Five noir novels of the 1950s & 60s / Jim Thompson ; Robert Polito, editor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977, author.

Contributor:

Polito, Robert, 1951- editor.

Series:

Library of America ; 399.

The Library of America ; 399

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Crime--Fiction.

Crime.

Noir fiction.

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction.

Noir fiction.

Novels.

Fiction.

Physical Description:

805 pages ; 21 cm.

Other Title:

Five noir novels of the 1950s and 1960s

Place of Publication:

New York : The Library of America, [2026]

Summary:

"Lurid and intense, Jim Thompson's pulp crime novels were deeper and darker than other hardboiled entertainments, manic descents into taboo obsessions and submerged traumas that shocked publishers and readers alike. Melding gruesome violence with extraordinary psychological depth and inventive narrative techniques, they infused the popular crime novel with the subversive energies of America's literary underground. Already represented in the Library of America's American Noir collection with The Killer Inside Me, Thompson now joins the masters of American crime fiction featured in the series with this volume collecting five suspenseful classics that explore the shadowy undercurrents of postwar American life. Vividly cinematic, all five novels have been adapted for film, one of them twice. A Hell of a Woman (1954) is a haunting, mesmerizing portrait of a mind unraveling under the weight of abuse endured and inflicted. It is presented here in the text from the first printing, which includes provocative language and sexual imagery cut from all subsequent editions. "Everything went wrong," laments the narrator of After Dark, My Sweet (1955), a sucker punch of a story about a down-on-his-luck ex-fighter who gets involved in a kidnapping scheme that goes catastrophically awry. The Getaway (1959), also presented in a restored text, recounts another star-crossed crime, this time a bank heist that triggers a free fall into a hell worthy of Dante and Bosch. Ingeniously plotted and crisply told, The Grifters (1963) sets a short-con artist on a collision course with the one person he can't fool: his mother. The novel was memorably filmed by Stephen Frears in 1990, in a critically acclaimed movie of the same name that spurred a posthumous Thompson revival. Pop. 1280 (1964), the last major work of Thompson's career, is a comic and chilling novel that unleashes a hedonistic, dangerously messianic sheriff on a small southern town. Rounding out this deluxe edition is a selection of Thompson's early shorter works, including experimental fiction for the Federal Writers' Project, plus a full chronology of Thompson's life and career by his award-winning biographer, Robert Polito. At last, "the best suspense writer going, bar none" (The New York Times) gets his due."--Dust cover front and back flap.

Contents:

A hell of a woman

After dark, my sweet

The getaway

The grifters

Pop. 1280

Appendix. A road and a memory ; Gentlemen of the jungle ; A night with "Sally" ; The end of the book ; Time without end ; Snake Magee and the rotary boiler

Chronology

Note on the texts

Notes.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Contains:

Container of: Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977. Hell of a woman.

Container of: Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977. After dark, my sweet.

Container of: Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977. Getaway.

Container of: Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977. Grifters.

Container of: Thompson, Jim, 1906-1977. Pop. 1280.

ISBN:

9781598538434

1598538438

OCLC:

1548153142