I've mentioned before that right now I'm on a strict reading-diet of  David Goodis, Jim Thompson, and Chuck Palahniuk.  Not that I don't like other authors, it's just that I've already read all their books (or at least the ones I want to read).  But it's not a problem yet, because there are plenty of those guys' books left for me to read.  For example, The Transgressors by Jim Thompson, which I just finished.

Both Thompson and Goodis write a noir-ish kind of novel (Thompson's book The Grifters was made into that great movie staring Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, and Annette Bening).  But where Goodis makes you want to slit your own throat in a dark closet, Thompson makes you want to throw a big party and hang yourself from the buffet table.  It's hopeless desperation vs. enthusiastic, balls out* desperation.

In The Transgressors particularly, Thompson throws you a happy curve ball at the end.  Somehow, after killing or maiming almost every character you ever meet in the book, he still comes up with a happy ending.  Are you kidding me?  It didn't make me mad.  I'm more amused than anything else.  It almost seems like the suits at the publisher made him tack on the happy ending.

Jim Thompson has an amazingly clear, direct, conversational way of writing which makes the words pour right into my head.  Reading his books are so effortless that I almost feel like I'm watching a movie or listening to an book-on-tape.  I'll be sad when I run out of Jim Thompson novels to read.

* I am totally shocked to learn that balls out refers to steam engines.  I thought it had to do with, well, balls.  It's not going to be as much fun to say anymore. :)

[photo taken 4/28/2007 in Philadelphia]