A Throwback to the Old Ways
Jim Thompson was a suspense novelist with a penchant for the graphic and deranged. Easily dismissed as just another noir serialist, the late author’s novels are neither wide read nor highly regarded in the upper echlons of the America’s literary world. However, Mr. Thompson’s books give remarkable insight into the criminal and American communist mindset during the 1940’s and 50’s.
Throughout his 1952 cult classic, The Killer Inside Me, Thompson espoused the contradictions apparent in the pipe towns of the Texas oil boom. From the perspective of homocidal sheriff Lou Ford, Thompson managed to include sling verbose social criticism onto the wealthy opportunists, and the criminal system they influenced, during West Texas’ hay day.
After I finished the book, I started to ask myself what happened to books like these; unlike Camus, who forced his absurdist beliefs into the a paper tiger called as The Stranger, Thompson’s unpopular message flowed through The Killer Inside Me alongside the blood of Lou Ford’s victims.
Today’s revolutionary left needs writers like Thompson to create elegant prose with underlying themes so that all segments of the population can see their perspective, not just the small group of intellectuals who read Chomsky and Zinn.
Article: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
This entry was contributed by Tony Cella.
May 27th, 2007 at 10:08 am
This sounds good. I love good writing, and for an author to be able to paint such vivid colors withing your mind is a real talent. I love that he set this within the 40’s and 50’s, you don’t find too many books that are set in this era, so good for him.