The Oral Art of Jim Thompson
Review of four novels by Jim Thompson: The Killer Inside Me, Recoil, A Hell of a Woman, The Grifters, each one $14.95, for two cassettes, 3 hours of playing time, produced by Book of the Road, 7175 SW 45 Street, Suite 202, Miami, FL 33155 (305) 667‑5762.
Jim Thompson has been rediscovered by movie producers; six of his novels are to be turned from print into film. After Dark, My Sweet is a one of the best films of the past year; the Grifters is a disappointment in its refusal to keep to the period, the contemporary adaptation distorting Thompson's social critique. But The Grifters is now out on video, and Thompson fans will be able to more closely study its adherence to the novel's dialogue. However, there is an easier way to experience Thompson at his best ‑‑his use of dialogue and interior monologue to reveal character and to involve the listener is the characters' own self‑deception. Five of Thompson's novels are available on tape, though I have only heard four, and those four are, in their own way, necessary listening in order to discover the unique qualities of the genre.
The Killer Inside Me is Thompson's greatest novel and the best recorded one as well. It can best be experienced by listening to it through headphones since the story is told through the inner voice of the main character, Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford, an amiable psychopathic killer. The moment Ford's voice resounds in your own head, his words become yours, and you learn to recognize though the direct experience of voice why Stanley Kubrick has said about The Killer Inside Me that it is "Probably the most chilling and believable first‑person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered."
The production of the novel couldn't be better. There are no sound effects other than the effects upon us of the voices themselves ‑‑the male ones by Denis Arndt, the female by Brenda Hubbard. Both are successful stage actors who know the importance of voice; it is not an accident that with their ability to project the inner conflict of the characters through the control they have over their voice ‑‑ inflection, pacing, rhythm ‑‑ that they both are experienced at performing Shakespeare. The Killer Inside Me will establish itself as the model for completely realized renditions of the printed novel adapted to tape.
The other three novels are as expertly produced, but they all suffer from being adapted to tape in ways that The Killer does not. Only The Killer Inside Me causes us to appropriate the killer's own voice, bringing us as close as most of us ever want to get to the voices of our own demonic selves. The Grifters is classic Thompson; the protagonist is a small‑time but very successful con artist, in some ways the mirror of Thompson himself. Set in southern California it is at once a critique of the big time cons fostered on the public by Hollywood and at the same time a psychological thriller whose real drama is a flirtation with incest between the con man, Roy Dillon, and his more successful and consequently more desperate mother, Lilly. All the characters in the novel, as in most of Thompson's writings, con each other, themselves, and the readers, and, in this case, the listeners.
In The Grifters, the experienced stage actors, James Edmondson and Joan Stuart Morris, read the male and female parts. Listening to the taped novel should be a revealing experience for those who go to see the movie. Edmonson and Morris establish their voices as real, and it will take better actors to keep these voices from always being those of Roy Dillon, Lilly, Lilly's brutal boss Bobo, and Roy's deadly girl friend, Mora Langtree.
A Hell of a Woman is the story of a down and out door‑to‑door salesman and bill collector who grabs his chance to be a part of the American Dream promised to all, realized by few, certainly by none who believe it the way Thompson's characters do. People who have money got it through cons Thompson's protagonists can never hope to realize; they are too honest, too naive, too believing in the promise of the American Dream to become cynical enough for success. Being intelligent but doomed to fail, characters like Frank, "Dolly," Dillon become desperate to succeed. The desperation of Dillon is made believable because of the strength of Thompson's writing and the quality of the voice of the actor reading the text, Jarion Monroe. The production of the tape is excellent; the editing couldn't be better. James Connolly, the producer of all the Thompson novels adapted for tape, has proven himself an excellent editor as well. The only fault of the production has nothing to do with Connolly. It is the material itself, the printed text, that resists successful adaptation. The story of Frank Dillon, Mona, Dillon's wife, Joyce, the hapless immigrant worker Pete Hendrickson, Staples the store manager and extortionist, is told through the point of view of Dillon; yet, in the end, the dramatic ending with its implied castration and death of the main character, the story becomes unbelievable, or at least never as convincing as Lou Ford's in The Killer Inside Me.
Recoil is at once satisfying and disappointing. The production is as good as all the Book of the Road tapes. The actors couldn't do better. Michael Kevin and Jeanne Paulsen are immediately convincing. Doc Luther, the psychologist turned lobbyist and blackmailer, gains some of our pity and understanding through Kevin's rendition. Paulsen is equally as good at her characters. But Pat Cosgrove, the main character, ex‑con, street smart, honest and believing in the decency of humankind, is disappointing; the character of Pat Grosgrove stretches to the breaking point our ability to believe in him as a real character. The politicians are evil; the landscape is ruined through the greed of oil producers; book publishers determine school policy to accrue more profits; right‑wing evangelists manipulate the public through staged media productions‑‑we could be in Reagan's America of the eighties. Perhaps it is just that the fifties were more innocent, but Pat Gosgrove, unjustly imprisoned for over 20 years, is barely convincing in his lack of cynicism; and, that Pat succeeds in bringing down the crooks to justice with the aid of an incorruptible public official, in these days of the S&L scandal, oil companies promoting Earth Day, and the country having fought a war for lower gas prices and higher profits for oil companies, is barely credible. Cosgrove could be a metaphor for the small man, the underdog who never gives up in his fight for justice, but Thompson seems uncomfortable with this character as if he, too, cannot quite believe that this guy is for real. Cosgrove's faith in humanity seems motivated only by a sense of fairness, and this political naiveté and weak psychological motivation makes Recoil the least interesting of Thompson's novels adapted for tape.
A final note about the production of these tapes: of all the formats I have seen, the Book of the Road has best succeeded at presenting a package that is convenient, informative, and approximates the book format we are most familiar with. The tapes come in a laminated plastic case with a cover modeled after the novel's original cover. The case opens to two cassettes, easily accessible while driving; the tapes are held firmly but release easily from their molded plastic container. The back cover contains information about the novel and the actors. And one little touch that illustrates the attitude of the producers as well as their attention to detail; between the two tapes is a statement: When you're finished ‑‑ lend it to a friend. Yeh, do it. Then buy another for yourself. You will want to listen to all of these tapes over and over again. If you lend them you might never get them back again, the tapes are that good.
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