Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness. He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.
Series
Books
Port Tropique
1980
Do the Blind Dream?
New Novellas and Stories
2004
No Daylight in That Face
Adventures in Film Noir
2025
The Stars Above Vera Cruz
2005
El juego del otro
2010
Jack's Book
An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac
1978
The Devil Thumbs a Ride
& Other Unforgettable Films
1988
The Imagination of the Heart
Book Seven of the Story of Sailor and Lula
2009
The Up-Down
2015
The Wild Life Of Sailor And Lula
1996
Ghosts No Horse Can Carry
Collected Poems, 1967-1987
1988
Perdita Durango
1992
New York, 1960
2016
Sailor & Lula
The Complete Novels
1990
Wild at Heart
1990
Bordertown
1998
Francis goes to the seashore
The pillow book of Francis Reeves
1982
Saroyan
A Biography
1984
Bad Day for the Leopard Man
1992
Kerouac's Town.
1977
Writers
2015
59 Degrees and Raining
1993
The Sinaloa Story
1998
New Mysteries of Paris
1991
My Last Martini
Stories
2000
Sultans of Africa
1991
Hotel Room Trilogy
1995
How Chet Baker Died
Poems
2022
The Phantom Father
A Memoir
1997
The Rooster Trapped in the Reptile Room
A Barry Gifford Reader
2003
Out of the Past
Adventures in Film Noir
2000
Baby Cat-Face
A Novel
1995
Southern Nights
Night People, Arise and Walk, Baby Cat Face
1999
The Cuban Club
Stories
2017
Arise and Walk
1994
The Roy Stories
2013
American Falls
The Collected Short Stories
2002
Sailor's Holiday
1991
Landscape with Traveler
The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves
1979
Wyoming
2000
Sad Stories of the Death of Kings
2010
Hot Rod
1997
Memories from a Sinking Ship
A Novel
2007
Consuelo's Kiss
1991
Night People
1992
