Pop. 1280

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson is a concise, at times uncomfortable but often funny story set in the small Texas town of Pottsville during the early 1900s. Sheriff Nick Corey is the good ol’ boy who shows the world a simple, slightly dim down-home front but we discover very quickly that inside he is a constantly scheming psychopath. He all the more terrifying for his joviality and glad-handing. He is coming up for re-election and will do anything to ensure that he is reinstated as sheriff. This includes turning a blind eye to crime if the perpetrator is an influential voter, instigating a smear campaign against his opponent and systematically removing anyone who could be a problem for him.

By the end of the book the sheriff has left a trail show more of six bodies behind him and the ambiguous ending leaves us uncertain as to what is going to happen next although I wouldn’t bet against the devious sheriff. Corrupt sheriffs appear to be a theme that author Thompson enjoys exploring and in this book he also manages to bring up racism, classism and sexism as well.

Pop. 1280 is full of twisted thinking and bad decisions that gave it that fun feeling of not knowing what was going to happen next. Written in colorful and descriptive language, Pop. 1280 is a unique and unforgettable story. show less

A small town sheriff in Arkansas goes to a lot of trouble to maintain his leisurely lifestyle.

This is an extremely dark book. Much darker than you'd assume from the description on the cover, and it only gets darker the more you think about it. The view of the world represented here is bleak. The book deploys the violence and sex typical of its pulpy roots, but it's not a guilty pleasure here, or even a titillation. It's more like a condemnation of everything: the reader, the author, the genre, the world. Dang.

Nick Corey is the lazy and cowardly high sheriff of a little southern town. He believes that he's kept in office because the town likes that he doesn't get into anyone's business, even the crooks. It isn't until Nick starts seeing that he's expected to do his job or he'll be unemployed that he starts forming plans about the local pimps, the wife-beating husband of his mistress, the morals of his other mistress, the patronizing sheriff of the next county and the mean wife who tricked Nick into marrying her. Turns out that Nick wasn't stupid, he just needed to be motivated into action.
Thompson was on fire when he wrote this one. Sheriff Nick is like Sheriff Lou Ford's lost brother and it's delightful to watch Nick praise the Lord after show more all his evil deeds. show less

Another masterful work of crime noir from Jim Thompson. He operates on two levels, here. First, there is the matter of the story, the plot. Pop. 1280 fits firmly within its genre. But despite the recurring iconography and conventions of that genre, it still creates one surprise and shock after another. Twist upon twist occurs, until the ultimate twist at book's end completely throws the reader for a loop.

The second level is that of psychology. The protagonist, Sheriff Nick Corey, will immediately remind readers of Thompson's other masterpiece, The Killer Inside Me, and of its hero, Sheriff Lou Ford. In fact, Ford and Corey are forged out of the same satanic pit, the same psychopathology, the same madness, and amoral abyss. I also wonder show more if there is something of an American Rasputin at play in this work. For the only clue to the time in which Pop. 1280 takes place is a line in which Corey wonders whether the Russian Czar will be overthrown by the Bolsheviks. It is something, at least, upon which I could not shake myself as I read on.

A final comparison between The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280 can be seen in their their level of descriptiveness. The Killer Inside Me is a much denser work, its psychology much more layered than that revealed in Pop. 1280. Lou Ford's evil acts grab out and clutch the reader, leaving him gasping at Ford's violence and brutality. Nick Corey's violence, on the other hand, almost seems to take place off stage. And the dialogue, the narration, and the style of prose almost seems lyrical. Corey, the malevolent mastermind, the ultimate manipulator, achieves his acts as if an angel, one part of lightness but mostly of darkness. He becomes the modern day Lucifer, and Thompson becomes a contemporary Milton. show less

Another fascinating character study by Big Jim Thompson. And another whirlwind of enjoyment on my part.

It's a damned shame that Thompson didn't get more credit when he was alive. The man's unique vision of aberrant psychology is fascinating and frighteningly astute, especially for a 'dimestore crime novel' writer from the mid-20th century. His use of unconventional literary devices (especially in-genre at the time) was also a hair shy of revolutionary and always serves to amuse, surprise, and stupefy the reader.

Two colors exist in Thompson's stilted world: gray and black. And every character in every book fits into one or the other, usually leaning towards the darker end. Greed, graft, laziness, selfishness, homicidal rage, show more deceit...the entire gamut is run and it becomes increasingly difficult to sympathize with any of the characters that populate his grizzly world.

Nonetheless, he somehow manages to paint Sheriff Nick Corey (a sort of deeply-disturbed Barney Fife run amok protagonist) in vaguely sympathetic shades. Or so he played out in my estimation, anyway. Your mileage may vary dependent on the state of your moral compass. show less

I'd like to give it a 4.5 in that I don't think it's perfect, but I gave Thompson's [b:The Killer Inside Me|298663|The Killer Inside Me|Jim Thompson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348084659s/298663.jpg|1724756] a (deserved) 4, and I liked this one a lot better, so a "non-favorite 5" it gets, one of my rarest categories. I read it in one sitting of three and a half hours, so it's compelling to say the least.

Perhaps the main flaw of the book is that it's essentially the same narrator as "Killer," albeit more fleshed out and more consistent in tone. But the similarity in narrators and the similarity in the general plot outline (Psychotic protagonist in small southern town gets outed and attempts to kill his way back into the closet) beg show more the question of how well Thompson can do anything else. He did, however, execute the story much better the 2nd time around, creating a tighter plot, a more coherent protagonist, thematic profundity (with heavy religious, existential, and nihilistic allusions), social critique, and better writing, sometimes making it downright poetic. An example:

I looked at her, with her hair spilled out on the pillows and the warmth of her body warming mine. And I thought, god-dang, if this ain't a heck of a way to be in bed with a pretty woman. The two of you arguing about murder, and threatening each other, when you're supposed to be in love and you could be doing something pretty nice. And then I thought, well, maybe it ain't so strange after all. Maybe it's like this with most people, everyone doing pretty much the same thing except in a different way. And all the time they're holding heaven in their hands. 148-9

The narrator's voice is so authentic (much like [a:Cormac McCarthy|4178|Cormac McCarthy|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1302752071p2/4178.jpg]), it's really a joy to be in such capable hands as a reader.

Humor is one more thing it has over "Killer," and I actually can't remember a novel that ever made me laugh out loud like this one. During a large percentage of Nick's interactions, you as a reader are in on a hilarious (if sadistic) joke that he is playing on his unwitting acquaintances. [a:Chuck Palahniuk|2546|Chuck Palahniuk|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1264506988p2/2546.jpg] would be a modern-day equivalent for this type of humor, or perhaps Saramago's [b:Blindness|2526|Blindness|José Saramago|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327866409s/2526.jpg|3213039] or [b:Seeing|47667|Seeing (Blindness, #2)|José Saramago|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328875016s/47667.jpg|1090709] (not really the same type as much as the same amount of humor, if that makes any sort of sense).

So all-in-all it's really a delightful novel. I'd probably consider it a "favorite" if it had more of an emotional impact. Besides this lack of sentiment, it's only hampered in that it's sort of a 2nd attempt at the same story, and that it goes a little too far off the deep end in the finale. Thompson also exhibits the same tendency as "Killer" to over-explain at times, as he does for instance in Ch. 10, when Nick explains exactly how he baited Robert Lee into spreading gossip about a political rival, when you already understand exactly what happened just by reading the dialogue. It's certainly a quibble, but I still think there's one paragraph there whose absence would have made the book better.

A great read though, and I while I probably won't deliberately seek out more of Thompson -- just because I normally prefer weightier stuff than genre fare -- I would definitely read more if it somehow fell into my lap. I would also recommend this specific one to any of my twisted friends. Not my straight ones though; they'd probably just be scared of me afterwards. show less

4.5/5

Una cittadina da 1280 abitanti, tutti con una doppia faccia: mariti che tradiscono le mogli e viceversa, eminenti esponenti della comunità che nascondono un odio per gli abitanti neri, cittadini dai segreti inconfessabili; però più di tutti una doppia faccia ce l'ha Nick Corey, sceriffo, da tutti ritenuto uno stupido fannullone, solo che, mentre vorrebbe continuare a non fare nulla, stupido non lo è affatto, anzi, è il miglior affabulatore della città.
Nel romanzo Nick avrà diversi problemi di cui occuparsi tra cui una moglie cattiva e un paio di amanti da gestire, ma, trascinato dagli eventi e da quelle illuminazioni che gli indicano cosa è meglio fare, riuscirà a gestire praticamente ogni situazione.
Nick non è un show more paladino della giustizia, per quanto comunque abbia una morale più solida degli altri cittadini, ma è un paladino di sé stesso, pronto a tutto per non perdere i propri privilegi e per migliorare le sue condizioni.
Romanzo molto bello, alcuni personaggi hanno caratteri estremi, altri li potremmo incontrare anche oggi (perché la doppiezza è tipicamente umana), la caratterizzazione di Nick è fantastica nel suo dare indizi al lettore di come lo sceriffo sia in realtà.

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A city of 1280 inhabitants, all double faced: husbands who cheat on their wives (and vice versa), outstanding citizens who barely hid their hate towards black people, citizens with unmentionable secrets. The one who is more ambiguous is the sheriff, Nick Corey, believed to be a stupid bum: he is the latter and he's willing to keep on doing nothing, however he is not stupid at all, in fact is the best deceiver in town.
In the novel Nick has to face various problems, a mean wife and a couple of lovers, but he will be able to set things right thanks to his fortuitous enlightens.
Nick is not a hero (despite his moral more solid than the other's), but he defends only himself and his privileges.
The novel is really good, some characters are quite extreme, others can be found nowadays (duplicity typically human), Nick's characterization is wonderful and the reader discovers slowly how the sheriff really is. show less