Customer Reviews

The Criminal

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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This is a short one but God, it's a masterpiece. Your sympathy and your hate jumps from character to character as the story goes. I find it one of Thompsons more sensitive books in contrast to some of his more hate-filled work. There are some pretty evil persons in this one too though, and you start to question who's to blame for the tragedy in the novel. You don't have to be a crimelover to read and get drawn into this Thompson story.

I'm a big Jim Thompson fan, and I think this is his very best. A crime occurs, but guilt or innocence quickly loses focus - the suspect becomes a pawn, and each chapter focuses on a different figure (the D.A., the newspaper editor, the suspect's family, etc.) and how they deal with the situation. Each chapter is written in the first person, and has a number of vignettes that, to me, were truly vivid. Thompson's more 'extreme' novels, like The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, or Pop. 1280, are better-known, but I think the quiet power of this book eclipses them all.

What a refreshing book, particularly the use of different narrators & the (successful) heavy reliance on dialog to propel the story. I was very concerned Thompson's books would all be alike after I read & loved "The Killer Inside Me" ... & they're not at all ... this is a completely different style from that or from, say, "South of Heaven" or "Now And On Earth." I've read one other book that used this approach, John Burnham Schwartz's much more recent & also excellent "Reservation Road" & it works very well for both writers. Thompson is wonderfully controlled with it, keeping things short & tight. I love how many people assume young Bob Talbert is innocent & railroaded ... in fact, Thompson leaves the question of his innocence or guilt entirely with the reader & it's beautifully ambiguous, especially if the reader is familiar with the sociopathic personality which, without ever saying it, Thompson gives Talbert plenty of room to be. Thompson was ahead of his time understanding criminals & perhaps much of it was intuitive, from what he knew about himself. Whatever his personal weaknesses he was very brave in showing people's inherent capacity for evil, without apologizing for it. It's in Thompson's ability to see the universal capacity for evil that his humanity lies.

"The Criminal" is an unusual Jim Thompson novel. He charts the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Midwest girl. The prime suspect is Bob, a 15-year-old neighbor, who has a history with the girl. Bob's a bit of a juvenile delinquent, but comes across as a decent person. His parents are convinced that Bob didn't have anything to do with the murder, or are they?

A number of different people become involved in and influence the case, each with her/his own agenda, including the DA, Bob's parents, and the local media. Chapters are told from the viewpoint of these different characters, and this technique is used quite successfully here. The joy of this book comes not from the suspense of figuring out who committed the crime, but in seeing how the case is effected by each character. Overall, a highly enjoyable and fascinating Thompson novel.

This is an odd little book; despite being one of his lesser known works, it is often offered by Thompson fans as one their personal favorites. A teenage boy is railroaded by the yellow press and an over eager prosecuter into confessing to the rape-murder of a neighborhood girl. Thompson tells the story from several veiwpoints, each demonstrating the venal and selfish motives of the characters involved, and how their combined stupidity helps to condemn the innocent youth. Almost a social message novel, but hardboiled enough to be unmistakably Jim Thompson's.

This is almost an experimental novel by Thompson. It consists of short first person chapters giving you different windows, (views from different characters), on and around the same event. This event is the murder of a young girl. Finishing the book you are left unsure as to who the real criminal is and even wondering if there was any innocent person in the book. The attorney Kossmeyer, a character we see a few years later in Thompson's book "Kill-off", is probably the most moral of any of them, but there are no perfect people here. Thompson is really writing outside the box with this one and when an author does this it usually doesn't succeed. Thompson pulls this off for the most part however. You can't look for the story to be all summed up in the end. What he gives the reader is splendid windows into the minds and motivations of different characters. The priorities of the characters are laid bare, their motivations exposed and we along with some of them learn a little about what is important in life. Placed before the first chapter is a quote from "Romeo and Juliet"--- "There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none." After reading this novel you will see just how well this quote fits it.

The Criminal by Jim Thompson is a first person narrative about a crime. The suspect is a teenage boy suspected of raping and killing a neighbors teenage daughter. You get a first person narrative from The suspect, his parrents, and other people who are involved in the case such as a newspaper reporter, copy chief. . . and so on. In the end, everyone else in the book seems more guilty of things, then the boy does in the crime.

The book is well written, like every other Jim Thompson novel. The plot is strong, and angles are creative and unique. The characters are well rounded, and explored. The only complaint, is that it is a little short.

I would strongly recommend this book!

The Criminal by Jim Thompson is a very short novel. A quick read. But my oh my what a punch it packs. Fourteen year old Josie Eddleman has been raped and murdered. The accused is 15 year old Bob Talbert, Josie's schoolmate and neighbor. Is Bob innocent of the crime? Probably. But then again, maybe he isn't. Thompson never completely resolves this question because this book is not a whodunit. In fact, it is not a conventional novel at all.
Thompson has divided The Criminal into 14 short chapters. Different characters involved in the case each serve as first person narrators in one or two of these chapters. There's Bob himself, Bob's father, Bob's mother, the DA, an investigative reporter, the defense attorney, etc. Thompson very skillfully has each narrator give their own perspective on the case while at the same time providing breathtaking insights into his or her own life.
This book is a real treat. Page after page contains great dialogue and vivid introspection. Seemingly without effort, Thompson addresses a wide variety of interesting and important themes.
The Criminal is a masterful work of fiction. It's the kind of book that reminds us how powerful writing can be.

I don't know if Thompson does it on purpose or he was following some kind of editorial edict laid down in the 50's by the bloated hypocrisy of the McCarthy Era, but the dialog struck me as both infantile and spot on. The "goshes' and 'ah shucks' along with the censored G-- D---s and F---you's starkly contrasts with the social brutality taking place in the story. The overall effect is electric. It serves to lift the action off the pages--who cares if the characters are talking rooty-pooh out of an Andy Hardy movie reminiscent more of the '30s than the '50s? Look what these maniacs are doing!

I've never trusted the cynicism of journalists. Reporting on other people's lives, what right to cynicism do they have? They're just making up banal stories to sell papers (or pump ratings). However, maybe the cynicism is actually directed at their own profession--a self-loathing from the inside so to speak. Journalism is laid bare in this book, and instead of the Captain, a slimy bastard if there ever was one, the same today could be Rupert Murdock and Fox News. The hero, if you can call him that, is the tough reporter who writes a scathing story that will be so over the top that it backfires on the Captain and the rest of the editorial staff. (I'm afraid today that there is no "top" to go over--just Barbie and Ken dolls voicing what they have been told to say with a smile.)

I'm not about to give away the ending except to say that the "Criminal's" guilt or innocence is almost immaterial. The murder is simply an event to draw out human banality on several levels. The characters that voice their own self-interest and perspective build the story around the event (killing) and what's going on in their own lives. None are especially good or bad (except the Captain who is never left to voice his own perspective). All of the characters are doing their best to get by. Thompson doesn't moralize--he just shows the readers the lives from within and without.

The issues of antisemitism and racism in 1950's Oklahoma (I'm assuming the material reflects that region since that was where Thompson was from) are subtle and not-so-subtle. The defense attorney is Jewish and in an interchange with the DA, the expression "Christ Killer" comes up. Like a bell that cannot be un-rung, the DA apologizes and tries to reassure the defense attorney that he didn't mean it--just a joking expression. The defense attorney acts as though nothing had been said; thereby both drilling the guilt and yet acting as a "good ole boy." Like the rest of the characters in this menagerie, the defense attorney is looking out for himself. Yet...at the same time the defense attorney is clear-eyed as he can be to exonerate his client. He does this through an impoverished black family whose crucial testimony rests on yet another deal. Interestingly, while the prim and proper 1950's mindset finds "f--k" offensive, "n----r" is perfectly acceptable when describing a character who voices the n-word. The black family is portrayed in desperately poor conditions, but not as a bunch of honest and good people just doing the right thing. Instead, they're like the rest of the characters; they negotiate for their testimony. What do they care about the white boy? Look at their state!

This is one of those stories that is not forgotten. This little book sticks in my mind while the last 50 novels I read form a blur of indistinguishable distractions.

What is your breaking point? What does it take for you to snap?

This is the question that Jim Thompson asks in this book.

Thompson wrote The Criminal in 1953 and while it is a short book (120 pages), it is one of his best.

A girl is murdered, a young man is accused of the murder. Is he guilty?

The book has a first person narrative and generally changes people every chapter so we get the viewpoint of the boy, his parents, the reporter, the lawyer etc. There is a common theme throughout the book of people being pushed to their limits and whether they will snap or will they take the pressure and use it somewhere else, this is quite an interesting device and I found it good.

I enjoyed this quick read, it is suitably ambiguious in places and quite realistic in other sections. There is the general feeling of fear throughout the book, something that the crime writers of the 1950's were very good at creating.