I'm having fun with Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. It's narrated by a deputy in a small town in Texas, a guy who it quickly transpires goes way beyond garden variety police corruption. This edition has a blurb by Stanley Kubrick, with whom Thompson worked on The Killing and Paths of Glory.Also Stephen King, demonstrating good taste.
American Psycho. I haven't read it, because I find Bret Easton Ellis's present-tense narration monotonous. But I have seen the movie. And Lou Ford reads like an ancestor of Patrick Bateman. Smarter than the vast majority of people around him, not as smart as he seems to think he is, and perhaps on some level wanting to be caught.
American Psycho. I haven't read it, because I find Bret Easton Ellis's present-tense narration monotonous. But I have seen the movie. And Lou Ford reads like an ancestor of Patrick Bateman. Smarter than the vast majority of people around him, not as smart as he seems to think he is, and perhaps on some level wanting to be caught.
2 comments:
one of the greatest ‘chapter 1’s ever:
‘only you,’ he said. ‘because you are good, you make others so.’ he was all ready to sign off with that, but i wasn’t. i leaned an elbow on the counter, crossed one foot behind the other and took a long slow drag on my cigar. i liked the guy - as much as i like most people, anyway - but he was too good to let go. polite, intelligent: guys like that are my meat.
‘well, i tell you,’ i drawled.’i tell you the way i look at it, a man doesn’t get any more out of life than he puts into it.’
‘umm,’ he said, fidgeting. ‘i guess you’re right, lou.’
‘i was thinking the other day, max; and all of a sudden i had the doggonedest thought. it came to me out of a clear sky - the boy is father to the man. just like that. the boy is father to the man.’
the smile on his face was getting strained. i could hear his shoes creak as he squirmed. if there’s anything worse than a bore, it’s a corny bore. but how can you brush off a nice friendly fellow who’d give you his shirt if you asked for it?…
really glad to hear that you’re enjoying jim thompson. i’m surprised & embarrassed that it took me so long to discover him (weirdly enough, ‘the killing’ has always been one of my favorite kubrick movies). &, while i also enjoyed the movie version of ‘american psycho’, i think it’s thompson’s meticulously described ‘down home’ atmosphere that makes lou ford’s sickness so much more shocking, & darker, that bateman’s. i mean, everybody pretty much takes it for granted that there’re gonna be at least a few batemans in new york city, right?…
some other personal picks: ’savage night’ (the sordid tale of charlie ‘little’ bigger), ‘the grifters’, ‘after dark, my sweet’, & ‘the getaway’ (the ending is just so completely different from the ‘happily ever after’ one in the movie version, which, otherwise, is very good)…
I grinned, feeling a little sorry for him.It was funny the way these people kept asking for it. Just latching onto you, no matter how you tried to brush them off, and almost telling you how they wanted it done. Why'd they have to all come to me to get killed? Why couldn't they kill themselves?
I went upstairs and waited for Amy. I didn't have long to wait
Thompson, a little research tells me, was from Anadarko, Oklahoma. Oklahoma's just north of Texas, and Caddo County could generally be called "the boonies." Anyway, while I assume he wasn't a homicidal sociopath, I kind of get the feeling he could project himself into Lou Ford through the "frustrated small town boy" route. Ford shows lots of signs of being sick of their provincial ways. As he sees them.
I saw Stephen Frears's movie version of The Grifters at a party years ago, which I think may have been where I first met my former roommate Bob. Very well cast. John Cusack takes a convincing near-fatal blow to the gut.
And I do hope to get to Pop 1,280 before too long.
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