Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson (NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER)

I suppose when an author pens a biography of another author, the reader should not expect the biography to provide the same level of reader delight as the author whom the biography covers. Don't get me wrong, Polito does a good job, and he certainly is not a hack writer. His analysis is steady without flights of fancy about Thompson's motives, but it's not too interesting either. Yes, Thompson lived a tought life in Texas and Oklahoma as his flitty father bounced from one dream deal to another, and his time spent in the Texas oil rig jungle is informative not only about Thompson but about the times and condiitons where he lived. Bringing in excerpts from Thompson's writings to explain (or perhaps just to connect the dots) events in his life with parallels in his writings doesn't always work. Yes, the reader can see his father in life and in the person of a corrupt official in one of Thompson's novels, but one can never see the genius--the why.This award-winning book certainly deserves any awards based on the good scholarship Polito brings to the effort. The details, though, sometimes bog the reader down in minutiae that seem to detract from who Thompson was. One of the more interestings periods of Thompson's life was while working with the WPA as a writer working on the Oklahoma Guide. The connections with the writers and the communist and socialist, including Thompson, even Thompson's activitist role in the WWW is rendered in such detail that the reader wonders why Polito brings in all the detail -- which seems almost like the minutes of a party meeting -- that he does. However, whether intentionally or not, Polito puts the lie to the contention that mystery writers are right-wing apologists for capitalism. Thompson (and perhaps even more so Lous L'Amour who was part of Thompson's group of writers who were involved in Oklahoma's communist party) were not just hacks churning out pulp fiction for the he-man magazines but were men of conscience who were well aware of the plight of the working man during this era in this time and place. The fact that Thompson gave up the party doesn't detract (or indict) from his deep feelings for injustices he experienced in his life and saw in others.All in all, Polito's work represents excellent scholarship, and in reading this book, you will come away with a close rendering of Jim Thompson's life. However, while well documented and certainly with a pedestrian scholarship, I never felt that Polito found the source of Thomson's real genius.

Meticiously researched and winning awards, this biography of the writer is ultimatly over-written, and too often, is boring.The author attemps to draw similarities betweein Thompson's life and thought processes by inclunding passages from his works which becomew boring in the extreme. This will prove especially irritating to all but the individual who has read the majority of Thompson novels and short stories. The author constantly divulges every aspect of Thompson's works, down to the smallest detail. New readers of Thompson will likely feel they've already read Thompson's entire output.This is a valid biographical tool but the author relies on it too much. The rememerances of family, associates, friends, and others who knew Thompson are also carried to the extreme. It seems every two or three paragraphs is followed by a 'rememberance' or section of Thompson's work. I probably skipped half the book due to this irrirating habit of the author trying to analyze Thompsonthrough these devices.The hard facts of Thompson's life are fascinating, however, and Ifound myself wondering how with all his hangups, family problems,heavy drinking, and such how Thompson managed to live as long as he did. Thompson was a troubled individual his entire life and itis obvious he poured much of his fears and frustrations into his incredible works.I can recommend this book to the devoted Thompson fan since it does detail his life nicely but be aware that even the most hardened fan will find it hard going.

The title is indeed appropriate and catchy: "Savage Art" captures both something of the "man" Jim Thompson's erratic, passionate, lifestyle, as far as it can be known to us, and the artistic talent of someone considered, while living, a very second-rate pulp fiction writer, or rather "hack." That he should have written the script for two Kubrick films, that Orson Welles wanted to adapt one novel - what other director could indeed? are sufficient points to make the writer much more than a footnote in the history of literature. Some novels, because of their warped humor, are on a par with Mark Twain and William Faulkner. Others, through the glimpse we are afforded into the mind of a diseased character, remind the reader of Dostoevsky. The stream-of-consciousness technique Thompson adopts, at his best, is, to say the least, unsettling, grotesque, unmatched.

Polito wrote a masterpiece on the subjetc. Impressive book for all who whant to decipher who was the incredible writer Jim Thompson.Plus the writer includes fragmentary notes of lost papers, and of books written by Jimmy now out of print, lots of pictures, newspapers notices's...It is a great book ( and a big one: 500 pages!). I would like to know if Polito had the birth certificate of Jim, because I'm an astrologer and very curious to know the hour he was born!Clélia [email protected]

Detailed biography of a forgotten writer.