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A review by bookguyeric
Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
3.0
I think up until the last twenty pages or so, this was set to be one of my all time favorite books.
But then, by the end, I just couldn’t buy the way corrupt Sheriff Nick Corey was able to predict the other characters’ behavior. Behavior that he egged on for his own benefit as part of some kind of improvised scheme.
Maybe I should be reading more into Nick’s words near the end of the book, and accept that he’s an agent of God sent to punish a bunch of poor schmoes for…being a bunch a poor schmoes, I guess? Sort of an agent of cosmic injustice? Maybe I should just accept the book as an allegory for the meaninglessness of life? I dunno.
This book is funny, unpredictable, and entertaining, but in the end it offends my sense of storytelling logic. It doesn’t play fair with the reader. It seems as though Thompson wrote himself into a corner and then tried to play the story off as having some existential meaning. As if it’s something more than a lurid ten cent drugstore paperback. Believe me, I’m not above a lurid ten cents drugstore paperback, but c’mon!
The book just doesn’t stick the landing.
But then, by the end, I just couldn’t buy the way corrupt Sheriff Nick Corey was able to predict the other characters’ behavior. Behavior that he egged on for his own benefit as part of some kind of improvised scheme.
Maybe I should be reading more into Nick’s words near the end of the book, and accept that he’s an agent of God sent to punish a bunch of poor schmoes for…being a bunch a poor schmoes, I guess? Sort of an agent of cosmic injustice? Maybe I should just accept the book as an allegory for the meaninglessness of life? I dunno.
This book is funny, unpredictable, and entertaining, but in the end it offends my sense of storytelling logic. It doesn’t play fair with the reader. It seems as though Thompson wrote himself into a corner and then tried to play the story off as having some existential meaning. As if it’s something more than a lurid ten cent drugstore paperback. Believe me, I’m not above a lurid ten cents drugstore paperback, but c’mon!
The book just doesn’t stick the landing.