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5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard-boiled hilarity, Jan 5 2003
This will surely draw some flak, but I prefer "The Nothing Man" to "The Killer Inside Me," the novel most people see as Thompson's best. "Killer" might be Thompson's literary masterpiece, but "Nothing" is more enjoyable as entertainment and more gripping as a crime novel. In both cases, Thompson uses a first-person narrator who commits murder. In "Killer," sheriff's deputy Lou Ford speaks in cliches, a device that's quite effective for this novel and humorous, while in "Nothing," newsman Clinton Brown addresses the reader with wit and insight into the world around him, which makes for a much more engaging narrator than Ford could ever be. Of course, that last point is part of the effect Thompson wants with Ford: the man is dull and would be of no interest to anyone if he wasn't a murderer. Brown, on the other hand, is far from dull and is interesting as a person and not just as a murderer. Brown's sense of humor is often bitter and usually vicious, and it suits him, his situation and "Nothing" perfectly. His description of a minor character and her fetish for mayonaise ranks, in terms of food-related humor, with Jack Nicholson's quest for toast in "Five Easy Pieces." Brown rarely lets slide an opportunity to give the needle to two other characters, his editor, Dave, and Pacific City's police chief, Lem Stukey. Stuckey, in particular, but most of the other characters, as well, are extremely well-developed and stand on their own within the world in which "Nothing" takes place. Consider that the novel is narrated in the first person by a dyspeptic drunkard who practices frequent acts of cruelty against the people he knows, and yet Thompson still manages to draw his major characters from multiple angles. These characters and Pacific City could all be the major elements of another novel, with or without Brown, had Thompson ever wanted to revisit them or the place. The murders have a wonderful feel to them. Brown doesn't have the hard-boiled coldness to dispatch his victims quickly or simply; he acts rashly and overheatedly twice and convinces himself he's a cool customer the third time. Bless him, too, he tries so hard to make himself look like a serial killer. "Nothing" does have some flaws, including a tendency toward convenience and coincidence in some of the plotting, but it overcomes that on the strength of Brown's voice and how Thompson uses it to create a vivid depiction of Pacific City and its citizens.
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