Ghost of a Flea (Lew Griffin) - Hardcover

Sallis, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802733697 ISBN 13: 9780802733696

Publisher: Walker & Co, 2001

Synopsis

A powerful novel of self-discovery, crime, and culture follows private detective, teacher, poet, and writer Lew Griffin as he tries to deal with his turbulent personal life when his relationship with Deborah disentigrates, his son disappears again, and his friend Don Walsh, who is leaving the police department, is shot interrupting a robbery.

About this title

Synopsis:

In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Lew Griffin is alone again...or almost. He and Deborah are drifting apart. His son David has disappeared again, leaving behind a note that sounds final. Heading homeward from his retirement party, his friend, Don Walsh has been shot while interrupting a robbery. Worst of all, Lew himself is directionless, no longer teaching, with little to fill his days. He hasn't written anything in years. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters sent to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost. Through five previous novels, James Sallis has enthralled and challenged readers as he has told the story of Lew Griffin, private detective, teacher, writer, port, and a black man moving through a white man's world. And now Lew Griffin stands alone in a dark room, looking out. Behind him on the bed is a body. Wind pecks at the window. Traffic sounds drift aimlessly in. He thinks 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...In a series as much about identity as it is about crime, Sallis has held a mirror up to society and culture, while at the same time setting Lew Griffin the task of discovering who he is.

As the detective stands in that dark room, the answers begin to come clear and the highly acclaimed series builds to a brilliantly constructed climax that will resonate in readers' minds long after the story is finished.

About the Author:

A writer of varied talents, James Sallis is a published poet, critic, translator, and novelist. He has been praised as "a fine talent, introspective, sardonic, a master of quick characterization and narrative compression" (Buffalo News) and as "a rare find...a fine prose stylist with an interest in moral struggle and a gift for the lacerating evocation of loss" (Newsday).

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker & Co
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0802733697
• ISBN 13: 9780802733696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 237