Jim Thompson: C/D S+D

Actually that's a bit off. It's still very good, but not on the level of A Hell of a Woman, Pop 1280, The Killer Inside Me, The Nothing Man, Savage Night for me. In general first person JT is always better than the third person books (although the Grifters and the Getaway are both very well done.)

"Thompson is supposed to have a safe ten or twelve year period in which all the books he wrote are supposed to be good."

Having read everything he wrote from '42 to '64 I can say that this is patently untrue. But the great stuff from that period is really truly great.

They get sold into slavery after running out of money in the resort in The Getaway.

Xposts

So if you haven't read Cropper's Cabin or the Alcoholics (or Recoil or Heed The Thunder or either of the two Thompson "bios") from that period don't lose any sleep about it...

I didn't finish The Alcoholics (it's a mess btw), but that passage where the nurse rapes the invalid guy...goddamn that's some fucked-up shit.

yeah I have a copy of the Alcoholics, that is a very odd book

xp to grisso - Yeah, I couldn't remember exactly what it was.

Seem to remember Cropper's Cabin wasn't too bad

The back of the book says it has inceeeesst. It and The Transgressors are two recent fill-in-the-catalog books for me, but I haven't exactly been in the mood for Thompson (or out of the mood, either).

Picked up a copy of the Savage Night cheap at a used booskhop last night; 20 pages in I'm enjoying it, will report back with thorough feelings.

Also re: The Getaway, it's not that they're sold into slaves it's that because of the financial arrangements of El Rey when a criminal is no longer able to support themselves they're sent out to a cabin out in the woods to starve/be cooked into food for others who are unable to pay their way. then the two main characters have a crisis of trust, each trying to find a way to 'accidentally' knock-off the other. Very bleak.

no the, just Savage Night.

As mentioned upthread, the biography Savage Art by Jon Polito is pretty good.

Most of this stuff that was published by Black Lizard back in the 80s is pretty good, Gifford did a great job back then. Bought a whole bunch of them at the time after reading some entertaining reviews in Forced Exposure.

The Golden Gizmo is pretty bad.
I don't think I can finish it.

I've had Killer Inside Me sitting on a shelf for a year or so, but after reading his story "This World, Then the Fireworks" in the Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction I'm going to have to delve into this guy. It was one they pulled out of his archives posthumously, but man, the writing really stands out among the kinda standard noir/detective/crime stuff.

But Harlan Ellison's up next and his story starts with "At twenty-five minutes past midnight on 51st Street, the wind-chill factor was so sharp it could carve you a new asshole" so that's promising.

Killer Inside Me is great!

Cool! I'm looking forward to it.

"This World, Then the Fireworks"

Need to read this; there was a movie of it that doesn't look too good.

So if you haven't read Cropper's Cabin or the Alcoholics (or Recoil or Heed The Thunder or either of the two Thompson "bios") from that period don't lose any sleep about it...

I read South of Heaven, which involves a down on his luck guy working to clear a path for a new oil pipeline in Texas (dynamite is involved) and some crimes and disreputable behavior occur along the way. I remember liking it, thinking it was a lone star style “wages of fear” type story, but I may be misremembering. Definitely mines the same desperate men/dangerous work vibe.

Did he write any of the episodes of ironsides or just the novelisation.
Would be interesting to see if any of it was recognisable as him if he wrote episodes.

The hotel memoir thing was quite good too.

Dunno. Wish I had held onto my copy of the bio, Savage Art, by Robert Polito.

So, in the last ten years or so, I think I've read most of the Thompson that's available.

Top five in no order:
-Savage Night
-The Getaway
-Pop. 1280
-After Dark, My Sweet
-The Grifters (I really came around on this one; i see upthread i thought it was disorganized or disjointed. i disagree with myself now.)

A lot of the rest bleed into each other in my mind.. A Hell Of A Woman, A Swell Looking Babe, The Kill Off... I should re-read.

Ken L, I think I have a copy of that bio still; I'll check and get back to you. I'll be back in Brooklyn tomorrow night.

I remember the end of A Hell Of A Woman being straight-up horrific. I read it something like 30 years ago, though.

Early in the pandemic, there was a big sale on epubs of Thompson's novels for $1.99 so I picked up a bunch. I hadn't read anything by him since the Black Lizard editions were new and re-reading them now, nearly 40 years later, I'm enjoyed them a heck of a lot more.

For me, Pop. 1280 is the standout by far. Funny, really funny, and the closest thing I've read that can be legit described as Texan Grand Guignol. Following that, big recommendations for The Killer Inside Me, The Nothing Man, The Getaway, Wild Town, and South Of Heaven. I'd love to own the Raymond Pettibone illustrated version of South Of Heaven, but I'm not paying $450 for it.