Jim Thompson- The Getaway

The Getaway

Orion Crime Masterworks

Jim Thompson

1958

“He could be breaking apart inside and you'd never know it from the way he acted. He'd be just as pleasant and polite as if he didn't have a care in the world. You had to be careful with someone like that. You could never know what he was thinking.”

I seemed to be on an unfortunate run of feeling disappointed with supposed classics recently, so I hoped to buck that trend by picking off the shelf what appeared to be an easy option. Orion Publishing's Crime Masterworks series had so far introduced me to the sublime noir classic Double Indemnity by James M. Cain and Georges Simenon's very interesting (though not as good) The Blue Room, so I felt confident of finding something more engaging than the somewhat impenetrable international fiction of someone like Yvgeny Zamayatin. I find myself increasingly attached to the whole notion of crime fiction lately, and it's easy to recognise the similarities in that genre and that of Orion's other genre-collecting series, Sci-Fi Masterworks.

Jim Thompson

Both genres offer a universally-recognised set of story-structures that, while very malleable (especially in the hands of a genre-transcending master like Kurt Vonnegut), remain recognisable thanks to a hundred years of almost-unavoidable twentieth century literature and film, and so in theory half the work of establishing a recognisable narrative complete with relevant themes has already been done; a benefit to the author and the reader. With both genres though, the ease of access for both reader and writer naturally leads to a large number of unimaginative, poorly-written, all-in-all substandard attempts from unfortunately less-talented authors. I had hoped that the Masterworks series was also a short-cut to avoid wasting my time on those in general.

I'd been looking forward to reading something by Jim Thompson for a while now, having seen his name crop up plenty of times as a prominent writer of classic twentieth-century crime fiction. The Getaway is seemingly his most famous novel (though The Grifters is another title I see crop up often), perhaps due to Sam Peckinpah's 1972 film adaptation starring Steve McQueen. It was the obvious place to start, with the help of Orion. The break-neck plot seemed right up my alley; charismatic hardened criminal mastermind Doc McCoy and his devoted wife Carol stake their lives on a bank-job with some dicey allies, and wind-up in a gritty race for the safety of the border with the law and the underworld on their trail. Despite the usual double-crossing twists and turns, it's a fairly simple, cinematic action plot starring pulp-influenced over-the-top genre stereotypes. In short, something I've seen and read maybe too many times already, leaving it to live or die on the strength of the prose. 

This is where it all fell apart. A streamlined action-packed plot comprised of familiar stylish elements can only take a writer so far dependent on their ability to construct this world through interesting and consistent writing, neither of which are attributes I ascribe to Jim Thompson. That Thompson's goals in terms of style and impact are well-established is at least admirable, but from the very first pages of The Getaway I was immediately put off through what I perceived to be Thompson's amateurish style. The Getaway is written in the third person, giving Thompson the potential advantage of being able to describe his characters without the inherent bias of a narrating personality, but from the very beginning his establishment of characters and setting massively jarred.

My biggest stylistic hate came from Thompson's repeated habit of literally telling the reader directly what his characters are thinking, in the form of italicized quotes just lacking quotation marks, over and over again. It's a lazy technique that tries to claim the best of both worlds, but failed for me each time since every thought the characters have are just as cliched and superficial as their dialogue, leaving the marked effect of exposing them all as completely two-dimensional. I'm not expecting some sort of extended Dickensian character analysis, just a modicum of depth. In comparison to a classic crime noir character like Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, Doc McCoy is a hollow, uninteresting bore who's superficial coolness is made an unintentional mockery of through its very construction. Harsh criticism, perhaps, and I'm sure Thompson's work isn't any worse than your average run-of-the-mill thriller writer, but I expected far more from a supposed crime classic from the same publishing series as James M. Cain's Double Indemnity.

Whether I'd recommend it to anyone is an interesting question (well, to me anyway), because it really depends on what the reader expects and what they're willing to put up with. I absolutely do not recommend it to a reader looking for a classic crime noir on the literary level of the Hammett, Cain, or Raymond Chandler and the like, because it's bound to end in disappointment. For a reader who enjoys the comfort of quick, cliched thrillers that are easy to get through, then this might be a great option. Oh, and since we're at the end of the review, it's only appropriate to mention the end of the book; a final chapter that weirdly morphs in style to an ethereal, hallucinogenic-like dream-state that's not too badly written in comparison, actually, though I've no idea what he was trying to achieve with it.