Bad Boy

by Jim Thompson

Overview

From the beginning, Jim Thompson knew he was going to catch hell no matter what he did. And during a childhood spent at the mercy of a father whose schemes put him on the wrong side of the law as often as the right, and a grandfather who knew the bad parts of town like the back of his hand, young Jim learned sin better than any writer had before.

From his rabble-rousing adolescencein the American Midwest, to wasted teenage years in the seedy underbelly of the hotel industry, to Thompson's chilling encounter with the real-life inspiration of THE KILLER INSIDE ME, BAD BOY offers a fascinating glimpse at the formative years of the man who would become one of the most famous authors of modern American Noir, in the autobiography-as-novel that follows the birth of the legend himself in the signature style Thompson made famous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316403757
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/05/2014
Series:	Mulholland Classic
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to True Detectivewhen he was only fourteen. Thompson eventually wrote twenty-nine novels, all but three of which were published as paperback originals. Thompson also co-wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory). Several of his novels have been filmed by American and French directors, resulting in classic noir including The Killer Inside Me (1952), After Dark My Sweet(1955), and The Grifters (1963).

Read an Excerpt

1

My earliest recollections are of being pinched. Not in the figurative sense, but actually. I was an awkward, large-headed tot, much prone to stuttering and stumbling over my own feet. My sister Maxine, though somewhat my junior, was quick-moving, quick-thinking, glib and extremely agile. When my actions and appearance irritated her--and they seemed to almost constantly--she pinched me. When I failed to respond quickly enough to her commands, she pinched me. The metaphor, "as smooth as a baby's skin," has always been meaningless to me. My infant hide appeared to have been stippled with a set of coal tongs.

One day, shortly after the Thompson family fortunes had undergone an unusually terrifying nosedive and we had moved into a particularly execrable section of Oklahoma City, Maxine spotted two Negro children returning home from the grocery. They had a large bottle of milk with them. Bringing me up from the steps with a quick pinch, Maxine dragged me out to the sidewalk and accosted the two youngsters.

Would they like to be white? she inquired. Well, in return for their milk, she would perform the transfiguration. She had done the trick for me, and I had been blacker than they were. Much, much blacker ... and now just look at me.

The tots were a little dubious, but, being pinched, I loudly swore to Maxine's tale. And, being pinched again, I hurried into the kitchen and got the implements--a bar of soap and a scrubbing brush--with which the transformation was to be effected. At Maxine's instigation, I took the patients out to the back-yard water hydrant, and began scrubbing them. Maxine took their milk into the privy (it was that kind ofneighborhood), drank all she could hold, then dropped the bottle down the hole.

Emerging, she entered the house, beginning to scream with horror as soon as she had got through the door. Mom came running out, Maxine in the vanguard. Pretending to pull me away from the puzzled Negroes, she got in several energetic pinches, making me howlingly incoherent by the time Mom reached the scene. She gave the tots the price of a fresh quart of milk, wiped them off and dragged me into the house, declaring that she didn't know what she was going to do with me. Snickering hideously, Maxine remained in the yard, free to go about her devilish designs.

Being very young, I was unable to explain the affair within the time that it would have done any good to explain. I got an impression from it, however, very nebulous, then, but one that expanded and jelled later.

I was going to catch hell no matter what I did. I might as well try to enjoy myself.

Editorial Reviews

Published in 1953 and 1954, respectively, this duo by Thompson offer an autobiographical novel of a tough kid's violent ascent into adulthood and a man's loss of his self-esteem that turns him pretty nasty. Two gritty novels by a master of the crime genre that are must haves for all mystery collections.

Library Journal