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Alcoholics
Dr. Peter S. Murphy needs fifteen thousand dollars by the end of the day, or the city of Los Angeles can say goodbye to the El Healtho clinic. A recovery center for the most severe cases of alcoholism in the state -- even if no one ever does quite seem to get dry there -- El Healtho has been the bane of Dr. Murphy's existence ever since he started running it. But now that its doors are about to close forever, Dr. Murphy finds he'll do anything to keep it open.
Up to and including admitting Humphrey Van Twyne III, a patient with an extremely violent past whose wealthy family has the means to keep El Healtho open for business. Sure, the man isn't exactly an alcoholic. And yes, what he really needs is to be under the care of the surgeons who performed the lobotomy that's rendered Van Twyne all but a vegetable. But the money's good -- until the rag-tag group of ne'er-do-wells at El Healtho begin to wreak havoc with Dr. Murphy's plans, and suddenly no one day has ever seemed so long.
A literary precursor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , The Alcoholics is Thompson like you've never read him before, a pitch-black, mad-cap portrait of deviant behavior that is at once darkly comic, humane and harrowing.
Up to and including admitting Humphrey Van Twyne III, a patient with an extremely violent past whose wealthy family has the means to keep El Healtho open for business. Sure, the man isn't exactly an alcoholic. And yes, what he really needs is to be under the care of the surgeons who performed the lobotomy that's rendered Van Twyne all but a vegetable. But the money's good -- until the rag-tag group of ne'er-do-wells at El Healtho begin to wreak havoc with Dr. Murphy's plans, and suddenly no one day has ever seemed so long.
A literary precursor to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , The Alcoholics is Thompson like you've never read him before, a pitch-black, mad-cap portrait of deviant behavior that is at once darkly comic, humane and harrowing.
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
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1702 people want to read
About the author
Jim Thompson
154 books1,608 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
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July 19, 2023
“The Alcoholics (1953) is an odd entry into the Jim Thompson universe. The setting is an alcohol-rehabilitation facility (“El Heatho”) on the Southern California coast (probably in the Palos Verdes area). The rehab facility is not necessarily world-renowned, but it manages because it attracts its share of rich folks and aging movie stars. Dr. Peter Murphy (aka Dr. Pasteur Semelweiss Murphy) runs the place, or at least until it goes into bankruptcy as he needs about $15,000 to keep the place going. Dr. Murphy talks to himself, argues with himself, and ogles his young nurse, staring at her exposed legs even after he gets caught. The “The Alcoholics (1953) is an odd entry into the Jim Thompson universe. The setting is an alcohol-rehabilitation facility on the Southern California coast (probably in the Palos Verdes area). The rehab facility is not necessarily world-renowned, but it manages because it attracts its share of rich folks and aging movie stars.
Dr. Peter Murphy (aka Dr. Pasteur Semelweiss Murphy) runs the place, or at least until it goes into bankruptcy as he needs about $15,000 to keep the place going. Dr. Murphy talks to himself, argues with himself, and ogles his young nurse, staring at her exposed legs even after he gets caught. Dr. Murphy thinks about making a play for her, but worries that it will be the end of his practice (“next to diddling a woman patient, there wasn’t a surer way for a doctor to jam himself up than to play around with his nurse”) – that is, until he bursts into her apartment and sees her fully exposed and can no longer contain himself.
And the narrative describes this doctor as having “long scrawny shanks clad in a pair of faded-red swim trunks” when he swims with the intention of drowning himself. Back in the hospital, the good doctor randomly provides alcohol to his guests when he thinks it would help them and turns a blind eye, for the most part, to depravity and abuse on the part of his nurse toward the patients. “Life,” we are told, “had teased and taunted Doctor Murphy severely.” He was not a happy Joe.
The staff at the hospital consisted of Rufus and the nurse. Rufus had his own ideas about how to treat the patients, and that sometimes included a series of colonic irrigations to wash the remaining segments of a patient’s perverted brain out of his system. The nurse is Lucretia Baker, R. N., who lives on the premises and fantasizes about Doctor Murphy. Nurse Baker is a bit off at times and not worldly in her experience. She has her own cruel methods of dealing with troublesome patients and the only solution Doctor Murphy can come up with is threatening to spank her so hard it will hurt for weeks.
We also get the good doctor espousing his various theories on alcoholism and alcoholics, none of which appears to be necessarily science-based. Such things as musing that alcoholics had to be good at their jobs because they lost so much time from their jobs and were often guilty of disgusting and atrocious acts. “Thus, if they were to survive in their professions or jobs, to be tolerated by the world they so frequently outraged, they had to work and think harder than normal people.” The patients run the gamut from post-lobotomy patients to rich actresses trying to hide late pregnancies to a guy like Jeff Sloan who thinks it would be neat to buy the whole property.
It is not always clear what the point or the goal of the novel was – whether to expose the fraudulent aspects of the rehab clinics and the phoney baloney perverted doctors who run them- or to simply play fast and loose with some of Thompson’s endlesss collection of oddball characters.
Dr. Peter Murphy (aka Dr. Pasteur Semelweiss Murphy) runs the place, or at least until it goes into bankruptcy as he needs about $15,000 to keep the place going. Dr. Murphy talks to himself, argues with himself, and ogles his young nurse, staring at her exposed legs even after he gets caught. Dr. Murphy thinks about making a play for her, but worries that it will be the end of his practice (“next to diddling a woman patient, there wasn’t a surer way for a doctor to jam himself up than to play around with his nurse”) – that is, until he bursts into her apartment and sees her fully exposed and can no longer contain himself.
And the narrative describes this doctor as having “long scrawny shanks clad in a pair of faded-red swim trunks” when he swims with the intention of drowning himself. Back in the hospital, the good doctor randomly provides alcohol to his guests when he thinks it would help them and turns a blind eye, for the most part, to depravity and abuse on the part of his nurse toward the patients. “Life,” we are told, “had teased and taunted Doctor Murphy severely.” He was not a happy Joe.
The staff at the hospital consisted of Rufus and the nurse. Rufus had his own ideas about how to treat the patients, and that sometimes included a series of colonic irrigations to wash the remaining segments of a patient’s perverted brain out of his system. The nurse is Lucretia Baker, R. N., who lives on the premises and fantasizes about Doctor Murphy. Nurse Baker is a bit off at times and not worldly in her experience. She has her own cruel methods of dealing with troublesome patients and the only solution Doctor Murphy can come up with is threatening to spank her so hard it will hurt for weeks.
We also get the good doctor espousing his various theories on alcoholism and alcoholics, none of which appears to be necessarily science-based. Such things as musing that alcoholics had to be good at their jobs because they lost so much time from their jobs and were often guilty of disgusting and atrocious acts. “Thus, if they were to survive in their professions or jobs, to be tolerated by the world they so frequently outraged, they had to work and think harder than normal people.” The patients run the gamut from post-lobotomy patients to rich actresses trying to hide late pregnancies to a guy like Jeff Sloan who thinks it would be neat to buy the whole property.
It is not always clear what the point or the goal of the novel was – whether to expose the fraudulent aspects of the rehab clinics and the phoney baloney perverted doctors who run them- or to simply play fast and loose with some of Thompson’s endlesss collection of oddball characters.
February 2, 2024
02/2018
Not one of Thompson's best. Not very plotty, no crime. Though it is published by Vintage Crime (I have the paperback - my boyfriend once found it at a used bookstore, and also didn't like It). I can only imagine this was written for the money, one of those exploitative drugstore paperbacks, telling you the scandals of alcoholism. There is sex. From 1953.
Not one of Thompson's best. Not very plotty, no crime. Though it is published by Vintage Crime (I have the paperback - my boyfriend once found it at a used bookstore, and also didn't like It). I can only imagine this was written for the money, one of those exploitative drugstore paperbacks, telling you the scandals of alcoholism. There is sex. From 1953.
February 13, 2022
Imagine a noir novelist writing a humorous novel about a troubled alcohol rehabilitation center. The El Healtho (?!) clinic is in desperate need of a $15,000 infusion to cover debts. Dr Pasteur Semelweiss [sp] Murphy is in charge, and his patients all seem to be conning him -- bringing in bottles of booze from the outside and not swallowing the prescribed meds. Jim Thompson even made himself a character (albeit unnamed) in the last chapter of The Alcoholics.
Although Thompson is best known for his noir novels, this is a rare excursion into another genre, one that is not quite as successful as the noir classics like The Killer Inside Me or After Dark, My Sweet. Still, it is interesting.
Although Thompson is best known for his noir novels, this is a rare excursion into another genre, one that is not quite as successful as the noir classics like The Killer Inside Me or After Dark, My Sweet. Still, it is interesting.
August 13, 2007
Chapter One:
"They're going to shut down our clinic!"
"Oh, no! Whatever shall we do?"
"Let's put on a show!"
Chapter Two:
"Nurse, you are a cheap, blonde whore!"
"Like ya likes 'em, doc!"
"Not only that, but you're also stealing drugs!"
"You're a fine one to talk, chum!"
Chapter Three:
"The show had a modicum of success! We saved the clinic!"
"Hooray!"
"Let's have a drink to celebrate!"
Chapter Four:
"Nurse..."
"Yes...?"
"You may be cheap..."
"Yes..."
"You may be a whore..."
"Yes..."
"You may be stealing drugs and selling them to pay me for your abortions..."
"Well, you won't do the abortions for free..."
"But, you've got a heart of gold! Marry me!"
"Look who's got the heart of gold, my knight in shining armor! Here comes your bride!"
THE END
"They're going to shut down our clinic!"
"Oh, no! Whatever shall we do?"
"Let's put on a show!"
Chapter Two:
"Nurse, you are a cheap, blonde whore!"
"Like ya likes 'em, doc!"
"Not only that, but you're also stealing drugs!"
"You're a fine one to talk, chum!"
Chapter Three:
"The show had a modicum of success! We saved the clinic!"
"Hooray!"
"Let's have a drink to celebrate!"
Chapter Four:
"Nurse..."
"Yes...?"
"You may be cheap..."
"Yes..."
"You may be a whore..."
"Yes..."
"You may be stealing drugs and selling them to pay me for your abortions..."
"Well, you won't do the abortions for free..."
"But, you've got a heart of gold! Marry me!"
"Look who's got the heart of gold, my knight in shining armor! Here comes your bride!"
THE END
October 18, 2023
I had a little more faith that Thompson would be able to deliver something more with this "buzzer beater" story (one where the main problems are quickly set up and you can tell at the last minute everything's going to be peachy now, thanks for stopping by) about a good psychiatrist's fight with his staff, unruly alcoholic patients and a moral dilemma. All these firecrackers seem to pop off one after another until Doc loses a sense of who he is and what he is doing. And I can admit some of these situations are pretty off putting and some are pretty stale by todays standards. But essentialy this book boils down to Doc wavering between, "if only there was someway to get through to them!" and, "aw to heck with it". I think if you find that kind of time spent dilly dallying in a characters thoughts tiring, then skip this one.
However, and I give Thompson credit for this, the book has a shrewd way of looking at mental disorders and The Alcoholics as a title is more of an umbrella term for people with deviant ways of dealing with the numerous slings and arrows of everyday living. Doc is driving himself crazy trying to be the best doctor he can be for his patients, while also sticking to a morally high ground. His nurse Ms Baker, one of the most striking characters I've read in a while is a spiteful, lisping, His too black staffers, Rufus and Josephine are two eccentrics each with a holistic approach to medicine that in once case saves the day.
Then of course, the drunks. The majority are old men that are too far gone down the road that Doc is pretty much trying to keep them alive as long as possible despite their best efforts. This changes when a young ad exec named Jeff offers Doc a glimmer of hope and a shot at kicking alcoholism before he ends up another terminal case.
Look I think from the amount I've written it's clear I have a lot of thoughts on this book. I can't simply dismiss it with my usual nonsense in a good/bad way. Now if I am still recalling this book three months from now or if I've forgotten it completely will probably the best testament on the quality of the book. But for now I am subjectively stuck on the fence.
However, and I give Thompson credit for this, the book has a shrewd way of looking at mental disorders and The Alcoholics as a title is more of an umbrella term for people with deviant ways of dealing with the numerous slings and arrows of everyday living. Doc is driving himself crazy trying to be the best doctor he can be for his patients, while also sticking to a morally high ground. His nurse Ms Baker, one of the most striking characters I've read in a while is a spiteful, lisping, His too black staffers, Rufus and Josephine are two eccentrics each with a holistic approach to medicine that in once case saves the day.
Then of course, the drunks. The majority are old men that are too far gone down the road that Doc is pretty much trying to keep them alive as long as possible despite their best efforts. This changes when a young ad exec named Jeff offers Doc a glimmer of hope and a shot at kicking alcoholism before he ends up another terminal case.
Look I think from the amount I've written it's clear I have a lot of thoughts on this book. I can't simply dismiss it with my usual nonsense in a good/bad way. Now if I am still recalling this book three months from now or if I've forgotten it completely will probably the best testament on the quality of the book. But for now I am subjectively stuck on the fence.
September 2, 2024
I took this on in full knowledge that it is not regarded as one of Thompson's best novels.. something of then opposite in fact.
There isn't much of a plot, and the humour is rather dated, so the entertainment is to be gained from the characters.
It is a reflection on alcoholism and the sort of person that can end up in a private clinic for treatment.
It has been described as 'noir', but that's stretching the genre a bit too much; the clinic's clientele are a dislikeable bunch of underachievers dealing with dubious moral choices.
The head of the clinic is dubious himself, Dr. Peter S. Murphy who has a shadowy past and zero qualifications, and is aware that this is as far as he will go, medically, if that indeed is a relevant term.
To some critics Thompson has the reputation of being a hit or miss writer, and this will fuel their argument as being a miss. But it does have some very good passages, and to me, is written as a satirical comedy of the upper middle class and the institutions they inhabit.
Murphy thinks nothing of offering his patients a large whisky from time to time, and it is clear that what goes on within the walls stays there. He is well-intentioned, but answerable, it seems, to nobody.
It puts me in mind of the episode of Matt Berry's Toast in which he collects an ageing alcoholic Timothy West from a clinic, and take him for just one drink.
There isn't much of a plot, and the humour is rather dated, so the entertainment is to be gained from the characters.
It is a reflection on alcoholism and the sort of person that can end up in a private clinic for treatment.
It has been described as 'noir', but that's stretching the genre a bit too much; the clinic's clientele are a dislikeable bunch of underachievers dealing with dubious moral choices.
The head of the clinic is dubious himself, Dr. Peter S. Murphy who has a shadowy past and zero qualifications, and is aware that this is as far as he will go, medically, if that indeed is a relevant term.
To some critics Thompson has the reputation of being a hit or miss writer, and this will fuel their argument as being a miss. But it does have some very good passages, and to me, is written as a satirical comedy of the upper middle class and the institutions they inhabit.
Murphy thinks nothing of offering his patients a large whisky from time to time, and it is clear that what goes on within the walls stays there. He is well-intentioned, but answerable, it seems, to nobody.
It puts me in mind of the episode of Matt Berry's Toast in which he collects an ageing alcoholic Timothy West from a clinic, and take him for just one drink.
January 13, 2017
There are many reasons why I picked up THE ALCOHOLICS by Jim Thompson. I like the author, and haven’t read him in years. The book has been lying around my house. It’s short. But what really motivated me was my own writing. I’m working on a book about Alcoholics Anonymous and felt reading this novel would be somehow thematically appropriate. There’s no specific AA talk on these pages, though there are points where the two intersect, such as how they define the “alcoholic.” But Thompson’s gothic tale of a suicidal doctor running a sanatorium for rummies, complete with a lisping femme fatale nurse and a couple of salt-of-the-earth black employees, in far superior in that it’s less dogmatic and has more interesting characters.
June 16, 2008
I give this one three stars because Jim Thompson's like a diner: He's no five star restaurant, but if you want to see the other 99 percent of America, read Jim Thompson. Here he is describing a "successful" American: "It was [his success], rather, because of an attribute which many claim, but which, happily, very few possess: the trait of making no move which did not somehow contribute to his personal advancement."
Also, some fantastic insight into the condition of patients in rehab. I know; I lasted a day before fleeing like Robert Downey, Jr. But I wasn't at The El Healthy Rehab, where I would have lasted longer.
When I say three stars, I mean five stars...in this case.
Also, some fantastic insight into the condition of patients in rehab. I know; I lasted a day before fleeing like Robert Downey, Jr. But I wasn't at The El Healthy Rehab, where I would have lasted longer.
When I say three stars, I mean five stars...in this case.
July 13, 2010
This is one messed-up book. I see why it is almost forgotten except by die-hard Thompson fans. It is so freakin' weird and is not a crime novel at all. Rather, it's sort of a Gothic, but without a satisfying payoff, which is what makes it even more twisted. It's just freakin' bizarre. It's just sheer weirdness like a Fellini movie or David Lynch. In fact, structurally it reminded me kind of a lot of Eraserhead. I'm quite sure it's based directly on Thompson's experiences; in fact, the author himself makes a resoundingly-unveiled appearance in it. It's awesome and weird and messed up, but definitely not for everyone.
August 29, 2016
Ah, the beauty of Jim Thompson: Take a seemingly simple idea, give it layers and lather it with a fun plot.
I kept waiting for a murder until I realised that this one was more about a great twist and the oh-so-excellent ending (and wow was I proud of myself when I figured out how this would end).
I didn't give it five stars because I've read a few of Mr Thompson's that have been even better, and yeah, maybe I prefer a murder.
I kept waiting for a murder until I realised that this one was more about a great twist and the oh-so-excellent ending (and wow was I proud of myself when I figured out how this would end).
I didn't give it five stars because I've read a few of Mr Thompson's that have been even better, and yeah, maybe I prefer a murder.
February 21, 2009
Sordid yarn about a writer who dries out in a sanatorium and gets bullied all through the book by a mean nurse. The doctor is named Murphy, just like Randall McMurphy, hmmm....do you suppose Ken Kesey swiped just a little bit of this stuff for his book "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"? Thompson should've sued. He could've used the money!
June 2, 2018
A book about the everyday life of alcoholic clinic , written at a time when no one had heard of Don Escobar. Honestly, I expected to read the noir, but here no one kills anyone, although some would be worth it. However, the elements of the noir here are still present and the femme fatale in the form of a nurse, is in its place correcting the line of stockings.
The plot develops on the principle of tightening a loop around the neck of the protagonist. After the culmination, he probably dies, since what happens next can not be explained otherwise as by resurrection in heaven.
The relationship between the protagonist and his femme fatale, are rather similar the relationship between spiders. First she grabs it, and then starts chewing slowly.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Книжка про будни американского ЛТП, написанная во времена, когда про дона Эскобара никто не слышал. Честно говоря я ожидал почитать нуар, но здесь никто никого не убивает, хотя некоторых стоило бы. Впрочем, элементы нуара здесь все же присутствуют и фам-фаталь в форме медсестры, находится на своем месте поправляя линию чулков.
Сюжет развивается по принципу петли неумолимо затягивающейся на шее главного героя. После кульминации он вероятно умирает, так как происходящее далее невозможно объяснить как попаданием на небеса.
А отношения между главным героем и его фам фаталь, они как у паучков. Сначала она его хватает, а потом начинает медленно пережевывать.
The plot develops on the principle of tightening a loop around the neck of the protagonist. After the culmination, he probably dies, since what happens next can not be explained otherwise as by resurrection in heaven.
The relationship between the protagonist and his femme fatale, are rather similar the relationship between spiders. First she grabs it, and then starts chewing slowly.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Книжка про будни американского ЛТП, написанная во времена, когда про дона Эскобара никто не слышал. Честно говоря я ожидал почитать нуар, но здесь никто никого не убивает, хотя некоторых стоило бы. Впрочем, элементы нуара здесь все же присутствуют и фам-фаталь в форме медсестры, находится на своем месте поправляя линию чулков.
Сюжет развивается по принципу петли неумолимо затягивающейся на шее главного героя. После кульминации он вероятно умирает, так как происходящее далее невозможно объяснить как попаданием на небеса.
А отношения между главным героем и его фам фаталь, они как у паучков. Сначала она его хватает, а потом начинает медленно пережевывать.
January 11, 2019
If your a Thompson fan this book is definitely worth a read. That said, I would not rank it in the top half of his work.
August 5, 2019
An unusual potboiler from Big Jim--before I found out that it had been published just before Savage Night, I was thinking to myself how like in hazy, mucky atmosphere, with sudden violent moments of utter clarity, it is to that novel (incidentally, my favorite Thompson). It's pretty brief and reads like an expanded short story, but the characters, especially the Doctor and his sadistic, lisping nurse, Lucretia, are wonderfully drawn. There are also Judson, Rufus and Josephine--three black people who work for the doctor (Judson and Rufus as male nurses/attendants and Josephine as a cook) and all have a different relationship with him and challenge him, in action and thought, in different ways. There is definitely more than a touch of the "magical black friend" archetype in Thompson's characterization of African-Americans, but there are surprising bits, like when Judson, the most "educated" among the black employees, wryly asks the Doctor if he is "of the opinion that all Negroes are born with equal abilities and receive equal opportunities", after the Doctor grumbles about Rufus not being more like Judson. Another part that stuck with me is when Rufus is watching the alcoholic patients and, having gotten ahold of some whiskey, they ask him if he wants to join them in a drink. He says no--"I'm not crazy, just black." Anyway. The Alcoholics is definitely worth a read--a weird, funny, through-and-through Jim Thompson work.
February 6, 2013
A goal of mine is to own and read all of Thompson's work. this one is funnier and way lighter than say pop. 1280 which is utterly brutal and amazing. Who knows, he may have been thinking up a play in his mind when writing this book, it seems theatrical to me. Humorous way of writing like some dialects sound (can't remember the term for that right now...). he writes compassionately about the misery of hopeless alcoholism which gives the story heart. was hoping he'd vamp on that even more. on to the next one!
May 2, 2020
The Year of Jim Thompson continues with one of his more forgettable works. The New York Review of Books described it as “satire with a bludgeon” and I suppose that’s true. If you like your satire this heavy handed, this one may work. But it didn’t for me. No plot, all caricatures, humor didn’t work for me. Thompson is a great writer but his unfocused works aren’t just bad by his standards, they’re bad period.
August 30, 2015
More cheerful than you might think. ;)
March 16, 2014
Not one of my favorite Jim Thompson novels. The bad guys weren't very bad in this one.
February 21, 2017
I've read a lot of Jim Thompson, about fifteen or so of his books. This is about the worst of them. The attempted humour falls flat and the plot goes absolutely nowhere.
February 20, 2025
I like reading about drunks, but these drunks are pretty lame and nothing interesting or even funny happens.
September 18, 2024
Flash-Rezension| Pourquoi j’ai choisi ce livre?! Peut-être parce que je suis moi-même un Alcoolique Abstinent (Ça fait déjà 6 ans au moins !! youou! (suivant comment on compte)). Je reste fasciné par les histoires d’alcool, de cigarettes (de tout types). J’aime aussi lire sur la drogue ! Mais pas plus en consommer.
Ça m’a choqué moi-même de choisir un livre si ancien (1988).
J’ai lu les trois premiers chapitres avant de commencer à écrire, que je ne me « dérange » pas pour rien.
Allons-y…
Murphy, le patient, et Murphy le docteur. J’ai été emporté dans un tourbillon de lecture, ne sachant quoi retenir de ce début de livre, parce que j’aime tout. Le cynisme du docteur, les patients alcooliques, le style d’écriture…
On voit aussi du côté des infirmières à quel point c’est pénible et cela demande de la dévotion de soigner ces malades psys. De type alcooliques.
H. Van Thwyne vient d’une famille très riche. On ne sait pas s’il est vraiment malade… Juste que sa famille veut se débarrasser de lui, et est prête à faire un joli cheque de 150.000 dollars dont Murphy aurait bien besoin pour sauver la clinique…
Éthique ou pragmatisme?
J’ai choisi de basculer cette critique en Flash-Rezension parce que… C’est nul en fait… Le début (30 pages) est super bien mais le reste est ennuyant à mourir.
Alors oui il y a Mme Baker qui est une personnage bègue et torturée. Sloan, qui boit cul sec un plein verre de whisky…
Je suis déçu par ce Livre.
Pas mon époque.
Je n’y ai tout simplement pas trouvé ce que je cherchais (à part au début).
J’en attendais tellement mieux!
Note : 2/5.
Phoenix
++
Ça m’a choqué moi-même de choisir un livre si ancien (1988).
J’ai lu les trois premiers chapitres avant de commencer à écrire, que je ne me « dérange » pas pour rien.
Allons-y…
Murphy, le patient, et Murphy le docteur. J’ai été emporté dans un tourbillon de lecture, ne sachant quoi retenir de ce début de livre, parce que j’aime tout. Le cynisme du docteur, les patients alcooliques, le style d’écriture…
On voit aussi du côté des infirmières à quel point c’est pénible et cela demande de la dévotion de soigner ces malades psys. De type alcooliques.
H. Van Thwyne vient d’une famille très riche. On ne sait pas s’il est vraiment malade… Juste que sa famille veut se débarrasser de lui, et est prête à faire un joli cheque de 150.000 dollars dont Murphy aurait bien besoin pour sauver la clinique…
Éthique ou pragmatisme?
J’ai choisi de basculer cette critique en Flash-Rezension parce que… C’est nul en fait… Le début (30 pages) est super bien mais le reste est ennuyant à mourir.
Alors oui il y a Mme Baker qui est une personnage bègue et torturée. Sloan, qui boit cul sec un plein verre de whisky…
Je suis déçu par ce Livre.
Pas mon époque.
Je n’y ai tout simplement pas trouvé ce que je cherchais (à part au début).
J’en attendais tellement mieux!
Note : 2/5.
Phoenix
++
October 1, 2025
Jim Thompson payin' the rent with a quickie.
I've enjoyed Mr. Thompson's work for a few decades, and this one was a real joy to read; only wish it never ended.
It's interlaced with some very funny sections, humor being a rather subjective type-a thing and all that.
Thompson, alcoholic at age 19 or so, created most of his work with a bottle in hand.
None-a my business, that. A hell of a read, now and on ebook, especially after drink, my sweet
. . . for me, anyhows. As with alcohol, results may vary. Enjoy this one if you're capable of doing such, and choose to read 'er at a time when you are, Pardner.
A couple hour read, no big thing, it's just a book.
Can't seem to find my from-on high, relative-worth scales anywhere, so I'll wrap up by saying, "If you were me, you'd enjoy this quick and very enjoyable read that allowed the man to create his greater works with a couple of quick bucks.
I've enjoyed Mr. Thompson's work for a few decades, and this one was a real joy to read; only wish it never ended.
It's interlaced with some very funny sections, humor being a rather subjective type-a thing and all that.
Thompson, alcoholic at age 19 or so, created most of his work with a bottle in hand.
None-a my business, that. A hell of a read, now and on ebook, especially after drink, my sweet
. . . for me, anyhows. As with alcohol, results may vary. Enjoy this one if you're capable of doing such, and choose to read 'er at a time when you are, Pardner.
A couple hour read, no big thing, it's just a book.
Can't seem to find my from-on high, relative-worth scales anywhere, so I'll wrap up by saying, "If you were me, you'd enjoy this quick and very enjoyable read that allowed the man to create his greater works with a couple of quick bucks.
December 2, 2022
A sleazy, unsatisfactory novel. Thompson may have interesting and worthwhile things to say about the corrupt U.S. culture of the 1950s, but I am not sure he is up to it in this novel. His writing is fairly simplistic--which may be par the course for genre writing of the time, but his tortured protagonist, a doctor struggling with his integrity, was not compelling and took me out of the novel, in the sense that I was not convinced that Thompson knew much about what happens in sanitoriums for alcoholics. As if there as not any doubt, it has a facile approach to sexual trauma that makes it clear he does not know what he is talking about.
It is a short novel, and its ending is a cheap, easy victory.
It is a short novel, and its ending is a cheap, easy victory.
August 7, 2017
Fans of asylum films like THE COBWEB and SHOCK CORRIDOR will have a field day with this lurid little novella full of extreme characters ( doctor being just as nuts as everyone else) populating a time capsule of antiquated 1950's era ideas that regard diseases of the mind with a moral superiority that borders on comedy.
December 22, 2022
I love Jim Thompson. There's a stack of his books on my shelves and I'll reread my favorites from time to time. This one didn't spark any recollection when I picked it up recently. The Alcoholics is a far cry for Pop. 1280 or The Killer Inside Me. 3 Stars for a bad ass flying under the radar at the time.
March 9, 2025
The Alcoholics is one of those novels that hardboiled maestro Jim Thompson cranked out in a of couple of hours. Reading this tough-times depiction of a dollar-strapped doctor flimming every flam he can to rescue his beachfront spin-dry clinic from foreclosure will elapse marginally more time than the staff and inebriants can pass without a crapulous sleaze attack.
May 19, 2020
The Alcoholics drags us through what life is like in a rehab hospital when you are addicted to the dreadful stuff. It was a little slow building up to the main action but once it got started there was no stopping it.
Review by Becky Brinkley, author of Rodeo Clown Comes to Town
Review by Becky Brinkley, author of Rodeo Clown Comes to Town
June 21, 2017
acrid, blunt,. funny (if you r in the know) true, brutal
September 4, 2018
More chaotic than all of the other books by him that i've read. Slight disappointment.
February 13, 2019
Hola. Alguien puede decirme dónde puedo encontrarlo en pdf? O alguien puede proporcionarmelo?
En mi país es imposible encontrar este libro.
Gracias!
En mi país es imposible encontrar este libro.
Gracias!
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