Neck-Deep in The

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

To John Sayles, it's all just storytelling. Books, music videos, screenplays, movie acting and directing -- Sayles has done each of them. And with distinction. The first short story he ever sold won an O. Henry Award in 1975. His second novel, Union Dues (1977), was nominated for both the National Book and National Book Critics Circle awards. And The Return of the Secaucus Seven, a low-budget forerunner of The Big Chill and the first movie he ever made, was cited as 1980's best screenplay by the Los Angeles film critics. No wonder the 40-year-old Sayles has a near legendary reputation for artistic ambidexterity.

Take the current year, for example. Shannon's Deal, the Sayles-conceived television series about a former big-shot lawyer and high-stakes gambler trying to start his life over, completed its second season on NBC. Though its modest ratings were not enough to get it renewed for next fall, it won critical hosannas and enjoyed a strong cult following. Los Gusanos, his novel chronicling decades of personal and political intrigues in Miami's Cuban-exile community, came out in June to warm reviews. City of Hope, his movie about race and politics in a decaying industrial town (and the sixth of his films in which Sayles has appeared in a featured role), will be released in the fall.

Sayles' works have a distinctive recipe: a thinly plotted story, complex characters and clever dialogue steeped in the author's characteristic 1960s- style concern for outsiders and underdogs. Politics, however, never gets in the way of getting things done. Thus Wynn Himes, the high-minded black councilman in City of Hope, reluctantly plays the down-and-dirty game of political hardball in order to gain power for his black constituents. "Basically," says Sayles, "I'm for whatever makes people's lives better and against what doesn't."

The son of schoolteachers, Sayles grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Schenectady, N.Y. His earliest literary influences were Jack London stories, episodes of The Untouchables on TV and the Gospels at Sunday Mass. But it was the gritty realism of Nelson Algren's hobo novel, Somebody in Boots, that first gave Sayles the idea of becoming a professional writer. "Algren wrote from neck-deep in the trash of American culture, the only place I was ever likely to be," he says. After graduating from Williams College, Sayles supported himself with a series of odd jobs, ranging from nursing-home attendant to meat-packer in a sausage factory, while writing story after story. A sharp-eyed editor at the Atlantic Monthly suggested that one of Sayles' submissions -- already 50 pages long -- be expanded into a novel. It eventually became Pride of the Bimbos (1975), a darkly comic tale of an exhibition softball team that performs in drag.

After more stories and another novel, Sayles went to work in Hollywood for B-movie king Roger Corman, churning out such scripts as Piranha, a low-budget rip-off of Jaws. His idols, however, were independent filmmakers like John Cassavetes. In 1978, having saved $40,000 from script fees and book royalties, Sayles struck out on his own; he recruited a cast of actor friends and made the film that would become The Return of the Secaucus Seven.

Sayles has mostly continued to trade the deep pockets of major studios for the deeper satisfaction of making movies on his own. Using the money he earns from writing screenplays such as Clan of the Cave Bear, the proceeds from a five-year Mac Arthur "genius" grant and funds from private investors, he has turned out a succession of impressive films. Among them: The Brother from Another Planet (1984), the adventures of a black extraterrestrial, and Matewan (1987), a historical saga about striking West Virginia coal miners in the 1920s. His most ambitious project, Eight Men Out (1988), a retelling of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal, cost just $6 million, or about half what Bruce Willis commands for starring in a movie. "The way that we keep coming back into the game is by making the movies for less than others are willing to do," explains Maggie Renzi, Sayles' companion of 18 years and the producer of several of his films.

Confident to the point of arrogance when it comes to his work -- he insisted that HarperCollins publish Los Gusanos without making any editorial changes -- Sayles is decidedly restrained in his personal life. "If you keep your nut low, you don't end up in a situation where you have to take any job," he explains. Thus Sayles and Renzi split their time between a modest brick row house in Hoboken, N.J., and a farm in upstate New York, both of which they share with friends. Neither has a taste for fancy clothes, expensive cars or other such trappings of success. In fact, Sayles regularly travels to New York City and back by bus, often writing on a lined yellow pad while waiting in the station for his ride. Just another working stiff on his commute.