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Fireworks: The Lost Writings
Selected short stories reflect the various phases of Thompson's career, from the 1920s through the 1970s
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Jim Thompson
161 books1,646 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 16, 2012
This collection of three novellas (The Cellini Chalice/Frightening Frammis, Sunrise At Midnight and This World, Then The Fireworks) isn't just for Jim Thompson completists, these orphans stack up strongly to any crime fiction out there. The shorter works are so batshit crazy they belong more in an EC comic book like Crime Suspense Stories than in Black Mask or Manhunt. Crime never looked more eye-popping, tongue-drooling and greasy fingered and probably never will.
P.S. The film version of "This World, Then The Fireworks" starring Billy Zane and Gina Gershon is pretty good and worth catching the next time it's on TV.
P.S. The film version of "This World, Then The Fireworks" starring Billy Zane and Gina Gershon is pretty good and worth catching the next time it's on TV.
November 5, 2017
Often, there are good reasons certain works are lost or left unpublished, but fame has a way of making such miscellany valuable to others. Such is the case with this collection of Thompson's uncollected shorter work.
Arranged in a rough chronological order, the first section from his 1930s and 1940s writing, includes quite a bit of nonfiction written in a fictional vein. In "The Strange Death of Eugene King," Thompson takes on the voice of a transient looking to solve the murder of another transient, a technique popular in thriller magazines of the era apparently. "Oil Field Vignettes" and "Thieves of the Field" both provide first-hand insights into the oil industry that I'd likely never have thought much about otherwise. The first is mostly character sketches of oil workers--one who likes complete silence, one who is scared of drilling, and one who is constantly marrying bad women who take advantage of him and leave him. There's something of a folk tale quality to these bits, as in the stories told in "Thieves," where Thompson ruminates on how pipe can be (and is) stolen and sold. "Snake Magee's Rotary Boiler" is a tall tale about a blown-up boiler that sends a man clear back to bed.
The True Detective pieces show how Thompson became the writer he did. There's a quality of the unknown, as is typical of mystery in each of the true crime pieces, a mystery with a twist usually at the end. "Ditch of Doom" explores the life of an insane man who murders his wife--or is it a planned murder for his former wife? "Oklahoma's Conspiring Lovers" follows the unfortunate story of a man beat up by a horse--who in fact is not beat up by said horse. "Illicit Lovers and the Walking Corpse" tries to figure out how a man's wife survives being accidentally killed by the man--and just how many wives the man has.
"A Penny in the Dust" is an unfinished novel from the period. Seemingly autobiographical in its first passages, it lacks for polish, but the ickiness typical of Thompsom becomes apparent in the final scene provided.
"Character at Iraan" recounts life among oil workers between jobs, as they sleep in a cheap hotel, gamble, and drink. Although published in Prairie Schooner, the piece does not seem to fulfill its literary pretensions.
The second section focuses on Thompson's writings during the 1940s and 1950s, which would have included the time of his most productive output. "Death Missed a Beat" is a straight story about a man who in an effort to get to work on time the next day picks up a hitchhiker to drive him and ends up the object of a murder. "Murder Came on the Mayflower" is a short account of an early colonial murder. "Exactly What Happened" plays to a weird twist in a story in which a man attempts to rob his boss by pretending to be a coworker. "The Threesome in Four-C" is an account of a man who has gone insane because of his conscience. "The Dark Stair" is the basis for Thompson's book No More Than Murder; a true story, the mystery hinges on the contents of a movie. "Forever After" revolves around a woman who, tired of her marriage, plots the murder of her husband via her lover but who, as in "Exactly What Happened," finds the situation reversed on her. "John Stink" is about a Native American whose tribe takes him for dead, so much so that when he finds his way out of the shallow grave they take him for a ghost they must ignore so that he'll go away. "Blood from a Turnip" centers on a watch that hustlers attempt to turn for a profit.
"The Cellini Chalice," one of the longest stories in this section, shows Thompson at his top form, as he is in his better novels. The story centers on a hustler named Mitch. He cons a chalice off a woman who thinks him a vagrant in need, a chalice that is worth much more than she knows. Alas, Mitch isn't an antiques expert, so he thinks he fares well getting a thousand dollars for it but is disappointed when he finds out it's worth at least fifteen times that. Mitch learns that there's another chalice like it and aims to get it with the woman's help. What he doesn't know is that the woman is in on the con--of him. Many pages later, Mitch finds himself in some extenuating circumstances that require him to use all the street smarts he has to extricate himself from.
"The Frightening Frammis" picks up where the previous story left off, once again following Mitch on his efforts to con people out of cash. Having been the victim of a recent swindle, Mitch feels down on his luck, but he soon falls into an opportunity to earn fifty thousand dollars. This story doesn't have the same weight as the previous. The circumstances that lead to Mitch's opportunity seem too haphazard: he's hitchhiking, a couple picks him up, the man dies, and Mitch just happens to look like him, and there just happens to be fifty thousand in the car, and so on. Mitch's wife seems too forgiving, after all that he's put her through in both this story and the last. As such, the plot twists overpower the sense of characterization, and the story loses punch, which is a reason I have tended not to care as much for genre fiction in the past.
The same point could be used to denote why "Pay as You Exit" and "The Flaw in the System" are disappointing. The first involves a hitchhiker who aims to rip off the woman he manages to stop by flattening her tire, only to find out that she might well be just as dangerous as he is. The second involves people at a company who are conned.
"An Alcoholic Looks at Himself" seems a bit disorganized, but it is a sad, autobiographical portrait of Thompson as a drinker, a man who has squandered chunks of his life and talent in an effort to get the next bit of the liquid elixir. I say disorganized, but it is in chronological order. It's just that, being "real life," there doesn't seem much in the way of an arc or growth--it's just random discussion of drinking, stopping, then drinking again.
"The Tomcat That Was Treetop Tall" is a crime story about a man who decides to rip off a couple in a bar and the man who decides to stop him. Here, the story's violence seems as if it is on the page for thrills rather than for a purpose inherent to the story.
We then move to the last two decades of Thompson's life and writing. The middle of the book seems the strongest part; by this era, Thompson's work has become something of a parody of itself. "A Horse in the Baby's Bathtub" revolves around an incest story. A young man who is, in his mind, clever and smart, takes an interest in his father's new bride, his stepmom. He kills off dad and takes up with her, but his interest in her is, in part, one of contempt. In the end, he opts to do some violence to the family next door, who has lost a child--and that's where one learns the meaning of the tale's title.
"The Red Kitten" is the start of a longer work--a promising start. A man marries a woman, but with an understanding that the inheritance the two of them will get requires them to stay married. The will is set up in such a way that it essentially forces the two to despise one another but stay married--or find some way to knock the other off. Alas, the piece ends there.
"The Slave Girl in the Cellar" is a summary of a true crime story, a case of modern slavery. The piece is interesting for the case itself.
"Sunrise at Midnight" is a strange piece, a piece that seems in many ways like male wish fulfillment. The first section focuses on a man married to a stripper who is forced into her profession by a crooked cop. But just as the husband begins to build a plan for taking care of matters, the story backtracks to that same man taking an interest in helping out a much-younger woman in a dead-end job. After he buys her new clothes and sets her up rather well, she insists on going to bed with him against his will and then they get married. The man loses his job as a reporter and thus fall the events that force his wife into stripping--and the man into seeking revenge. Like so many of the pieces in this last section, this one seems unfinished.
I didn't much care for "Hell" from Ironside, the one published piece in the last section, a lyrical exploration of killing and crime.
"This World, Then the Fireworks" closes off the collection and might be the most finished of those works falling in the last section. Full of familiar Thompson tropes, the piece seems a bit over the top. It involves a set of twins who witness their father killing a cop who discovers said father cheating with the cop's wife. The wife commits suicide, the dad goes to jail, and the kids grow up to be troubled. They get into the grift, but their main desire is somehow to avenge or to understand their father's deed. And so goes the tale as the male twin opts to get involved with a female cop.
The book made me feel like Jim Thompson's best material was long form and mostly during the period for which he is most famous, when he wrote so many books in such short order. I wouldn't have bothered with the text were it not one of the few available to me to read on my Jim Thompson list. This is a collection, I'd say, largely for Thompson scholars, who can used it to see how his writing developed.
Arranged in a rough chronological order, the first section from his 1930s and 1940s writing, includes quite a bit of nonfiction written in a fictional vein. In "The Strange Death of Eugene King," Thompson takes on the voice of a transient looking to solve the murder of another transient, a technique popular in thriller magazines of the era apparently. "Oil Field Vignettes" and "Thieves of the Field" both provide first-hand insights into the oil industry that I'd likely never have thought much about otherwise. The first is mostly character sketches of oil workers--one who likes complete silence, one who is scared of drilling, and one who is constantly marrying bad women who take advantage of him and leave him. There's something of a folk tale quality to these bits, as in the stories told in "Thieves," where Thompson ruminates on how pipe can be (and is) stolen and sold. "Snake Magee's Rotary Boiler" is a tall tale about a blown-up boiler that sends a man clear back to bed.
The True Detective pieces show how Thompson became the writer he did. There's a quality of the unknown, as is typical of mystery in each of the true crime pieces, a mystery with a twist usually at the end. "Ditch of Doom" explores the life of an insane man who murders his wife--or is it a planned murder for his former wife? "Oklahoma's Conspiring Lovers" follows the unfortunate story of a man beat up by a horse--who in fact is not beat up by said horse. "Illicit Lovers and the Walking Corpse" tries to figure out how a man's wife survives being accidentally killed by the man--and just how many wives the man has.
"A Penny in the Dust" is an unfinished novel from the period. Seemingly autobiographical in its first passages, it lacks for polish, but the ickiness typical of Thompsom becomes apparent in the final scene provided.
"Character at Iraan" recounts life among oil workers between jobs, as they sleep in a cheap hotel, gamble, and drink. Although published in Prairie Schooner, the piece does not seem to fulfill its literary pretensions.
The second section focuses on Thompson's writings during the 1940s and 1950s, which would have included the time of his most productive output. "Death Missed a Beat" is a straight story about a man who in an effort to get to work on time the next day picks up a hitchhiker to drive him and ends up the object of a murder. "Murder Came on the Mayflower" is a short account of an early colonial murder. "Exactly What Happened" plays to a weird twist in a story in which a man attempts to rob his boss by pretending to be a coworker. "The Threesome in Four-C" is an account of a man who has gone insane because of his conscience. "The Dark Stair" is the basis for Thompson's book No More Than Murder; a true story, the mystery hinges on the contents of a movie. "Forever After" revolves around a woman who, tired of her marriage, plots the murder of her husband via her lover but who, as in "Exactly What Happened," finds the situation reversed on her. "John Stink" is about a Native American whose tribe takes him for dead, so much so that when he finds his way out of the shallow grave they take him for a ghost they must ignore so that he'll go away. "Blood from a Turnip" centers on a watch that hustlers attempt to turn for a profit.
"The Cellini Chalice," one of the longest stories in this section, shows Thompson at his top form, as he is in his better novels. The story centers on a hustler named Mitch. He cons a chalice off a woman who thinks him a vagrant in need, a chalice that is worth much more than she knows. Alas, Mitch isn't an antiques expert, so he thinks he fares well getting a thousand dollars for it but is disappointed when he finds out it's worth at least fifteen times that. Mitch learns that there's another chalice like it and aims to get it with the woman's help. What he doesn't know is that the woman is in on the con--of him. Many pages later, Mitch finds himself in some extenuating circumstances that require him to use all the street smarts he has to extricate himself from.
"The Frightening Frammis" picks up where the previous story left off, once again following Mitch on his efforts to con people out of cash. Having been the victim of a recent swindle, Mitch feels down on his luck, but he soon falls into an opportunity to earn fifty thousand dollars. This story doesn't have the same weight as the previous. The circumstances that lead to Mitch's opportunity seem too haphazard: he's hitchhiking, a couple picks him up, the man dies, and Mitch just happens to look like him, and there just happens to be fifty thousand in the car, and so on. Mitch's wife seems too forgiving, after all that he's put her through in both this story and the last. As such, the plot twists overpower the sense of characterization, and the story loses punch, which is a reason I have tended not to care as much for genre fiction in the past.
The same point could be used to denote why "Pay as You Exit" and "The Flaw in the System" are disappointing. The first involves a hitchhiker who aims to rip off the woman he manages to stop by flattening her tire, only to find out that she might well be just as dangerous as he is. The second involves people at a company who are conned.
"An Alcoholic Looks at Himself" seems a bit disorganized, but it is a sad, autobiographical portrait of Thompson as a drinker, a man who has squandered chunks of his life and talent in an effort to get the next bit of the liquid elixir. I say disorganized, but it is in chronological order. It's just that, being "real life," there doesn't seem much in the way of an arc or growth--it's just random discussion of drinking, stopping, then drinking again.
"The Tomcat That Was Treetop Tall" is a crime story about a man who decides to rip off a couple in a bar and the man who decides to stop him. Here, the story's violence seems as if it is on the page for thrills rather than for a purpose inherent to the story.
We then move to the last two decades of Thompson's life and writing. The middle of the book seems the strongest part; by this era, Thompson's work has become something of a parody of itself. "A Horse in the Baby's Bathtub" revolves around an incest story. A young man who is, in his mind, clever and smart, takes an interest in his father's new bride, his stepmom. He kills off dad and takes up with her, but his interest in her is, in part, one of contempt. In the end, he opts to do some violence to the family next door, who has lost a child--and that's where one learns the meaning of the tale's title.
"The Red Kitten" is the start of a longer work--a promising start. A man marries a woman, but with an understanding that the inheritance the two of them will get requires them to stay married. The will is set up in such a way that it essentially forces the two to despise one another but stay married--or find some way to knock the other off. Alas, the piece ends there.
"The Slave Girl in the Cellar" is a summary of a true crime story, a case of modern slavery. The piece is interesting for the case itself.
"Sunrise at Midnight" is a strange piece, a piece that seems in many ways like male wish fulfillment. The first section focuses on a man married to a stripper who is forced into her profession by a crooked cop. But just as the husband begins to build a plan for taking care of matters, the story backtracks to that same man taking an interest in helping out a much-younger woman in a dead-end job. After he buys her new clothes and sets her up rather well, she insists on going to bed with him against his will and then they get married. The man loses his job as a reporter and thus fall the events that force his wife into stripping--and the man into seeking revenge. Like so many of the pieces in this last section, this one seems unfinished.
I didn't much care for "Hell" from Ironside, the one published piece in the last section, a lyrical exploration of killing and crime.
"This World, Then the Fireworks" closes off the collection and might be the most finished of those works falling in the last section. Full of familiar Thompson tropes, the piece seems a bit over the top. It involves a set of twins who witness their father killing a cop who discovers said father cheating with the cop's wife. The wife commits suicide, the dad goes to jail, and the kids grow up to be troubled. They get into the grift, but their main desire is somehow to avenge or to understand their father's deed. And so goes the tale as the male twin opts to get involved with a female cop.
The book made me feel like Jim Thompson's best material was long form and mostly during the period for which he is most famous, when he wrote so many books in such short order. I wouldn't have bothered with the text were it not one of the few available to me to read on my Jim Thompson list. This is a collection, I'd say, largely for Thompson scholars, who can used it to see how his writing developed.
February 18, 2023
I am officially out of Jim Thompson to read. The end of an era.
This is an excellent collection of short stories and even includes a couple that had never been published before. I'd never read Thompson's short work, and it was good to see his style translate so well to the short form. There's even a whodunit in here! I would have never thought of Thompson writing one of those before. And it even comes to a satisfying ending! One that people today probably wouldn't think about one bit.
I also enjoyed the Mitch Allen stories. I'm fairly certain that Thompson was a fan of Maverick because Mitch, as well as the King clan from King Blood, would be able to fit into the Maverick world pretty well if not for the fact that Mitch and the Kings have no morals whatsoever. Even though the Mavericks played fast and loose with their own morals, they at least had them.
"Sunrise at Midnight" was probably my favorite. It's about this guy who helps people in need, who in turn pay him back more than they ever got, whether in the form of actual goods or just favors. He has his wife, who works at a place that is probably advertised as a strip club but is in actuality a whorehouse. And then there is his adversary, a crooked cop who set her on this path. It's a doozy of a story. "This World, Then the Fireworks" comes fairly close to being a second favorite. A set of murderous twins . . . you know what? Just read it. I can't do it justice, myself.
What are you doing still reading this? Get the book!
This is an excellent collection of short stories and even includes a couple that had never been published before. I'd never read Thompson's short work, and it was good to see his style translate so well to the short form. There's even a whodunit in here! I would have never thought of Thompson writing one of those before. And it even comes to a satisfying ending! One that people today probably wouldn't think about one bit.
I also enjoyed the Mitch Allen stories. I'm fairly certain that Thompson was a fan of Maverick because Mitch, as well as the King clan from King Blood, would be able to fit into the Maverick world pretty well if not for the fact that Mitch and the Kings have no morals whatsoever. Even though the Mavericks played fast and loose with their own morals, they at least had them.
"Sunrise at Midnight" was probably my favorite. It's about this guy who helps people in need, who in turn pay him back more than they ever got, whether in the form of actual goods or just favors. He has his wife, who works at a place that is probably advertised as a strip club but is in actuality a whorehouse. And then there is his adversary, a crooked cop who set her on this path. It's a doozy of a story. "This World, Then the Fireworks" comes fairly close to being a second favorite. A set of murderous twins . . . you know what? Just read it. I can't do it justice, myself.
What are you doing still reading this? Get the book!
November 11, 2019
Question: is everyone reading the same book? I see in a few reviews people speaking of stories that are not in my Mysterious Press edition paperback - can someone explain what's going on? Thanks.
The edition I own is the one pictured. Included here are eleven short stories, ranging from novella length and down to stories consisting of a few pages. There was one story that I felt as close to indifferent as possible here - "The Dark Stair", a murder mystery set in a movie theatre that's investigation stretches out of state and should've, as a movie lover, made an impression, but it lacked the character of the other tales in this collection.
Starting with "Exactly What Happened", which opens strongly and continues to up itself as it goes along, and is about a man going through incredible physical transformations to impersonate another man, or what's really happening here? The ending here is typical Thompson madness, where the prose almost spills out of control along with the character.
Then we've got "The Threesome in Four-C". One of the shorter works here, it's a blend of humour and psychological horror, with another ending that throws the events that lead up to it into question.
The third story I have mentioned, but the fourth, "Forever After", is a delicious treat of twisted murder and psychological dread wherein Thompson creates a feeling of fuzzy disorientation wonderfully in a story about a woman who hires a lover to kill her absent-headed husband. Not "To Die For" by any stretch, this one is more focused on the interior opposed to the actions of the characters. One of my favourites of this book.
"The Cellini Chalice" could be considered a novella, I don't know, it's one of the longer ones. With this story, Thompson skillfully manages to up the humour of the story as it goes along, where a con man, with a know-it-all boss, robs a woman of a valuable gold chalice and then hears word of a duplicate of equal value and, not being satisfied with his payday and with other plans in mind, he spirals and fumbles into more serious crimes as he's duped and conned. A very entertaining read with memorable characters, but not the style of writing I value most from the author.
Next up is, "The Frightening Frammis". This is another con-man story where we meet a hitchhiker that's picked up by Babe who kills her husband and would like the hitchhiker to take his place so that they could cash in his cheques and run off with the money. They end up in Mexico, off season, at a resort hotel that's all-but dead. Lame explosives, blowtorches, dead bodies stiffened in a cement bathtub, and a con-man being played at his own game, along with other over-the-top events, soon follow. I could see this, with some edits, and quite a bit added, as a decent noir-styled movie.
"Pay As You Exit" is only a few pages. It's a story about a mysterious woman who nearly runs over a man who has some choice words for, to his mind, her type of people. Things don't end quite the way the man likely envisioned. It's short and one of the weaker stories.
"The Flaw in the System" is one I'm not sure about. It's the sort of corporate workplace story filled with meaningless tasks and a reliance on numbers over human traits that I've read in other superior works. It never takes off or amounts to much more than what I've described, perhaps fans of the more existential side of Thompson's work might be interested, I don't care that much about such things and prefer the amoral, pessimistic, hopeless aspect of the philosophy and worldview he brings to crime fiction.
"Sunrise at Midnight" is one of the better works. I especially enjoyed the characters here. A man working for a soon-to-be-defunct newspaper ventures into a bar across the street from his work that he's never visited. There he finds a frumpy woman who his friend Rose turns into a beauty, in appearance. Their relationship escalates from there, with the line of work she finds herself in to be on the seedier side in a city that seems consists of nothing aside from such grim prospects. Their relationship is a maudlin affair that rings true, and what occurs in the plot so that the two of them can exit their world includes murder and sexual perversion. I don't think I've read in Thompson's work a more sexually twisted character than that of Francine.
The next story is, I suspect, a piece from an episode that never aired of the television show, "Ironside". I don't know what to say about this one as, unlike my father, I haven't seen an episode of the show.
Finally, finishing the collection, is "This World, Then the Fireworks", which was made into a movie. The movie is highly misunderstood and underrated--Billy Zane overacts to the point where he's as hysterical as the source material, Gina Gershon has never looked better with that hair and that garter belt, stockings, and assorted dresses, and the mayhem of the story is conveyed in broad, bloody strokes verging on unreality, and the production design is a lush, colourful vision of 50's small-town America that opens with a stylistic murder with a dash of perversion-in-the-family. The short story works about as well, with it giving us characters that pull off being despicable and endearing so easily it may call into question where the reader stands on their various violent and sexual transgressions. It's a mix of most of the more out-there Thompson that is sure to divide readers, much like the movie.
So, what these stories amount to is pleasurable dive into the head of Jim Thompson that, in a little under 250 pages, showcases his strong points, his weaker comedy-focused writing, his willingness to explore the psychological ramifications of his character's actions - and if they even occurred - while he raises just as many questions. There's thieving, lying, seductive, perverted, hopeless, sick, lost, and charming characters to go along with the gore, sadism, and mental collapse included in their stories that are often set in desolate, decaying, sad locations that end with a twist, violence, and sometimes, sweetness. For fans of Thompson, this is a must-read, but it's not in league with his full-length novel's that I consider masterpieces.
The edition I own is the one pictured. Included here are eleven short stories, ranging from novella length and down to stories consisting of a few pages. There was one story that I felt as close to indifferent as possible here - "The Dark Stair", a murder mystery set in a movie theatre that's investigation stretches out of state and should've, as a movie lover, made an impression, but it lacked the character of the other tales in this collection.
Starting with "Exactly What Happened", which opens strongly and continues to up itself as it goes along, and is about a man going through incredible physical transformations to impersonate another man, or what's really happening here? The ending here is typical Thompson madness, where the prose almost spills out of control along with the character.
Then we've got "The Threesome in Four-C". One of the shorter works here, it's a blend of humour and psychological horror, with another ending that throws the events that lead up to it into question.
The third story I have mentioned, but the fourth, "Forever After", is a delicious treat of twisted murder and psychological dread wherein Thompson creates a feeling of fuzzy disorientation wonderfully in a story about a woman who hires a lover to kill her absent-headed husband. Not "To Die For" by any stretch, this one is more focused on the interior opposed to the actions of the characters. One of my favourites of this book.
"The Cellini Chalice" could be considered a novella, I don't know, it's one of the longer ones. With this story, Thompson skillfully manages to up the humour of the story as it goes along, where a con man, with a know-it-all boss, robs a woman of a valuable gold chalice and then hears word of a duplicate of equal value and, not being satisfied with his payday and with other plans in mind, he spirals and fumbles into more serious crimes as he's duped and conned. A very entertaining read with memorable characters, but not the style of writing I value most from the author.
Next up is, "The Frightening Frammis". This is another con-man story where we meet a hitchhiker that's picked up by Babe who kills her husband and would like the hitchhiker to take his place so that they could cash in his cheques and run off with the money. They end up in Mexico, off season, at a resort hotel that's all-but dead. Lame explosives, blowtorches, dead bodies stiffened in a cement bathtub, and a con-man being played at his own game, along with other over-the-top events, soon follow. I could see this, with some edits, and quite a bit added, as a decent noir-styled movie.
"Pay As You Exit" is only a few pages. It's a story about a mysterious woman who nearly runs over a man who has some choice words for, to his mind, her type of people. Things don't end quite the way the man likely envisioned. It's short and one of the weaker stories.
"The Flaw in the System" is one I'm not sure about. It's the sort of corporate workplace story filled with meaningless tasks and a reliance on numbers over human traits that I've read in other superior works. It never takes off or amounts to much more than what I've described, perhaps fans of the more existential side of Thompson's work might be interested, I don't care that much about such things and prefer the amoral, pessimistic, hopeless aspect of the philosophy and worldview he brings to crime fiction.
"Sunrise at Midnight" is one of the better works. I especially enjoyed the characters here. A man working for a soon-to-be-defunct newspaper ventures into a bar across the street from his work that he's never visited. There he finds a frumpy woman who his friend Rose turns into a beauty, in appearance. Their relationship escalates from there, with the line of work she finds herself in to be on the seedier side in a city that seems consists of nothing aside from such grim prospects. Their relationship is a maudlin affair that rings true, and what occurs in the plot so that the two of them can exit their world includes murder and sexual perversion. I don't think I've read in Thompson's work a more sexually twisted character than that of Francine.
The next story is, I suspect, a piece from an episode that never aired of the television show, "Ironside". I don't know what to say about this one as, unlike my father, I haven't seen an episode of the show.
Finally, finishing the collection, is "This World, Then the Fireworks", which was made into a movie. The movie is highly misunderstood and underrated--Billy Zane overacts to the point where he's as hysterical as the source material, Gina Gershon has never looked better with that hair and that garter belt, stockings, and assorted dresses, and the mayhem of the story is conveyed in broad, bloody strokes verging on unreality, and the production design is a lush, colourful vision of 50's small-town America that opens with a stylistic murder with a dash of perversion-in-the-family. The short story works about as well, with it giving us characters that pull off being despicable and endearing so easily it may call into question where the reader stands on their various violent and sexual transgressions. It's a mix of most of the more out-there Thompson that is sure to divide readers, much like the movie.
So, what these stories amount to is pleasurable dive into the head of Jim Thompson that, in a little under 250 pages, showcases his strong points, his weaker comedy-focused writing, his willingness to explore the psychological ramifications of his character's actions - and if they even occurred - while he raises just as many questions. There's thieving, lying, seductive, perverted, hopeless, sick, lost, and charming characters to go along with the gore, sadism, and mental collapse included in their stories that are often set in desolate, decaying, sad locations that end with a twist, violence, and sometimes, sweetness. For fans of Thompson, this is a must-read, but it's not in league with his full-length novel's that I consider masterpieces.
May 30, 2009
未完はないっすよ・・・
ぶちって、キレてるの、悲しい
ぶちって、キレてるの、悲しい
May 13, 2021
The first story or two were amusing. Lost writings are "lost" for a reason.
September 14, 2015
This is a mixed bag. Most of the early stuff is quite fascinating, and a lot of the late stuff is quite poor. I especially wanted to read 'An Alcoholic Looks At Himself' and it didn't disappoint. I was less enamoured with 'This World, And Then the Fireworks'. Overall I'd have to say this is for completists only.
Read
September 12, 2007Jim Thompson short stories. Oilfield, West Texas and Oklahoma, a little LA, a little New York. Lots of drinking and crime, pulp fiction. Covers most of what was not published in book form. Magazines, diaries, and so on. I am a big fan of JT, and enjoyed the book.
December 7, 2009
Good stuff and they made a movie out of one of the stories, I forget the name of it. Jim Thompson also did a novelization of "Ironside," much darker than the series. I'd love to get my hands on it. Haven't checked Amazon or Good Reads yet!
June 13, 2007
Read "This World, Then The Fireworks."
March 3, 2014
This World, Then the Fireworks ranks among Thompson's best and makes this book a must read.
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