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2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Every Novel Can Be a Great One, Oct 5 2000
Jim Thompson is now widely regarded as one of the best crime novelists of the twentieth century. His mix of hard-boiled prose, slimy protagonists and offbeat plots helped put the 'pulp' in pulp fiction. While he may not have been recognized in his own time to any great extent, his influence can be seen in most crime fiction published today, from James Ellroy through Carl Hiassen to Elmore Leonard.But everyone has an off day. THE ALCOHOLICS is a shambling mess of a novel, a plotless and ultimately pointless story of, what else, alcoholics at a run-down detox centre. This does not have to be bad. One can envision a black comedy satire about such a place. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST covered the same territory in a mental asylum. But Thompson, while showing his usual flair for oddball, unlikeable characters, has placed them within a story that has no drive. It centres around Dr. Peter Murphy, a recovering alcoholic himself (of course), who runs a detox centre which is constantly on the verge of financial destruction. Along with the patients, he has a nurse with a bizarre mean streak, and an orderly with a unique method of medical malpractice. "The inmates are loose, and are running the asylum", is a trite, although apt description of the place. Now, unlikeable characters do not necessarily ruin a novel. Consider M*A*S*H* (the novel), in which some severely unusual people treat each other with hideous cruelty, all to keep from going mad themselves. But where M*A*S*H* had a narrative drive and a deeply felt sense of outrage, THE ALCOHOLICS has scene upon scene of drunks acting stupidly, and doctors acting stupidly, and nurses behaving stupidly, etc. What Thompson has forgotten is to have a point to the whole thing. Jim Thompson has had a literary revival in the past few years, thanks to Black Lizard Publishing. But the rush to rediscover a master should not cloud people's minds to the fact that not everything can be great, and not everything is deserving of publication. Let's file THE ALCOHOLICS alongside the other books written by fine writers on really bad days. CLOSING TIME by Joseph Heller. ISLANDS IN THE STREAM by Ernest Hemingway. THE ALCOHOLICS is in fine company.
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