The Killer Inside Me

Feb 27, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Lou

Shelves: noir, crime, texas, psychological, first-person, truth, law, movie, murder

“I wished, immediately, that I hadn’t said it; I was giving myself away, you see. But he didn’t seem to have heard me. Like always, he wasn’t hearing anything he didn’t want to hear.” (77)

This is Texas-noir. 1952. Oil Boom. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford. Easy-going Lou. Folks think Lou’s a little slow-- but so likeable. Lou’s gentle with drunks and screw-ups. “The man with the grin is the one who wins.” Lou smokes cigars. The bums always size him up for an easy mark.

Lou’s a killer. Rich man’s son get...more “I wished, immediately, that I hadn’t said it; I was giving myself away, you see. But he didn’t seem to have heard me. Like always, he wasn’t hearing anything he didn’t want to hear.” (77)

This is Texas-noir. 1952. Oil Boom. Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford. Easy-going Lou. Folks think Lou’s a little slow-- but so likeable. Lou’s gentle with drunks and screw-ups. “The man with the grin is the one who wins.” Lou smokes cigars. The bums always size him up for an easy mark.

Lou’s a killer. Rich man’s son gets involved with a prostitute. Lou’s gonna serve some dishes cold. Refinery whistle blows. Dimly in the distance. Like a ghost hooting.

Lou likes to spank women. Lou finds women who like to be spanked. Sight of naked ass makes Lou drool. Pretty soon, Ole’ Lou’s “busy as a chigger at a picnic.” Lou feels the “sickness” rising in him. “Dirty habit, got it young, though, and I reckon I’ll keep it.” (232) “Sure, I know. Tell me something else. Tell a hophead he shouldn’t take dope. Tell him it’ll kill him, and see if he stops.” (126)

Helene the housekeeper did something bad to Lou when he was a kid. Lou never has forgiven females. Helene’s sin will be visited upon the flesh of all women. “It was going to cost her plenty, and I gave her value received. Honest Lou, that was me. Let Lou Titillate Your Tail.”

Lou wears a typical Western- style suit. Pants hitched up so as not to catch the top of his Justin boots. Lou says:

I’ve loafed around the streets sometimes, leaned against a store front with my hat pushed back and one boot hooked back around the other–hell, you’ve probably seen me if you’ve ever been out this way–I’ve stood like that, looking nice and friendly and stupid, like I wouldn’t piss if my pants were on fire. And all the time I'm laughing myself sick inside. Just watching the people. (121)

Lou studies people. Lou observes what others do not. Lou observes that people don’t want the truth. Only what’ supposed to be the truth. You ask unpleasant questions, and you get unpleasant answers. (160) “Books don’t normally tell the truth. Writers too goddam lazy to do his job. And I’m not lazy, whatever else I am. I’ll tell you everything.” (180) Good ole’ Lou will tell you the truth. Lou tells us his story.

Lou relies on the gullibility of people and their willingness to believe the best in people, despite all evidence to the contrary. “Polite, intelligent: guys like that are my meat.” Prisoners and Lou are on the same side. “It’s not legal, but I found out long ago that the place where the law is apt to be abused most is right around a courthouse.” (210)

How can a man ever really know anything? We’re living in a funny world, kid, a peculiar civilization. The police are playing crooks in it, and the crooks are doing police duty. The politicians are preachers, and the preachers are politicians. The tax collectors collect for themselves. The bad people want us to have more dough, and the good people are fighting to keep it from us . Yeah Johnnie, I said, “it’s a screwed up, bitched up world, and I’m afraid it’s going to stay that way. And I’ll tell you why. Because no one, almost no one, sees anything wrong with it. They can’t see that things are screwed up, so they’re not worried about it (118)

If anybody confronts him, Lou drops the rube. Spar and counter spar. Like a wind turned on a dying fire. Lou begins to needle people in a dead-pan way. Needling as a substitute for something else.

A couple people are wise to Lou. But they are bad people. Nice people are clueless. “Because there are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living.” (108)

It’s a screwed up, bitched up world. You want the truth? Or you want what's supposed to be the truth? Truth? Or peace of mind? “What’s the percentage in it?” (less)

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Jun 30, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller, noir

This was a humdinger of a story written through the eyes of a sheriff Lou Ford of a small, middle-of-nowhere west Texas town of Central City. Is he an easy-going, well-liked man and a respected citizen of the town, well known for his quiet, gentle nature? On the inside he has a dark-side he is a sociopathic killer who seems to think that life is ruled by any means necessary, full of both corny, small-town bonhomie and murderous psychosexual rage. He will not hesitate to eliminate his loved ones...more This was a humdinger of a story written through the eyes of a sheriff Lou Ford of a small, middle-of-nowhere west Texas town of Central City. Is he an easy-going, well-liked man and a respected citizen of the town, well known for his quiet, gentle nature? On the inside he has a dark-side he is a sociopathic killer who seems to think that life is ruled by any means necessary, full of both corny, small-town bonhomie and murderous psychosexual rage. He will not hesitate to eliminate his loved ones with brutal emotional dis-attachment. In the following discussion in the novel he is describing his perspective on life.

"You're a square Joe." "am I ?" i said."How do you know i am, Johnny? How can a man ever really know anything? Were living in a funny world, kid, a peculiar civilisation. The police are playing crooks in it, and the crooks are doing police duty. The politicians are preachers, and the preachers are politicians. The tax collectors collect for themselves. The bad people want us to have more dough, and the good people are fighting to keep it from us. It's not good for us, know what i mean? If we all had all we wanted to eat, we'd crap too much. We'd have inflation in toilet paper industry. That's the way i understand it. That's about the size of some of the arguments i've heard."
"Theres a time of peace I said and a time of war. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to live and a time to die"

Jim Thompson creates a main protagonist that you get to like, but at the same time he has a side to him we would all hate. Thompson tries to show us that the cliched perspective of 1950s America as a land of communal benevolence and white picket fences requires attention. Paper thin, with a cancerous presence under the skin from the actions of 'evil that men do.' It is a mark of Thompson's skill that our identification with Lou, encouraged by his first-person narration, is never quite frayed. While he seems at the same time to explain his reasons for his actions he does not quite understanding why he treads that path, he tries to understand himself in his story by digging out a quote out of a psychology textbook.

"The subject suffers from strong feelings of guilt... combined with a sense of frustration and persecution... which increase as he grows older; yet there are rarely if ever any surface signs of... disturbance. On the contrary, his behaviour appears to be entirely logical. He reasons soundly, even shrewdly. He is completely aware of what he does and why he does it..."

This was my first Thompson novel and made me dig out his other works I found them all to just as hard boiled and compelling. The movie adaptation recently was good but had some brutal images.

Also on my webpage @http://more2read.com/review/the-killer-inside-me-by-jim-thompson/(less)

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Jun 09, 2011 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychos, hardboiled-and-noir

HOWDY FOLKS…MY NAME IS LOU FORD AND I’M A MILD-MANNERED, DEPUTY SHERIFF IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN...OH BTW...I’M ALSO A SADISTIC, DEEPLY DISTURBED, PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER....NICE TO MEET YOU!!

5.0 stars. A “one of a kind” reading experience that I can not recommend more highly for fans of noir crime fiction or psychological thrillers. Told in the first person by Lou Ford, who to all outward appearances is a thoughtful, considerate (if somewhat slow) Deputy Sheriff of Capital City, Texas, population 50,...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Mike by: Members of goodreads group Pulp Fiction

Shelves: 20th-century, crime, fathers-and-sons, fiction, good-and-evil, human-behavior, killers, murder, noir, psychological-suspense, psychology, serial-killers, sex, suspense, violence, abnormal-psychology, anti-social-personality, absence-of-conscience, first-person-narrative, jim-thompson, west-texas, maladjustment-to-adolescence

The Killer Inside Me: Jim Thompson's classic Roman Noir

“Just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses

...more

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Sep 16, 2010 Dan Schwent rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: birhday-2010, crime-and-mystery, 2010, thompson, cool-covers

Ever meet someone at a party and think they're pretty cool until they let something slip and you realize they may in fact be bat-shit psycho? That's how Lou Ford, the protagonist of The Killer Inside Me is. I also suspect that Jim Thompson may have been that way as well.

The Killer Inside Me is the story of Lou Ford, a small town sheriff who's a little slow and a little boring. Or he would have you believe. Lou Ford spends most of his time keeping the sickness inside him in check. Lou's a sociopa...more

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Jan 27, 2011 notgettingenough rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-lit

This was my orginal thoughts with which I was never satisfied:

Until I saw this my gut feeling was that it would be impossible to take Jim Thompson to the screen, but I stand corrected. Fabulous movie which precisely captures the spirit of Thompson’s writing. I first suggested seeing this to a male who refused on the grounds that ‘horrible things happened to women’ and they do, but I have no idea why this would be interpreted as being about ‘male hate’ ‘misogeny’. Like most people, I guess, my re...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Nathan Alderman rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: crime and horror fans, lovers of great writing

Jim Thompson worked on oil rigs in his youth. It's filthy, dangerous, deeply hair-raising work, all to get at something that's as precious as it is polluted. Reading his novels is surprisingly similar. His whiskey-soaked misogyny will make your skin crawl, but his ability to plumb the darkest corners of the human soul, with both skill and sympathy, is unmatched in literature.

This is the best Thompson book I've read by far, and one of the best books I've ever read for sheer narrative skill. His p...more

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May 31, 2010 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

True story: When I moved to my new town, I warned my branch librarian (a very sweet woman in her 60s) that I was writing a book about some intense subjects, and that I'd gained a reputation at my last library. Back then, I was ordering ten or twelve novel-research books on interlibrary loan every week, and my hold shelf looked like this:
HOW TO MAKE METH
3 MEMOIRS ABOUT RAPE
GETTING OVER YOUR INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA
THE COURAGE TO HEAL
STAYING CLEAN OFF METH
BDSM FOR IDIOTS

I think I only succeeded in...more True story: When I moved to my new town, I warned my branch librarian (a very sweet woman in her 60s) that I was writing a book about some intense subjects, and that I'd gained a reputation at my last library. Back then, I was ordering ten or twelve novel-research books on interlibrary loan every week, and my hold shelf looked like this:
HOW TO MAKE METH
3 MEMOIRS ABOUT RAPE
GETTING OVER YOUR INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA
THE COURAGE TO HEAL
STAYING CLEAN OFF METH
BDSM FOR IDIOTS

I think I only succeeded in piquing her curiosity.

When I checked out The Killer Inside Me, she flipped it over and read the dust jacket, which says "Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again"...

Which is how I found out that she's a huge fan of psychothrillers, horror, true crime and noir. I promised to let her know if it was good and scary.

THIS BOOK IS NUTS! Jim Thompson was out of his fucking mind!

Beneath the aw-shucks good-ol-boy voice, Lou Ford knows exactly what he is. Unrepentantly sociopathic, highly self-aware, and smarter than anyone else around him, he has concealed his true nature through a lifelong construction of a public persona. But really - in a town where the cops just barely cloak their facistic tendencies, iron-fist tactics, and brazen racism and misogyny in down-home corn-pone niceties and run-along-now smiles, Ford isn't terribly out of place. All this comes to a head when Ford is sent to roust a local prostitute out of town.

As other reviewers have noted, Thompson knows his main character so well, and inhabits his voice so completely, that you start to wonder about his own sanity.

The book gets weaker, I think, when it falls into the probably-inevitable "how reliable is this narrator" trap, and the stock crime novel plot where you can bet that the guy who doesn't belong in the story is the double-crosser. There's a forensic twist so obvious that the only reason it could possibly be overlooked is willful ignorance on the part of law enforcement, and that isn't made clear. By the end of the book, I could no longer tell which events were taking place outside of Ford's head, and that's the point where the book lost its pull for me and became circular and self-referential. But until that happens, The Killer Inside Me is one great piece of classic psychothriller noir.(less)

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Sep 04, 2007 Mickey Wozny rated it 4 of 5 stars

You can smell this book. It's sweat, desperation, liquor, failure and misogyny. This is my favorite Jim Thompson book, it's an ugly book to say you enjoy, but I do and I don't feel good saying it. Like other art forms in the fifties, this book is enamored with psychology. Which reaches it's pinnacle in the final pages. Thompson reveals both personalities of the protagonist in alternating lines of the text. It is a deft understanding of a split personality for a pulpy crime novel. It's a great re...more

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Jul 10, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: noirboiled, noirboiled-hall-of-fame

In The Killer Inside Me, which is perhaps the most important early entry in the genre of noir sociopathique, Jim Thompson figures out how to be Jim Thompson. The novel's narrator, simpleton sociopath sheriff Lou Ford, may be Thompson's most memorable and creepy creation. And while Thompson's fourth novel may not be his best--it loses its way for a bit in the final act--The Killer Inside Me is still the logical place to begin reading one of the noir masters.

First reading: circa 1993
Second reading...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Debra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller, sai-king-recommends

Stephen King recommended author. 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."

“He was crazy,” Stephen King, a long-time admirer of Thompson, says. “He went running into the American sub...more

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Mar 05, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The Killer Inside Me is the American Psycho of the 1950's. Even though Thompson isn't overly graphic with his descriptions of murder, the implications he creates with his writing are troubling and, sometimes, downright disturbing. Like American Psycho, The Killer Inside Me is the story of a psychopath who lives a rather normal life in the eyes of his acquaintances. The protagonist, Lou, is a police officer in a small town who has what he describes as "the sickness." This sickness got him in trou...more The Killer Inside Me is the American Psycho of the 1950's. Even though Thompson isn't overly graphic with his descriptions of murder, the implications he creates with his writing are troubling and, sometimes, downright disturbing. Like American Psycho, The Killer Inside Me is the story of a psychopath who lives a rather normal life in the eyes of his acquaintances. The protagonist, Lou, is a police officer in a small town who has what he describes as "the sickness." This sickness got him in trouble as a youth, but he let his brother take the fall for it. Now, at the age of 29, Lou sees the sickness returning. And about ten pages into the story, we get to see just exactly what the sickness looks like.

Lou is dispatched to a derelict house on the edge of town to evict a known prostitute. Lou ends up killing a prostitute and another man instead of trying to run her out of town. The description of the death isn't long or explicit, but the metaphor used to describe the murder is simply unforgettable. The rest of the story is a step-by-step reenactment of what Lou has to do to cover up his crime. The initial murder leads to the death of many more innocent victims, including his longtime girlfriend and fiancee Amy.

Lou made a mistake, however, and the prostitute he thought he killed at the beginning of the story never died. After a short descent into madness, which results (or does it?) in a stint in a mental institution, he is confronted with the shambling, nearly crippled, body of the prostitute, who has told the local police exactly what Lou did to her earlier. At the end of the story, Lou feels no remorse for his actions and, in fact, laughs inwardly as the police take him into custody.

This all boils down to a story that would have been overwhelmingly dark and depressing were it not for Lou's wit and dark sense of humor. There is something sinister, yet satisfying, in seeing Lou constantly backed into a corner and then verbally sparring his way out, making his interlocutors look feeble in the process.

The Killer Inside Me is interesting and goes in often unexpected directions. I can only imagine the furor that must have surrounded the release of the book back in the 1950's. Even now, some of the descriptions and passages are shocking. In the end, this was a fast read and a well-told, disturbing story, that didn't need to resort to exaggerated gore in order to shock the me.(less)

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Apr 03, 2007 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of noir and dark satire

Scary book with which to start my reviews, yes, but here goes.

This has been considered an "underground classic" since its publication in 1952 and I can see why. I read that Stanley Kubrick had an adaptation of this written by Thompson in his files. (Thompson wrote early Kubrick films THE KILLING and PATHS OF GLORY as well) This also is no real surprise as the book reads like a film by Kubrick, Hitchcock, or current filmmakers like Fincher. I read this in about two days, but mostly because it's s...more

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Jan 10, 2013 blake rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-modern

This was a highly compelling read, and pretty well-written too. I have to admit my judgment is a little bit harsh since I read this right after John Fante's Ask the Dust, which also has an unreliable, morally-challenged narrator/protagonist and happens to be one of the most amazing novel-memoirs I've ever read. The writing here doesn't (and indeed can't) compare, but that's just me being unfair.

The writing is good though, and my favorite aspect of is the precise dialect and colloquialisms that T...more

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Dec 28, 2012 William rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lou Ford is a sheriff's deputy in a small West Texas Town. To those who know him best, he seems a simple fellow -- even simple-minded, in a way. He is slow-witted enough to spend a half-hour talking about a glass of water, his conversation consists primarily of cliches and he doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body.

But Ford has a secret: beneath his bumpkinesque facade he is a twisted murderer and sadist who plays the part of a simpleton in order to conceal the fact he is much smarter than...more Lou Ford is a sheriff's deputy in a small West Texas Town. To those who know him best, he seems a simple fellow -- even simple-minded, in a way. He is slow-witted enough to spend a half-hour talking about a glass of water, his conversation consists primarily of cliches and he doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body.

But Ford has a secret: beneath his bumpkinesque facade he is a twisted murderer and sadist who plays the part of a simpleton in order to conceal the fact he is much smarter than most of the people around him. His masquerade as a rustic rube has enabled him to win him the trust of the sheriff and the county prosecutor, the friendship and admiration of most of his village's citizens, and the heart of one of the most eligible young women in town.

In his secret life, however, Ford is regularly banging a sado-masochistic prostitute, plotting to scam a sizable sum from the son of the richest man in town, and barely able to hold his appetite for murder in check.

Ford is the villain/protagonist of "The Killer Inside Me," Jim Thompson's case study of psychopathy. The young deputy commits four cold-blooded murders -- one of which is described in a particularly raw and brutal fashion -- and engineers the death of two additional victims before it the book is done.

I wanted to like this book, and Thompson gives readers a lot to work with. The dialog is good, the author's eye for detail and original turns of phrase are in top form, and his characters are sharply drawn.

The only problem is the novel's plot: it has a hole in it big enough to serve as the hangar for Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose."

I won't give it away here because it would undermine much of the book's suspense. Suffice to say, Thompson doesn't play fair with his readers, and deliberately misleads them about a critical piece of evidence that emerges at the end of the book in a clumsy deus ex machina conclusion.

This is particularly disappointing because it violates the basic tenet of the crime novel: if you are going to use a trick ending, do it through misdirection, not by establishing a set of facts at one point in the book only to abandon them at the denouement. It is the figurative equivalent of getting to the end of the book only to find out that everything that took place before was simply a dream.

This book, which is considered one of Thompson's masterpieces, has inspired two different motion picture versions. Unfortunately, the sloppy ending gives the impression that Thompson simply got tired of plotting "The Killer Inside Me" and slapped together a conclusion so he could get the manuscript off to the publisher.

I liked it, but it really isn't top-shelf stuff.(less)

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Oct 18, 2012 David Mcangus rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

For its time, The Killer Inside Me is an impressive snap shot of the life and mind of a sociopath. It's at its best when Lou is analysing his own thoughts, describing how he adapts his personality to appear 'normal' or how naturally he disconnects himself when he kills. Thompson also gives the character a background, to provide, at least a partial explanation for what has motivated his behaviour.

This reader also got the feeling while reading, that Lou was treating me much in the same way as he...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Edward S. Portman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un noir raccontato in prima persona dalla voce dell’assassino, che non solo è in lui ma è anche tra le pagine. Uno stile asciutto e preciso che però incappa in alcune soluzioni che non mi sembrano del tutto eccezionali, soprattutto nel finale, durante il quale Thompson sembra dividersi tra la necessità di raccontare cose ancora non dette e la voglia di allungare in modo inspiegabile il racconto.
Non carbura subito alla perfezione, tanto che l’interesse comincia a farsi alto a pagine già inoltrat...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller

Lou Ford è un vicesceriffo di una piccola città del Texas negli anni cinquanta. Apparentemente è una persona gradevole, prevedibile e ai limiti del noioso. Ma la sua maschera cadrà progressivamente a partire dal momento in cui incontrerà Joyce, una giovane prostituta sulla cui attività è stato mandato a indagare.

Lou Ford è un simpatico, noioso, banale vicesceriffo. Vive in città da sempre e tutti pensano di conoscerlo. Lou ha un sorriso affabile e una bella faccia schietta, di quelle di cui ci s...more Lou Ford è un vicesceriffo di una piccola città del Texas negli anni cinquanta. Apparentemente è una persona gradevole, prevedibile e ai limiti del noioso. Ma la sua maschera cadrà progressivamente a partire dal momento in cui incontrerà Joyce, una giovane prostituta sulla cui attività è stato mandato a indagare.

Lou Ford è un simpatico, noioso, banale vicesceriffo. Vive in città da sempre e tutti pensano di conoscerlo. Lou ha un sorriso affabile e una bella faccia schietta, di quelle di cui ci si può fidare al primo sguardo. Ma di Lou sarebbe in realtà meglio non fidarsi. Quando incontra Joyce, una giovane e avvenente prostituta, Lou intreccia una relazione clandestina con lei, e nel frattempo tesse la trama per una vendetta. Una di quelle che costerà la vita a un certo numero di persone, alcune delle quali del tutto innocenti. Ma Lou è uno psicotico del tutto fuori controllo e nulla di quello che fa sembra realmente toccarlo nel profondo.
The Killer inside me mette in scena una convincente discesa nell'inferno della follia apparentemente compensata. Una di quelle che esplode di colpo e lascia solitamente le persone a interrogarsi sul motivo e sulla reale prevedibilità di tali derive. Ma la follia, si sa spesso è sotterranea, e ancor più spesso inspiegabile, se non a posteriori e di solito con l'ausilio di uno specialista. Lou rappresenta un certo numero di personaggi archetipi, primo fra tutti l'individuo segnato da un passato inconfessabile. Subito dopo sarà la convincente incarnazione del vicino con la faccia carina, che nel segreto delle mura di casa si lascia andare a cose inimmaginabili. Infine vedremo emergere il reale Lou: uno psicotico talmente amorale da riuscire a organizzare la sua vita fino alla fine, con la stessa meticolosa precisione con cui ha messo a punto i suoi omicidi.
Anni prima delle perizie balistiche e dei test sul Dna, Lou può pensare di farla franca uccidendo persone e organizzando le scene del crimine come fossero dei set cinematografici. Le sue vittime sono in parte complici con la loro incredula passività, che ammanta il tutto della sgradevole sensazione di assistere a una malsana fantasia. Le sue donne muoiono con la rassegnata consapevolezza di essersi votate all'uomo sbagliato, un'intuizione che sfortunatamente arriverà con un ritardo tale da impedire a chiunque di porre rimedio all'errore commesso.
La stessa triste consapevolezza che alla fine vedremo comparire anche sul volto di Lou, sottolineata dall'immortale Donizetti nella più classica delle rivelazioni del sentimento altrui: Una furtiva lacrima che spunta persino negli occhi di chi si accorge troppo tardi del peso di un amore che non conosce limiti e che travolge anche la follia, per poi trascinare tutto là dove nessuno potrà mai recuperarlo.

The Killer inside me si colloca esattamente al centro delle mai sopite diatribe sull'impatto che la rappresentazione del male, inspiegabile e mai motivato, può avere sulle menti deboli. Inoltre la comprensibile rabbia scatenata da scene violente di cui sono protagoniste donne indifese e che non si difendono, anzi prendono i pugni in faccia col dolore scritto in viso e quel dolore è di natura morale, è quello dell'incomprensione di fronte al tradimento di chi si ama, è il solo sentimento possibile nel marasma di reazioni e prese di posizione post femministe improntate più alla rassicurante rappresentazione della mercificazione del cervello femminile presente nei vari Sex in the city e consimili, tutti incentrati su donne che si credono forti e sexy solo perché parlano come gli uomini e comprano scarpe a bizzeffe coi loro personali guadagni.
The Killer inside me ci pone di fronte all'ipocrisia insita nel cuore di tutti quelli che pensano che la rappresentazione debba infine esimere dal reale sguardo sul male che alberga nel cuore degli uomini. Un male che ha cambiato faccia mille volte, e la cui rappresentazione ha subito alterne vicende, ma che non è mai scomparso, neanche nelle epoche più ottimiste in cui quello che non piaceva finiva spazzato sotto il tappeto del politicamente corretto. Da che esistono i tappeti usati per lo più come copertura, non ci si è mai potuti esimere dal dargli una energica sbattuta di tanto in tanto, anche solo per fare spazio alle altre cose che aspettano di esservi seppellite sotto.

Anna Maria Pelella

(less)

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Jun 26, 2012 Suvi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1940-1969, novels, crime-mystery, _north-america

I saw the film version a while ago, and it didn't convince me that much, even though Casey Affleck's performance was hauntingly perfect. So, when I saw this in the library, I thought I should at least take a look. What a disturbing experience that was. It was like watching a horror movie: you want to close your eyes, but you can't. I could not put this down. Fortunately this was mercifully short, a larger dose would have been way too much.

Thompson didn't get much recognition while he was still a...more I saw the film version a while ago, and it didn't convince me that much, even though Casey Affleck's performance was hauntingly perfect. So, when I saw this in the library, I thought I should at least take a look. What a disturbing experience that was. It was like watching a horror movie: you want to close your eyes, but you can't. I could not put this down. Fortunately this was mercifully short, a larger dose would have been way too much.

Thompson didn't get much recognition while he was still alive, which is a shame since this is in a lot of ways a more interestingly executed piece of hard-boiled literature than Candler's works. The style is concise and intense, and all the characters are in some ways unpleasant. Of course, Lou Ford is the most disturbing of them all. It doesn't matter at all that you can kind of sense the end result from the beginning, since it's interesting to follow how Ford will deal with the situation. Underneath that calm and simple exterior he's a complete psychopath. The violence itself is more unpleasant than usual, even though the scenes aren't bloodbaths. After the finale Ford is sure to haunt you for a while.

By the way, I was reading some of the critique concerning the movie, and it doesn't really make sense. The film is actually a very faithful adaptation of the book, so the critics should have taken that into consideration. Most of the violence is targeted at women, but that doesn't make the director or author misogynists. Sure, I got a bit queasy, but would it be better if no violence towards women was ever portrayed anywhere? I think the audience was just in shock, because they hadn't seen anything that realistic before. Or maybe because there aren't actually that many scenes of violence, so it feels more nauseating. The essence of the story is Ford's inner struggle and keeping everything under control. So, in second thought, I'd recommend the movie as well, since it is actually a quite stylish modern film noir. Just read the book first, you'll get more out of it.(less)

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Jun 19, 2012 Christopher Fulbright rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

The Killer Inside Me has become a classic in the crime genre. In the wake of high profile praise by Stephen King, and ongoing praise by many of today’s most influential crime and mystery writers, Crime Masterworks and Vintage Crime and a handful of other smaller presses have worked to reissue Jim Thompson’s books over the past twenty years. This is good for folks like me who discovered him late — the original versions of his books are long out print and go for high prices on eBay and zShops. The...more The Killer Inside Me has become a classic in the crime genre. In the wake of high profile praise by Stephen King, and ongoing praise by many of today’s most influential crime and mystery writers, Crime Masterworks and Vintage Crime and a handful of other smaller presses have worked to reissue Jim Thompson’s books over the past twenty years. This is good for folks like me who discovered him late — the original versions of his books are long out print and go for high prices on eBay and zShops. The 1990 film The Grifters was based on a Thompson novel, with a stellar screenplay by another of my favorites, Donald Westlake. I’d heard good things about The Killer Inside Me for several years, so when I found a copy of it a couple months ago I snatched it up and added it to the summer reading pile. As I checked out, the cashier looked up at me as he came across that book in the stack, and said “Oh man, this is one of my favorite books!”

After all the hype, this book had a lot to live up to, and I’ll just say quickly, it delivered with a bullet … and a fist, and a knife, and all manner of ruthlessness and brutality. This is a brilliant piece of crime fiction, rivaling any modern novel for gut churning violence. It seems like I may be repeating something that’s been said before, maybe some tired, cliche’ blurb off some book cover, but really, Jim Thompson as a writer has no conscience. He is fearless and mean, and he takes you places you don’t really want to go. So why do we read on? That’s the question I had to ask myself as I was riveted to the pages of this book. Without saying too much to spoil it for anyone, the main character in this book has few redeeming qualities. The one redeeming quality that he displays early in the book is enough to hook you into believing the guy is not all bad, but by the time you get on into the thick of it, you realize it’s worse than you thought…and by then it’s far too late to turn back. Thompson ropes you into a plot of twists and turns, violence and deceit, and every page of it fascinating. I can’t say one bad thing about this book. It was a gut puncher — it hurt, and it left me with a reminder that humans are the sickest creatures on earth. But it also left me saying “wow, what a book!” and hunting bookstores and online venues for more books by Jim Thompson.

The Killer Inside Me lives up to the hype, and serves as an example of how great pulp fiction could be. Not for the queasy or those easily upset, but definitely for those hungry for a great crime novel.(less)

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Jun 10, 2012 Sloan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Despite having a name that reminds me of a late night adult thriller on Cinemax, this is one of my favorite crime novels. The thing that makes it so disturbing for me is that no matter how sick and twisted the protagonist is on the inside, he always seems so friendly and harmless on the outside, like if Andy and Barney from the Andy Griffith Show were secretly sadistic, women-killing sociopaths. It's hard to read at times due to the brutality of the story, but what makes it even worse is how Tho...more

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May 12, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Killer Inside Me is a curious read in that it manages to maintain its suspense throughout despite the unfolding of the story holding few surprises. Ford is a sociopath in the sense that at one level he appears normal and he’s self-aware of his ‘sickness’, but he’s manipulative and deceitful, has shallow emotions, lacks empathy and remorse, and can flip into extreme violence. Thompson does a great job of exploring Ford’s complex personality as he uses all of his sociopathic traits to exercise...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Sandy rated it 5 of 5 stars

In Jim Thompson's 1952 classic of crime noir, "The Killer Inside Me," we are introduced to a very unusual law enforcement officer. He is Lou Ford, deputy of (the fictitious) Central City, Texas, a good-looking, seemingly wholesome 29-year-old who comes off to his peers as something of an oafish bumpkin, due to his fondness of using hackneyed proverbs ("Haste makes waste, in my opinion. I like to look before I leap.") and amiable, slow-thinking ways. But, as Deputy Lou reveals in his narrative, t...more In Jim Thompson's 1952 classic of crime noir, "The Killer Inside Me," we are introduced to a very unusual law enforcement officer. He is Lou Ford, deputy of (the fictitious) Central City, Texas, a good-looking, seemingly wholesome 29-year-old who comes off to his peers as something of an oafish bumpkin, due to his fondness of using hackneyed proverbs ("Haste makes waste, in my opinion. I like to look before I leap.") and amiable, slow-thinking ways. But, as Deputy Lou reveals in his narrative, there is a lot more going on under the sham hayseed surface, and this lawman turns out to be a bona fide exemplar of dementia praecox. Lou isn't perturbed in the least when he has to beat up the occasional whore, burn a panhandler with his cigar, or kill four or five townspeople; he's got perfectly sound and rational reasons for everything he does, and therein lies the particular success of Thompson's novel. Fifty-five years old now, how this book must have shocked its readers back when, with its oh-so casual violence and offhand sex. Though telegraphed well in advance--Lou gives his homicides LOADS of premeditation--the actual murders may still be pretty shocking to the modern reader, as most of them are performed quite brutally by Lou, a character who really is "built Ford tough." Lou is not an obvious nutjob--unlike, say, another fictitious Texan killer, Leatherface--but rather one who fits perfectly well into society, has a good reputation in town and a hotty fiancee who is desired by most of his fellows. He demonstrates his cunning and mental prowess time and again, works on calculus problems for relaxation, reads scientific textbooks in foreign languages. He can be a very ingratiating narrator, and even shows flashes of real wit and humor; for example, he worries that his fiancee Amy will want to discuss the size of the douche bag she brings on her honeymoon, and when a list of the many names of his murder victims is read to him, he innocently adds "President McKinley?" His smarts and his humor make us like Lou up to a point, and thus we are even more appalled when he repeatedly falls victim to what he calls "the sickness." Writing in Jones & Newman's excellent overview volume "Horror: Another 100 Best Books," author Nancy A. Collins (who chose "The Killer Inside Me" for inclusion) tells us that "As a writer, [she stands] in awe of how Thompson refuses to succumb to the temptation of allowing his viewpoint character to soften or become a 'nice guy,'" and I could not agree more. Every time we begin to think that Lou might have some saving graces, boom, there he goes again! If I may quote another creative artist, Stanley Kubrick, this book is "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered." Filled with wonderfully drawn secondary characters, evoking a real sense of time and place, and even reserving a genuine surprise for its final page, "The Killer Inside Me" is a gripping entertainment that certainly deserves its reputation. I have not seen the 1976 film adaptation starring Stacey Keach as Lou (actually, I would have thought that poor casting--I picture Lou as more of a Ray Liotta or Robert Patrick type; the cover of this Quill Mysterious Classic is very apropos--although Keach is supposedly excellent in the role), but can't imagine it giving us a sharper look into the mind of a schizophrenic killer. The novel really lets us get under Lou Ford's skin, and shows us very clearly that this is a very sick and disturbing place to be....(less)

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May 01, 2011 Trekscribbler rated it 4 of 5 stars

While some of the impact of this tale has tempered in time (it was originally published in 1952), the stark brutality of the narrator draws you in slowly ... and the novel's first 150 pages are relatively slow-paced ... until the reader comes to the full realization that Officer Lou Ford isn't committing the acts of violence that he does out of any other need than to feed the killer inside him.
The last forty to fifty pages of this book are captivatingly brilliant prose -- arguably the best by Mr...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Shawn Davies rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a proper nutter! The scariest thing though is how you come to view Lou Ford’s actions as making sense, how you so easily by into this first person narrative.

Once his beast is released he begins racking up the body count in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of the dead. Environmental triggers are hinted at as the story unfolds, but we are very much concerned with his present predicament. It is being privy to Lou’s internal dialogue that is so seductive, that enfolds us in his decision makin...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Hârum rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

En la portada de “El asesino dentro de mí” aparece el primer plano de un hombre con la mitad de su rostro ensombrecido. Es la imagen perfecta para describir al protagonista y su lado oscuro y psicópata. Bajo su cara, una frase de Stanley Kubrick: “la historia más escalofriante que haya leído jamás sobre una mente deformada por el crimen”. El matemático Kubrick es poco dado a los elogios y aunque la frase sea meramente publicitaria define tan bien como la fotografía de la portada este libro de Ji...more En la portada de “El asesino dentro de mí” aparece el primer plano de un hombre con la mitad de su rostro ensombrecido. Es la imagen perfecta para describir al protagonista y su lado oscuro y psicópata. Bajo su cara, una frase de Stanley Kubrick: “la historia más escalofriante que haya leído jamás sobre una mente deformada por el crimen”. El matemático Kubrick es poco dado a los elogios y aunque la frase sea meramente publicitaria define tan bien como la fotografía de la portada este libro de Jim Thompson.
El asesino dentro de mí es una novela dura, seca, cortante y afilada sobre un hombre de apariencia apacible que sucumbe por momentos a lo que él llama “la enfermedad”. Novela negra clásica, Thompson coloca el mal dentro de un hombre de la ley, Lou Ford, que relata sus asesinatos al lector de una manera tan pausada y tranquila que estremece y sorprende, a veces parece que está de charla con el lector y que busca su comprensión.
Lou Ford es hijo de un conocido médico de Central City. Nunca ha sido un hombre despierto e inteligente, se ha dejado llevar en la vida para acabar como sheriff adjunto. En el pueblo le tienen por un tipo tranquilo que siempre echa una mano al vecino. Pero dentro esconde un espíritu retorcido, criminal, psicópata. Tapa esa imagen con una máscara de normalidad, con su relación con una maestra del pueblo, Amy, pero a medida que avanza la novela es incapaz de detener su lado criminal y violento y destroza a quien tiene alrededor.
Jim Thompson escribe con maestría una historia donde se aúna la novela negra y la tensión, con inesperado y salvaje giro final. La violencia aparece a ráfagas, de manera sangrante, como un puñetazo en el estómago.
Es una pena que Thompson no haya tenido tanto reconocimiento como Hammett o Chandler. Durante años escribió un puñado de grandes novelas negras, algunas de ellas famosas por las adaptaciones de Peckinpah (La huída), Tavernier (1280 almas) o Stephen Frears (Los timadores). Trabajó con Kubrick en los años 50 en esa maravilla que es Atraco perfecto. Thompson es un narrador poderoso que sabe ir directo a la acción y a la psicología del personaje sin perderse en descripciones innecesarias, además de mostrar un mundo oscuro y de pesadilla.

Era como si existiese un complot contra mí. Yo había hecho algo malo, cuando era chico, y nunca conseguiría librarme de aquello. Me lo habían puesto delante de las narices día tras día, como a un perro amaestrado, hasta que acabé desinflándome de puro miedo. Y ahora, estaba allí…
( … )
¿Ha pensado alguna vez que hay muchas formas de morir, pero sólo una de estar muerto?
( … )
Creo que hay dos formas de pereza. La del “no quiero hacer nada” y la del “no te apartes del carril”. Tomas un trabajo, creyendo que va a ser poco tiempo, y ese poco se alarga más y más. Hace falta un poco de dinero para dar el salto. No sabes decidirte sobre lo que quieres. Y luego das un paso, escribes unas cuantas cartas, y entonces te preguntan qué experiencia tienes... qué has hecho antes. Y es probable que no quieran nada de ti, y en caso contrario, has de empezar por abajo, porque no tienes experiencia. De modo que te quedas donde estás, no pudiendo hacer otra cosa, y trabajas mucho porque lo sabes. Ya no eres joven, y no hay otra posibilidad.

de http://despuesdelnaufragio.blogcindar...(less)

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Jan 15, 2011 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Brilliant book, Jim Thompson truly got inside the mind of a killer. The main character Lou Ford has something he describes as a sickness, it's been a long time since he's felt it but now - due to recent events in his life - it's back and he can do nothing but give in to it. Ford wants to kill he is driven to kill, he seems to get satisfaction out of it and even find it fun. What's good about this novel is that it's told in a first person perspective so it feels like you are reading a confession...more

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Jul 13, 2010 Gary Taylor rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

Playboy's best book for a manly read? C'mon, man! You can do better than this!

I first heard of this book while reading a short article in Playboy magazine about the best books for real men. Playboy put this 1952-era crime noir novel at the top of that list. Then I heard that a movie version was headed our way, starring Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. So, curiosity inspired me to give it a try. Like the magazine that recommended it, The Killer Inside Me turns out to be dated and a bi...more
Playboy's best book for a manly read? C'mon, man! You can do better than this!

I first heard of this book while reading a short article in Playboy magazine about the best books for real men. Playboy put this 1952-era crime noir novel at the top of that list. Then I heard that a movie version was headed our way, starring Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. So, curiosity inspired me to give it a try. Like the magazine that recommended it, The Killer Inside Me turns out to be dated and a bit of a bore. Now I'm struggling to understand all the fuss.

As a fan of hard-boiled crime novels and true crime nonfiction, I have tried to include readings from the roots of those genres to understand them better. Sad to say, I am usually disappointed when I compare the masters of the 1940s and 50s--like Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane--with their literary descendants of these days--Elmore Leonard, Jeffery Deaver and Dennis Lehane come quickly to mind. The Killer Inside Me should be read in that vein, as an example of a more primitive literary time. Students of noir who can put themselves into a black-and-white frame-of-mind will want to include this on their resumes. The author, Jim Thompson, died in 1977 at the age of 70. But modern readers in search of entertainment should look elsewhere.

The Killer Inside Me could make an intriguing period-piece of a movie. The book tells the story through the eyes of a psychopathic deputy sheriff in a small West Texas oil town. It details Lou Ford's final crimes and delves into what he calls his "sickness"--the killer inside him. The 2010 movie is a remake of an earlier film from 1976 that starred Stacy Keach. But neither could ever match the FX series The Shield for a stark portrayal of police corruption--another symptom of generation gap with this book..

Thompson authored several successful cinematic crime novels, including The Getaway and The Grifters. But he received minimal recognition in his lifetime. His novels were resurrected in 1980 by the Vintage Crime Black Lizard unit of Random House. The Killer Inside Me has been touted as Thompson's finest work with Thompson described by some as the "dimestore Dostoyevsky" for the book's raw portrayal of a violent man fighting his demons. Many of his themes appear autobiographical from his youth as the son of an Oklahoma sheriff to his work in the Texas oil fields and briefly as a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles Mirror. He honed his fiction credentials by taking newspaper crime events and turning them into short stories told imaginatively from the perspective of the criminal.

He worked most prominently as a screen writer for the film director Stanley Kubrick, notably on the classic Paths of Glory. Kubrick is quoted in a blurb on the Vintage Crime edition of The Killer Inside Me, describing this book as "Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered."

Kubrick either owed Jim Thompson a big favor, or, he hadn't read much dime store Dostoyevsky. Probably the latter.
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Jun 19, 2010 Brendan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, book-club, classics, fiction, mystery

We read this book for my mystery book club, the second noir crime novel of the year. It's pretty good, but Wow, so dark. A few thoughts:

* The narrator dances along a fine line of making you enjoy him with his jaded hatred of everybody and the way he plays the rubes in the town, making them think he's a pleasant, simple country sheriff's deputy instead of a depraved murderer. Interestingly, he's both.
* A curious disconnect arose at my book club discussion of this. On one hand, one fan of the bo...more We read this book for my mystery book club, the second noir crime novel of the year. It's pretty good, but Wow, so dark. A few thoughts:

* The narrator dances along a fine line of making you enjoy him with his jaded hatred of everybody and the way he plays the rubes in the town, making them think he's a pleasant, simple country sheriff's deputy instead of a depraved murderer. Interestingly, he's both.
* A curious disconnect arose at my book club discussion of this. On one hand, one fan of the book suggested that Thompson's writing is spare and straightforward. "There's no filler in this book. Everything goes straight to telling the narrative." On the other hand, another member complained about the circuitous language Thompson uses to tell parts of the story--particularly the segments about sex. He uses euphemisms that I'm sure would have been common currency in the 1950s but are obscure today. So we had comments that the book is both straightforward and annoyingly confusing.
* There was a healthy discussion about how we should feel about Lou (the narrator), particularly in whether or not we can/should feel any pity for him. I reminded people that our culture doesn't (at least nominally) believe that insane people are responsible for their actions. And the group pretty strongly agreed that Lou was nuts. But there was disagreement over whether or not to pity him or to think that he deserved punishment.
* It's hard to tell what the book thinks about women. There are no women in any positions of power -- just as 'love' interests for Lou. There's a shadowy history of (and an opaquely described tendency to) sado-masochism tied up in Lou's love life. I thought it was pretty straightforward, but my group mates were a bit more befuddled. But if every woman secretly wants to be beaten before she has sex, Thompson's world is a grim place, IMO.
* As the book comes to a close and we see the narrator's plans slowly begin to unravel, the subtle signals with which Thompson conveys that shift startle and amaze us. As everyone in the group agreed, whether they liked or hated the book, it's very well written.
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Jan 05, 2010 Tim Niland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-reads

Do you know what it is like to hide part of your soul from the world? To walk through life pretending to be a human being while all the time feeling like an outsider, unsure how to talk and act around people? I feel this way all the time so I really connected with the main character of this book. Lou Ford is a small town policeman who hides his schizophrenia behind the self made mask of country bumpkin homilies that lull the people in the town into thinking he is just a harmless bore. But deep w...more

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