We have an entire shelf devoted to Barry Gifford’s prolific career–poetry, novels, memoirs, plays, screenplays. You name it, he’s probably written it (and we have it). And here’s the kicker: he’s pretty much self-taught. (According to the Paris Review, Gifford was born in a Chicago hotel room to a racketeer father and a beauty-queen mother. “They lived at times in hotels in South Florida, New Orleans, and Havana. Because they moved around so much, Gifford didn’t get much formal education. He learned from late-night noir movies and the strange characters that passed through the hotel lobbies.”)
Gifford was first haunted by the voices of Sailor and Lula in the 1970s and 80s, but the first novel in the series wasn’t published until 1990. The first Sailor and Lula novel, Wild at Heart, jumpstarted Gifford’s career. The young, star-crossed lovers became the Romeo and Juliet of the post-nucleur age–making love in motel rooms, drinking in roadside bars, and evading the law. Flurries of gun fights. Private Eyes and hit-men. Maniacal mothers.
Throughout his writing career, Gifford has returned to Sailor and Lula, tracking them from young love to the birth of their own child, Pace Roscoe Ripley. He’s followed them across the country, from one bad idea to the next. Gifford’s newest (and final) installment released this month–The Up-Down: The almost lost, last Sailor and Lula story, in which their son, Pace Roscoe Ripley, finds his way.
The Up-Down is a neo-noir thriller, packed with doomed romance and a protagonist searching for something to keep him steady. As soon as Roscoe finds somewhere to settle down, right-side up is turned upside down. He falls in and out of love with women of various repute. Bones are broken. Gunshots fired. Children rescued and cursed.
A child of the (late) 80s, I never had the privilege of seeing David Lynch’s movie adaptation of Gifford’s “Wild at Heart.” (For some reason, my parents’ didn’t think the movie was appropriate for a 2 year-old) The film is pretty true to the novel, capturing the quicksand of romantic ambition and the hard edge of an America beyond the reaches of the law.
Reading The Up-down was a whiplash ride; one we recommend so much, we chose it for our first First Editions Club pick of 2015.
Barry Gifford will be at Lemuria January 28th at 5 PM to read and sign from his book. Stop by and have a listen. If you’ve never read Gifford, now might be a great time to start.
Written by Adie
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