preceded it, right up to this last chapter, we have been immersed, or so we believed, in the first-person accounts of Lew Griffin. Accounts, cases (a loose word in Lew’s world), musings on identity and self and memory and time with references to everyone from Eugene O’Neill to Walter de la Mare to Thomas Pynchon.
David:
“Books and women, his friends, had saved him, he said. And then he would quote Blake. The Imagination is not a state: it is the Human Existence itself.”
More David:
“Four years ago now that he died.
“Four years since, on a bleary six-o’clock morn, so hot already that sweat was pooling and hollows of chest and back, I came to the end of that first book and wrote the words, a man I know both very well and not at all. My father was a complicated man, self-educated and bizarrely ignorant of whole swaths of knowledge yet the best-read person I ever met, gentle with those he loved, violent with others and with himself, a man who often seemed to be pursuing redemption with one hand, self-destruction with the other. I know I’ll never understand my father’s life. He came up in a world I can only imagine. Most of all I think, I treasure that single picture of him sitting with his own father on the steps by the train station as they ate their pass-through breakfasts and Grandfather spoke of invisible men. One of many stories he told me. Like others, I urged him to write them down, but he never did.”
Lew Griffin never wrote … a thing?
Ghost of a Flea? Well, you better not start here. I don’t recommend it. You won’t be able to savor it. You won’t have your bearings or know your history with Lew, David, LaVerne, Alouette, Don Walsh. Many others. New Orleans, too. You might know New Orleans but not through Lew’s eyes. Someone should write an essay about Lew Griffin’s New Orleans, the buildings and back streets. Someone should also write a long essay admiring Sallis’ supple prose and his never-ending resistance to traditional plot points and pacing.
There is nothing conventional about the Lew Griffin series. Other than himself and the state of man’s loneliness, Griffin isn’t that interested in investigating. The six novels don’t lend themselves to snazzy book jacket flap copy. One of the main issues in Ghost of a Flea is dead pigeons. There is no “inciting incident.” Well, for Lew, birth might have been the inciting incident. Birth of a Black man, birth of a man fated to contemplate existence and man’s reasons for being.
More David:
“We can never truly know others, of course. We’re condemned without pardon to our own lives and minds, these islands of self. No one believed that more than my father. And no one believed it more important that we keep trying to breakthrough, to break out—even knowing all the time we can’t.”
In Chapter 13, Sallis gives us a key moment with a forensic entomologist Dr. Greevy. (Two swapped-out vowels away from Dr. Groovy.) Greevy meets Lew to tell him about how he’s analyzing a body. Lew is looking for David, fearing that David might be dead.
Greevy: “City has several dozen varieties of roach … All of them as distinct as individual human faces, many of them deriving from one specific area of the city. Not to mention the others. Fleas, mites, lice. Moths and ants. Or our best if most were rapacious friends, flies. Not only different from one another, but vastly different in behavior, diet, where they lay their eggs, how the young developed, gestation.”
The samples that Greevy takes from the body will help him determine the time the death and even tell what parts of the city the victim had been frequenting.
The previous five titles in the Lew Griffin series: The Long-Legged Fly. Moth. Black Hornet. Eye of the Cricket. Bluebottle.
David:
“Finally it doesn’t matter much what’s true here, what imagined. And trying to re-create my father, I’ve used whatever slights and subterfuges seemed to work. The life he lived in the mind was every bit as important to him and as real as, often more so than, the one he lived externally. He loved all blues, the flatness and predictability and emotional charge of them, things like ‘Po Boy Long Way From Home,’ ‘Going Back to Florida,’ ‘Death Letter Blues.’ And he loved improvisation, Sidney Bechet, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Parker, Monk, Lester Young, those unexpected backflips, self-crossings and contradictions.”
Knowing what you know at the very, very end of Ghost Of A Flea, in terms of this being David’s version of Lew’s version of events, it would be fascinating to start over again at the beginning.
“The Long Legged Fly” is also a poem by William Butler Yeats with this key couplet:
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
At the end of chapter 18 in Ghost of a Flea, Lew is writing. Well, he’s writing and deleting. He wipes out a big chunk of text, contemplates a Pynchon quote. And then Lew thinks: “Enough stray words in the world already … And there in the dark (for now I’d shut off the radio, computer and lights to welcome it) I bent my head into the vast silence that is our lives, and listened.”
Lew’s demise? Predictable. That we’re seeing it through David’s eyes, after all the time that Lew thought David was gone, is that backflip. That contradiction. The egg hatching. But Lew is out there, still bending his head into the vast silence that is our lives.
Nobody ever listened better.
The Imagination is not a state: it is the Human Existence itself.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2016
What a unique experience! Not only the story that was told, but how it was told. (See my review for 'Eye of the Cricket'.) I read (listened to) all the 'Lew Griffin' books back to back. I would call the 6 books ONE book with 6 parts. And I know it will be my go-to again whenever I need to just ... relax and chill.
March 17, 2013
I feel truly fortunate to have had the chance to read twice through this series. There are no words I can offer as a 'review' to do justice to the simple magnificence of these books.
September 13, 2009
A surprising, impressionistic end to the Lew Griffin series. Beautiful prose.
May 15, 2021
Well, I finished it. That’s about the best that I can say about Ghost of a Flea.
After enjoying Sallis’ Drive and Driven, I was excited to delve into one of his Lew Griffin books. My local library had the last novel in the series (Ghost), so I started at the end. The Griffin novels concern a terminally-depressed New Orleans private eye. In Ghost of a Flea, life is crashing down around Griffin - his son disappears, his romance is shaky, and he’s so depressed that he’s more than ready to drink the ol’ hemlock milkshake.
As many people have pointed out, Sallis can be a terrific prose stylist. But you don’t want to live in Griffin’s world. The theme of the novel could easily be retitled Life in Hell. To state the obvious, it’s a depressing journey.
Also, I never found Griffin to be very believable. He’s a white liberal’s (i.e., Sallis’) take on what it’s like to be a black American. Sallis wallows in all of the cliches that have been written over the past few decades. The reader pines for Sallis to come up with something new, some sort of original insight.
Ghost is going back to my local library. It’s a short book, but it’s one of the longest short books you’ll ever read.
After enjoying Sallis’ Drive and Driven, I was excited to delve into one of his Lew Griffin books. My local library had the last novel in the series (Ghost), so I started at the end. The Griffin novels concern a terminally-depressed New Orleans private eye. In Ghost of a Flea, life is crashing down around Griffin - his son disappears, his romance is shaky, and he’s so depressed that he’s more than ready to drink the ol’ hemlock milkshake.
As many people have pointed out, Sallis can be a terrific prose stylist. But you don’t want to live in Griffin’s world. The theme of the novel could easily be retitled Life in Hell. To state the obvious, it’s a depressing journey.
Also, I never found Griffin to be very believable. He’s a white liberal’s (i.e., Sallis’) take on what it’s like to be a black American. Sallis wallows in all of the cliches that have been written over the past few decades. The reader pines for Sallis to come up with something new, some sort of original insight.
Ghost is going back to my local library. It’s a short book, but it’s one of the longest short books you’ll ever read.
August 20, 2024
In my opinion, Mr. Sallis wanted to write a book which mirrored Ulysses by James Joyce. The story seemed to be a stream of consciousness. This is how I perceived the book. The story line was a broad divergent from the previous stories. One could say the book appeared to be a dream or nightmare depending on your own interpretation. I believe the author attempted to encapsulate his world view in this story.
September 3, 2017
Sixth and final Lew Griffin book. Lew is dealing with multiple issues including his missing son and the deliberate killing of pigeons as well as failing health. The writing is more challenging than the other books in the series and the story is still mainly concerned with a search for real and permanent human connection in this temporary life. The last chapter is a stunner.
January 26, 2020
Beautifully written with so many references to books and music that it was impossible to note it all. the changes in time and narrators were disorienting. The last book in the series, a man’s last days. Life’s melancholy meaning attempted.
This is a book that I’ll probably read again, to get deeper into the nuances.
This is a book that I’ll probably read again, to get deeper into the nuances.
July 4, 2020
Lovely ending to this series. Sallis is a master, and I was consistently drawn in by Lew. These books take some getting used to - very disjointed, jumps in time, various narratives. But I loved every second of it. Must read of fans of New Orleans, crime fiction and/or noir.
thelithaven.com
thelithaven.com
November 10, 2019
Loved listening to this series read by G. Valmont Thomas. I'm going to miss Lew Griffin.
March 5, 2020
Hard to come to the end of the Lew Griffin novels, which were head and shoulders above the usual fare.
November 27, 2022
A convoluted, near stream of consciousness, "mystery" with lots of allusions to other authors and works. A hard read.
November 23, 2024
Lew Griffin is no Alex Cross, but he’s worth reading in this 6-part series.
May 7, 2016
This book can probably be appreciated on its own, but it shouldn't be. There is an almost shocking metanarrative in here as a reward to those who've read the whole series.
Ghost of a Flea is the color of heartwarming sadness, of the incredible, irreversible nostalgia one feels in one's fading days: the books incomplete, the people who've lost touch. The ability to write that into a book whose narrative action is not inherently focused on that—what genre is this, anyway? It's James Lee Burke meets Hemingway's allusive, introspective, nonexistent self—has led me to this point, at the end of the Lew Griffin series, where I'm overcome with an immense appreciation of the layers to Sallis's craft. I went into this with the intention of finding a new crime writer; I was quickly met with a lens into a melancholic and extremely empathetic man's mind; and I've come out of it with an expanded list of things to read (Rimbaud, more Camus, Chester Himes) and a heightened realization of my own life's progress.
Ghost of a Flea is the color of heartwarming sadness, of the incredible, irreversible nostalgia one feels in one's fading days: the books incomplete, the people who've lost touch. The ability to write that into a book whose narrative action is not inherently focused on that—what genre is this, anyway? It's James Lee Burke meets Hemingway's allusive, introspective, nonexistent self—has led me to this point, at the end of the Lew Griffin series, where I'm overcome with an immense appreciation of the layers to Sallis's craft. I went into this with the intention of finding a new crime writer; I was quickly met with a lens into a melancholic and extremely empathetic man's mind; and I've come out of it with an expanded list of things to read (Rimbaud, more Camus, Chester Himes) and a heightened realization of my own life's progress.
August 23, 2010
a lew griffin in new orleans. a short but heavy book. His friend Don Walsh, who is leaving the police department, is shot interrupting a robbery. And Lew is directionless: He hasn't written anything in years; he no longer teaches...there's nothing to fill his days. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost. Oy!
November 6, 2016
I read the entirety of this, the final Lew Griffin novel, today. Problem is I haven't read books one through five. Thus if I found much of this difficult to fathom, it's largely my own fault for starting at the end. Despite this, Ghost of a Flea is a beautiful if slow-moving elegy of a book. I'd better order the earlier volumes and figure out what this was all about.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews