What do You think about Eye Of The Cricket (2000)?
Eyes out of focusSlim title that is touted on the back-cover blurps as a mystery and its author as a "renowned novelist, poet, critic, essayist, editor, translator, and musicologist." Despite the tout, the story isn't taut enough to be a mystery, but the author--engaging in too many asides, elipitical changes of pace, location, direction, time, and narrative--does live up to his billing; someone with so many job titles certainly couldn't be expected to focus sufficiently to tell a mystery.The writing style isn't bad, there are some nice turns of phrase, especiallly in the drawling and sketchy New Orleans dialogue, and Lew Griffin, Sallis's signature professor and erstwhile detective, is a deep and likable character.Maybe if I hadn't thought it was a mysetery I'd have approached it differently. Also, the cover illustration of a guitar is a canard; while Sallis may be a renowned musicologist, there are just a few scant references to musicians,, and the story has nothing to do, either primarily or tangentially, with a guitar or music.
—Todd Stockslager
The jacket saidReaders who have the persistence to untangle a twisted time line and go with the peculiar flow of Sallis's unique prose will find many rewards. Griffin, a New Orleans-based, 50-ish African American novelist, teacher, and occasional detective, dots his twisting tale with dozens of references to the act of writing, plus verbal samplings of everyone from James Joyce to Emily Dickinson. "i wish i could have sid that, but I couldn't.... if I could, I would have....but I can tell you that what he wrote about the cat BAT, i related to and feel that Thris says that to me:“Bat met me at the door, complaining emphatically. Obviously I was a great disappointment. He’d put so much time into training me. And here I couldn’t get the simplest, basic things right.I opened a can of food and put it on the floor."I've never read a series book that has depth and complications.
—Steve
