Fiction. Short Stores. POTATO TREES's 41 stories, with their vivid imagery, poetic language and heart-wrenching emotions, are Sallis at his edgiest, most indefinable best. James Sallis is best-known for his six-volume Lew Griffin cycle, his authoritative biography of Chester Himes, the novel DRIVE which the New York Times called "a perfect noir novel", and for his criticism of literary, foreign-language and genre writing.
James 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.