Country: USA
Genre: Noir
Pages: 185
THE GETAWAY was the Jim Thompson book I wanted to read. Somehow, it was the Jim Thompson I expected to find on the pages. A writer with balls, who offered something I couldn't get anywhere else. That's pretty much what I got there. THE GETAWAY is a very peculiar crime novel, who despite offering a very common plot (a bank robbery), does it with such style and originality that it leaves you slack jawed and wanting for more. It's the quintessential bank robbery novel. It's subtly detailed and plot driven and the characters are so well defined that they add another layer to a story strong enough already. THE GETAWAY could've worked with bland characters, but in the universe of Jim Thopmson, those doesn't exist. It's a very short, but very demanding novel that will require every bit of your attention, but will reward you properly by giving you a mind-warping plot to disassemble. It's really, really good.
The protagonist of THE GETAWAY is Carter "Doc" McCoy. He's a professional con, born and raised with criminal intents. He planned this crazy heist with his wife Carol and a very important man named Benyon. It's a dangerous job, but Doc is the smartass type and plans everything, up to the tiniest detail. But nothing ever goes the way you planned it to, when criminal behavior is involved. The people around Doc are a lot more volatile than he is. His partner for the heist Rudy is a psychopath and his wife Carol is far from being the pillar that he is. She's a vulnerable creature in a world where preying on the weak is normal and encouraged. So the complete responsibility of this heist lies on Doc's shoulders and throughout the novel, you have the strange feeling that he's the only one who's really hoping the heist goes smoothly.
Reading THE GETAWAY feels like riding in a finely tuned sports car. There's subtle engineering and a coat of polish on top of it, but it's driven by raw power. And you gotta give it to Jim Thompson. He wrote the freakin' thing in 1959 and as of today it stands out in a genre that can get incredibly repetitive, the bank robber crime novel. You know the deal, a crew decides to pull a job on a bank, they get greedy and turn against each other and everybody dies or gets locked up for their troubles. But there's none of that in THE GETAWAY. Well, a little, but it doesn't go down the easy route. What's so great about this novel (I think) is that you can't separate the crazy plot from Doc's crazy, super-organized, control freak personality and yet it's written in the third person. That's quite the feat, it feels like Doc wrote the novel himself.
It's very short, barely over a hundred and eighty pages, but there's no way THE GETAWAY could have been longer. It's too complicated and layered. If he would have wanted to, I'm sure Jim Thompson could have transformed this into a three hundred pages novel, he had enough material for it, but it would have turned out to be too confusing. Jim Thompson wrote one of the best bank heist novel by discussing everything that comes around the act itself. Issues of greed, trust and well, love. The complex bound in between Doc and Carol is one of the most gripping aspects of THE GETAWAY. If you like crime fiction or just a straight up good book (and happen to have a stomach for crime stuff), it's a crazy good summer read. It's not going to take you places you've never been before, but it's going to give you a different perspective. An alternative approach on genre fiction. Highly enjoyable, fast paced and lives up to Jim Thompson's reputation of being the grittiest sonuvabitch.
Reading THE GETAWAY feels like riding in a finely tuned sports car. There's subtle engineering and a coat of polish on top of it, but it's driven by raw power. And you gotta give it to Jim Thompson. He wrote the freakin' thing in 1959 and as of today it stands out in a genre that can get incredibly repetitive, the bank robber crime novel. You know the deal, a crew decides to pull a job on a bank, they get greedy and turn against each other and everybody dies or gets locked up for their troubles. But there's none of that in THE GETAWAY. Well, a little, but it doesn't go down the easy route. What's so great about this novel (I think) is that you can't separate the crazy plot from Doc's crazy, super-organized, control freak personality and yet it's written in the third person. That's quite the feat, it feels like Doc wrote the novel himself.
It's very short, barely over a hundred and eighty pages, but there's no way THE GETAWAY could have been longer. It's too complicated and layered. If he would have wanted to, I'm sure Jim Thompson could have transformed this into a three hundred pages novel, he had enough material for it, but it would have turned out to be too confusing. Jim Thompson wrote one of the best bank heist novel by discussing everything that comes around the act itself. Issues of greed, trust and well, love. The complex bound in between Doc and Carol is one of the most gripping aspects of THE GETAWAY. If you like crime fiction or just a straight up good book (and happen to have a stomach for crime stuff), it's a crazy good summer read. It's not going to take you places you've never been before, but it's going to give you a different perspective. An alternative approach on genre fiction. Highly enjoyable, fast paced and lives up to Jim Thompson's reputation of being the grittiest sonuvabitch.