‘DRIVE’ Sequel Heading to Book Shelves in April!

Gentlemen . . .  re- start your engines.  The excitement surrounding Nicolas Winding Refn’s adrenaline fueled, visually stimulating, dark fairy-tale, still has yet to die down months after its release.  Going into the end of the year, where many of us writers are compiling their “Best of” lists, Drive is still racing forward with enough fuel in its tank to land in many people’s top ten of 2011.  Deservedly so, if you ask me.  Critics and film fans alike (there were a few exceptions) loved the revenge-fueled journey of “Driver” played with silent conviction by Ryan Gosling.  It is no wonder then that the original writer of the book Drive, James Sallis, is planning on a sequel to his 2005 hit novel.  Yet, who knew that we would have to wait less than a year for it to come out!

Driven has been announced by Poisoned Pen Press to be the sequel to Drive written by Sallis.  The book is scheduled for release in April 2012.  I am quite giddy typing the following synopsis for the book.

Six years later – Phoenix. Out of nowhere someone wants Driver dead. Who? Why? Big mistake…

Fans of Refn now that the man is not afraid of sequels, as The Pusher Trilogy being an obvious example.  So this ultimately means that there is a pretty good chance that we could see Gosling put on the scorpion-stitched jacket and driving gloves for another film.  There is a work-in-progress book cover and short statement from the company below.  This will certainly be a must-read for next year.

When we agreed to publish Drive, it felt like a happy accident. In the Spring of 2004 my friend and one of my favorite writers, James Sallis, gave me a slight manuscript: Drive. I loved it. When I ran into his agent, Vicky Bijur, at Bouchercon later that Fall, I told her that if she were unable to find a large house to publish Drive, I’d be elated to have Poisoned Pen Press publish it.

After the extraordinary success of Drive and with no contractual obligation to Poisoned Pen Press, Vicky and Jim easily could have sold Driven to virtually any mainstream publishing house for significant money, but they didn’t. I should not have been surprised. Among the many themes running through these books—and upon reflection, through all the books of James Sallis—is integrity. I know of no other writer so devoted to his craft and to what he believes.

Source: Lit Reactor