Texas by the Tail

With a "happy ending" and only two or three scenes of torture and brutal beatings, Texas by the Tail probably qualifies as Thompson's greatest comic effort. And he never loses his touch, always bringing a heretofore unexamined perspective to people with sordid lusts, sinful souls, and every now and then a touch of conscience.

A few things about the particulars of this novel:

* It is written almost as ready to be filmed. Not only is the narrative making use of multiple storylines but the imagery and very opening of the chapters seem like establishing shots.

* For anyone who lived in Texas in the early 1960s, I don't think there has ever been such an insightful portrait of the era or its hustlers and big shots as in this book.

* The novel is show more also a virtual geography lesson, running from Ft. Worth to Houston to Dallas and out to West Texas and Big Spring. Thompson got a snapshot of the old time cattle barons right before they essentially went extinct. And his descriptions of the withered, bronzed, and hard men and women of West Texas, compared to the soft manipulators and gamblers of Houston and Dallas also harken back to the era of the Hunts, Murchisons, Cullens, Sid Richardson, Judge Roy Hofheinz and "Silver Dollar Jim" West. show less

Jim Thompson, was a master of American Noir, stories of drifters, con men, hustlers, your basic asocial types. Mitch Corley is a typical character. Saddled with Teddy, a wife who wants lots of money to divorce him, he leaves for Texas in an attempt to win big at gambling at the expense of the rich. Unfortunately they don't like losing. Thompson also has a sense of humor. His description of the 1965 (presumably) Oklahoma City to Memphis train: "It has no diner. Its cars are of pre-World War I vintage, without air conditioning or other common comforts. Its schedule is presumably the product of a comic books writer. The many and prolonged delays are variously attributed to such causes as holdups by Jesse James, impromptu hunting and show more fishing parties for the crew, and funerals for passengers who have advanced into and died en route of old age." Mitch and his girlfriend, Red, settle in Texas, the only place where there's lots of money left for gambling (thanks to oil) and where Mitch hopes to make a big score. He has money stashed in a variety of safe deposit boxes -- a hustler needs a substantial stake, but Red likes to live high and his stash is running low. Another of the drain on his finances is his son, whom he has enrolled in an elite and expensive boarding school, there' and the money he sends his wife, partly out of guilt, partly because he doesn't want her to reveal to Red that he's still married. Red wants to get hitched. In a poker game with Walter Lord, he manages to win $30,000 only to learn that the checks Lord had been cashing through Mitch's friend, are not to be honored by Lord's family, who realize they are gambling debts. Mitch approaches Frank Downing for some help. Mitch demurs when Frank suggests he simply have Teddy killed, but Frank sends his goons to rough up Teddy anyway. (Lest you feel too sorry for Teddy, she's not a lovable character, for a variety of reasons.) In the meantime, needing the money, Mitch decides to drive to the Lord's huge ranch in an attempt to collect the $30,000. I would hate to reveal the ending, but will only suggest that it's quite satisfying after leaving the reader hanging (pun intended). show less

Tenuous plot, despicable characters, random reactionary digressions, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.