Minsik
Discover
Jan 1, 1906 — Jan 1, 1977· 71 yrs

UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · DETECTIVE AND MYSTERY

Jim Thompson

Also known as: Jim Thompson

29
BOOKS
3.9
AVG RATING (27)
3
READERS

Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma, the son of a county sheriff. His family relocated to Texas during his childhood. His first short stories were published in his teen years. As a hotel worker, he had access to bootleg liquor and drugs, and he smoked and drank heavily. At 19 he had a nervous breakdown. In 1926 he took work in an oil field laborer, then returned to Fort Worth to to attend school and write. In 1929 he began attending the University of Nebraska, but he dropped out two years later and married. Their first child was born in 1932. Thompson worked as a true crime reporter and as a journalist for the next few years. His first novel, Now And On Earth, was published in 1942. His writing developed into the hardboiled style of crime fiction in the 1950s. His most famous book, The Killer Inside Me, was first published in 1952. In 1955 he moved to Hollywood, CA to work on film scripts. He remained in California even after his career in film ended and his popularity as a novelist waned. He died at the age of 71 after a series of strokes.

Anadarko, United States
Wikipedia

olson Home on South First Street, the palatial "Rosebud Castle," the Reichert House on Second Street and several others nestled in quiet neighborhoods among mature, magnificent trees. Rosebud was "a town of good people working together for the betterment of their community" extolled the Chamber of Commerce.

— from Bad boy

Most acclaimed

#2

Roughneck

1954

2.0 (1)

Roughneck is pulp noir master Jim Thompson's quasi-autobiography of the wandering wild days of one of America's wildest wandering authors. Follow Thompson through the Great Depression, his young adulthood, marriage and family but with the apocryphal dark wit that is his trademark. He goes from riding the rails in the 30's to getting drunk while working in a morgue only to move on to odd jobs as a baker, a collector, even as a writer of labor history for the W.P.A. Absurd scenarios swirl around this man like the savage dust storms sweeping over the dried out prairie states he traveled. He tries to write the Great American Novel with the help of a prostitute with a heart of gold, hustles deadbeats, has bull sessions with bunglers and bagmen, con men and corpses. He'll take you through a tour of all the lowlife characters America has to offer. These are the people that make his fiction so real and vibrant. Roughneck is a brilliant tell-all, a sharp character study, and a unique look into the life of a true American original. Thompson may even be the best character in his long career of creating supremely rich characters. Thompson's life in Thompson's own words is as frightening and humorous a memoir as they come.

#1

The Killer Inside Me

1952

4.1 (8)

Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.

#3

Bad boy

0.0 (0)

At thirteen Jim Thompson was learning how to smoke cigars and ogle burlesque girls under the tutelage of his profane grandfather. A few years later, he was bellhopping at a hotel in Fort Worth, where he supplemented his income peddling bootleg out of the package room. He shuddered out the DTs as a watchman on a West Texas oil pipeline. He outraged teachers, cheated mobsters, and almost got himself beaten to death by a homicidal sheriff's deputy. And somewhere along the way, Thompson became one of the greatest crime writers America has ever known. In this uproarious autobiographical tale, the author of After Dark, My Sweet and Pop. 1280 tells the story of his chaotic coming of age and reveals just where he acquired his encyclopedic knowledge of human misbehavior. Bad Boy is a bawdy, brawling book of reprobates--and an unfettered portrait of a writer growing up in the Southwest of the Roaring Twenties.

Books

Newest First