Jim
Thompson, a writer of hard-boiled crime fiction, was born in Anadarko, Indian
Territory (Oklahoma), in 1906.
Thompson’s literary achievements were little-recognized during his lifetime;
however, many of his works were re-discovered and re-published in the 1980s.
His work is often lauded, noting his ability to understand the criminal
mind. His work is largely critiqued and
categorized as only hard-boiled fiction, but his work defies such a simple
genre classification. Thompson combines
the genres of crime fiction and Westerns and in doing so, his works read as
critiques of American history and culture. Certainly much of Thompson’s work
can be read as a critique of post-WWII America.
As David
Cochrane points out Thompson’s works serve as “portraits of the marginal,
alienated, and sociopathic inhabitants of America’s barren wastelands... he specialized in showing the psychic ravages inflicted on the victims
of the American economic and political system” (14). However, some of Thompson’s work is directly
aimed at challenging the roots of frontier mythologies. Thompson’s life in the West, raised by a disgraced
sheriff of Caddo County, Oklahoma, and spending his early years working in the
oil fields, directly influences the characters he creates.
