Difficult Lives - Hitching Rides

Winner of the 2019 H.R.F. Keating Award for the best biographical or critical book related to crime fiction

Originally published by Gryphon Books in 1993, Difficult Lives was one of the earliest attempts to track the legacy of original paperback writers such as Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Chester Himes. The individual essays on these three first appeared in literary magazines.

Difficult Lives visits a rare moment when daylight was showing around the seams of American society and visions quite in contrast to the sanctioned version drifted to the surface in books one bought off racks in drugstores and bus stations -- stark, bonelike, disturbing books.

We're pleased to make Difficult Lives available again, doubling your pleasure by pairing it with Hitching Rides, an equal volume of new essays on other crime writers including Derek Raymond, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson.



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.



'His enthusiasm is generous; his taste impeccable'



'Erudite and informative these essays may be, but they are also crafted with love. Love of an art form that I share. If noir is your Driver, this is for you'



'Then there's James Sallis - he's right up there, one of the best. It is quite possible that speaking of Jim Sallis in the same tone as Poe and Dostoevski is not overblowing on my part'