Jim Thompson: C/D S+D

In fact, Alex in SF's first post is OTM. The bio Savage Art is really good too. JT really had a lot of those dead-end jobs he writes about, he was working three of them at the same time as a teenager. Also leads one to believe that the inspiration for a lot of his sadistic sheriff types was none other than his dad, Big Jim Thompson. Search also, the piece "An Alcoholic Looks At Himself" in Fireworks.

Anyone seen the new film version of The Killer Inside me yet? Listening to Night Waves last night and Winterbottom got a grilling over lingering that much longer on the scenes of violence against the female characters than the male ones. Also the responses to this film will possibly take on another dimension, given that its release coincides with the murders in Bradford...

This film is getting thrashed in the reviews I've seen.

Really dislike Winterbottom, and feared the worst..

I liked Affleck and the 2 horrifying murder scenes... the rest was meh. An inner-monolgue novel that really didn't need to be a film. Curious about the Stacy Keach '70s version tho.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-killer-inside-me/4864

i liked affleck and his disaffected internal monologues, thought the acting was extremely strong across the boards. otoh, i didn't understand or enjoy the fixation on pulverized women, and the whole thing wound up feeling more inconsequential than tragic. a strange film, because with the brutality toned down just a bit (and perhaps with a slightly less baffling conclusion), i think it could have been at least moderately successful, in the wake of no country for old men.

and perhaps this is just a bad movie that no one has seen...

It didnt really play wide or get good enough reviews to merit a push by IFC.

also, it's not Inception, so no one here has seen it.

"a strange film, because with the brutality toned down just a bit (and perhaps with a slightly less baffling conclusion)"

I think this would have defeated the purpose, no. Have not seen the movie, but toning down the brutality in the book would have severely weakened it IMO.

Recently read The Grifters (in August I guess) and I can't really remember much about it aside from some vague scenes--it's got a great opening though, that's for sure. Just finished The Getaway this afternoon and by comparison--wow--that one's plot seems much more put together, and the last chapter really is something else.

can't believe nobody's mentioned "after dark, my sweet." a potboiler, to be sure, but it's like hearing coltrane do a standard.

Probably best to read them as fast as he wrote them, they vary wildly in quality. Never actually read The Getaway maybe time to give that a try.

the getaway starts as a classic bank robbery caper, with lots of action & [SPOILER REDACTED] and ends as a rumination on purgatory or something.

It's been a long time since I read any Jim Thompson, but I definitely got the biggest buzz out of the Getaway. Pretty crazy book that.

added pop1280 and the killer inside me to my amazon shopping cart.

can anyone recommend any other vintage/pulp crime? i'm a big fan of things like "Thieves Like Us" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

David Goodis is good!

Pop 1280 is one of his best.

can anyone recommend any other vintage/pulp crime? i'm a big fan of things like "Thieves Like Us" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice."

― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, September 27, 2011 12:09 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

red harvest! a thousand times red harvest.

oh, i've read red harvest! I am a fan of Hammett. He & Chandler were some of the first detective/crime stuff I got into.

Alter, Paul Cain, Himes, Willeford, Goodis seconded.

i feel like auster's city of glass trilogy is a good palate-cleanser as a twist on this style too?

cosign on red harvest, which is definitely my favourite detective novel and possibly my favourite genre-fiction novel and maybe my favourite novel qua novel of all time

anti-cosign on auster, whom i hate

i never got into auster, though i do think i read city of glass.. is the one where two blokes are coerced into the service of some eccentric millionaire or something?

hm no, that was 'music of chance' carry on.

the graphic novel adaptation of city of glass is one of my fave reads

Agree with thomp on both points, although Auster does seem like a nice guy when you see him around town.

Ian, you might want to read Manifesto for the Dead, by Domenic Stansberry, which is written from the point of view of Jim Thompson in a pretty convincing imitation of his style. Then maybe read his North Beach series starting with Chasing the Dragon, which is not exactly pulpy but does have that Red Harvest feeling of the protagonist being caught between two (or more sides) each trying to play him for their own ends.

For some nightmarish 1940s amnesia noir, try John Franklin Bardin's first three novels: The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Philip Banter and Devil Take the Blue Tailed Fly. They're collected into an omnibus edition that you can buy cheaply secondhand. In the same mould, try Cornell Woolrich.

At home so I can give some more specific title recs:

Robert E Alter Swamp Sister & Carny Kill
Paul Cain Fast One & Seven Slayers
Chester Himes All of the Gravedigga Jones & Coffin Ed Johnson series
David Goodis Street of No Return, The Burglar, Down There, Black Friday
Charles Willeford Pick-Up, Burnt Orange Heresy and the Cockfighter
William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley

Actually every book in these anthologies is well worth reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Novels-American-Postman-Thieves/dp/1883011469/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317088703&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Novels-American-Talented-Pick-up/dp/1883011493/ref=pd_sim_b1

never could get into himes for some reason.

Then you are deeply weird.

I just looked above and realize I recommended most of this stuff in my first post. Hah.

Thank you guys!

Jim's stuff is what I always look at when I look at the 2nd hand crime racks so its good to hear some recommends here.

Georges Simenon - Dirty Snow

my wife is huuuuge into simenon, we prob have two dozen of his around the house. i'll look for that one.

your wife sounds cool

is The Getaway the one where the couple ends up in some secluded town where everyone's a fugitive...? that one is great

Chester Himes = so awesome. His last book (Plan B) is nuts.

"is The Getaway the one where the couple ends up in some secluded town where everyone's a fugitive...? that one is great"

Yup. Unfortunately the rest of the book leading up to that is just okay.

Yeah, Plan B is crazy. Reminds me of this later TL Sherred story in one of the Dangerous Visions anthologies. In My Life of Absurdity, Chester Himes' description of how he came to write for Series Noire is really interesting. That whole book is interesting, but you have to slog through about 200 pages that deal with his malfunctioning VW.

The Getaway is the one where the couple end up in the South American resort town for rich fugitives who have a place to safely blow all their money until they're broke, and then it's implied that they will probably be executed after that. It's depressing. Thompson is supposed to have a safe ten or twelve year period in which all the books he wrote are supposed to be good. Even his early social realist stuff is decent. His first book is about walking to an airplane factory every day along a dusty road and figuring out a new filing system. I think. It's been a long time since I've read it.

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.