On Tom Piccirilli's great website The Big Adios there are some comments about a chapbook that Max Allan Collins and I put together way back in 1983 called Jim Thompson: The Killers Inside Him. Here's what (Max) Al had to say:
"This is a rare item that I have only a couple copies of. With the cooperation of Thompson's widow, Ed and I were trying to get the author some attention. I like to think we had something to do with his rediscovery or resurgence or whatever, but we were rarely if ever credited by later biographers and anthologizers. I did some editing and a tiny bit of writing on a novella had been deemed (by editors and even Thompson's wife) an unpublishable if interesting work. I didn't do a lot, other than clarify a few things and expand the ending to where it made a kind of sense. This was "This World, Then the Fireworks," which was reprinted in a somewhat different form in a collection that dissed me for fucking with the story, and yet used all my changes without credit but restoring the original, incomprehensible ending. Some minor touches of mine even made it into the movie version, which obviously wouldn't have been made if Gorman and I hadn't rescued this from Thompson's files. It's a very Thompson-esque thing, the way Ed and I are the forgotten men in the Thompson revival. I remain proud of the indepth piece I did, discussing virtually all of his novels. The cover is by Terry Beatty, my MS. TREE artist.
For the record, I was reading Thompson in high-school study hall in Muscatine, Iowa, in the mid-'60s, which probably has almost as much to do with how I turned out as Mickey Spillane and Chester Gould."
Ed here: For me the pleasure was getting to know Alberta Thompson and learning so much about Jim. I think we got a nice interview out of our many conversations. Same with Arnold Hano who'd been Thompson's editor at Lion books. As I mention on The Big Adios I remember sitting at Al's place and us trying to figure out just what the hell Thompson was trying to do with the ending. Very confusing. Al not only figured it out, he did a fantastic job of revising it so that it not only made sense but enhanced the drama. Boy talk about long ago and far away. 1983. Wow.
Ed, I read "This World, then the Fireworks" in the Lost Writings collection, which I believe was Thompson's original, unedited version?? I always thought this was one of Thompson's stranger works, but also had some strong passages. My take on the ending was with the sister dead, Marty is going to go full-circle and go out in the same sort of manner as his old-man, that at some level that's why he chose a cop to have an affair with--and that this is the only way he can make sense of his life. How did Max decipher the ending? And did this chapbook have anything additional other than the novella?
ReplyDeleteI loved "This World, then the Fireworks," which I read in the Black Lizard anthology.
ReplyDeleteWhat else is included in this volume? Essays on Thompson? Interviews? Other stories? I've heard about this, but never seen one in person before.
Dave, Cullen: Al does a major overview of Thompson's work, as fine a piece on that subject as I've ever seen. I interview Thompson's widow and his editor. Al also does a complete bibliography and then of course there's the novella.
ReplyDeleteI think Geoffrey O'Brien in Hardboiled America was the earliest and most influential writeup on Thompson in English. Maxim Jacubowski's Black Box series then republished 4 or 5 of the big titles in around 82 or 83 followed the next year by Black Lizard's series the next year, which I think was the real start of the Thompson craze, though of course there had been movie adaptations all along in the 70s and early 80s. Too bad Thompson couldn't have lived a few more years to see it all happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat version is in the Black Lizard anthology? The one Max edited or the original, unedited?
ReplyDeleteAnybody know where (or even if) it's possible to get hold of this book? There's one on amazon.co.uk for £80, but it's £80!
ReplyDeleteI currently doing a PhD on narrative techniques for representing consciousness in fiction. It focuses on depictions of psychopaths through the ages. I'll be dealing with Thompson in my section on the mid twentieth century. Ed - can you give any more detail on Al's overview of Thompson's work, i.e. is it relevant to my rsearch? And do you know where I can obtain a more reasonably priced copy of the book? As an impoverished student £60+ on Amazon is out of reach. Have tried to borrow a copy from the British Library, but they don't have it...
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