Reading Groups

In Short: James Sallis’s Drive: High-Octane Neo-Noir in the Hands of a Poet with Mary Anna Evans

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Thursday, 6:00 pm EDT - 7:30 pm EDT October 9, 2025

Online via Zoom

The ‘With Books’ option includes the title required for this group at a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

All of the major publishing houses passed on Drive by James Sallis. At one-third the length of most novels with an idiosyncratic structure and a nameless protagonist, it was considered unmarketable, but a small mystery publisher took a chance and was repaid with a stellar critical reception and a major motion picture adaptation. The New York Times called it “a perfect piece of noir fiction.” The Washington Post called its mystery and prose “refreshing, even startling.” Fans of the 2011 Ryan Gosling film will recognize its propulsive plot and sensitive portrayal of human beings forced into violent lives by a hard world and by their own failings, but the novella offers more literary pleasures. Sallis, a songwriter and the author of three books of poetry, brings prose that is both lyrical and razor-sharp to the story, which he slices apart and remixes into an experimental, nonlinear narrative that challenges readers to piece together the events of a life that is careening down a treacherous highway to nowhere.

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Drive by James Sallis in its entirety

What to expect from this reading group: This reading group meeting will be a guided conversation. Dr. Evans will discuss the ways that Drive fits into the contexts of modern crime fiction and classic noir, but participants are encouraged to come with questions and observations of their own to share.

Reading List:

Drive by James Sallis

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Mary Anna Evans

Mary Anna Evans

Mary Anna Evans is the author of seventeen crime novels and many short stories and essays. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in English literature, and both her creative and academic work center on crime fiction’s approach to issues of gender and justice. Her novels have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Will Rogers Gold Medallion, and two Oklahoma Book Awards, and her short work has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, The Louisville Review, Florida Heat Wave, and Plots with Guns. She is the co-author of the Edgar, Agatha, HRF Keating, and Macavity-nominated Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie. Of her current release, The Dark Library, Publishers Weekly said, “Fans of gothic suspense will be delighted.”

About this series

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