Drive

By: James Sallis

Narrated by: Richard Powers

Drive is the story of a man who works as a stunt driver by day and a getaway driver by night. He drives, that's all - until he's double-crossed.

Powerful and stylistically brilliant, Drive has been hailed by critics as the "perfect piece of noir fiction" (New York Times Book Review) and an instant classic.

©2005 James Sallis (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

Drive is full of sly humor, poetic details and plenty of rude violence...a terrific ride." (Los Angeles Times)

"Full throttle...Sallis's riveting novella reads the way a Tarantino or Soderbergh neo-noir plays...Drive is one lean, mean, masterful machine. Grade: A." (Entertainment Weekly)

"One stark and stunning tale of murder, treachery, and deceit....[Drive] packs a wallop." (Boston Globe)

Good book, terrible performance

Narrator was terrible. The accents were truly embarrassing. The story would be better served with a new performance.

Great main character, great book

I really liked it. In the realm between Chuck Hogan and Richard Stark. I've done way worse with 3 hours.

infinitely better than the movie

I did not even know this was a book until my editor mentioned it. I write a lot of driving scenes, so I decided to listen to this and holy smokes... a fantastic, thoroughly flushed out anti hero. Cool noir piece written in modern prose, set against increasingly Hispanic Los Angeles.

Top notch pulp-noire.

I cut my teeth on these books; tightly wound whirlwind pacing, written with a literary work ethic akin to the archetype seasoned genre pro seen less and less these days. You can very much feel the presence of a hard nosed career novelist grinding it out on an old typewriter in a smoky studio apartment.

Fans of the film may initially be somewhat bemused by the absence of the nostalgia drenched neon tone of Refn's cinematic adaptation, but hang with it a minute. What the source novel lacks in contemporary style it's made all the more worth the read for the insight into the history and personal character of the driver, who was intentionally left a question mark in the film.

The central arc of the story takes place every other chapter, familiarizing you with driver's history in the interim giving the story a very streamlined and rapid pace. Unearthing the history of the spectral character of Driver is worth the read on it's own.

All in all, if you enjoy genre fiction this is a tight, satisfying read. Above all however, if you're a fan of the film I would consider this required reading.

-M.R. West.

Convoluted...

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I saw the movie which was great then thought the audio book would be fantastic. Unfortunately for me, this was not the case; I found the audio version hard to follow and difficult to figure out what was going on for much of the time.

Would you recommend Drive to your friends? Why or why not?

No I wouldn't.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Paul Michael Garcia?

Yes, the narrator was good.