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Pop. 1280

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 2,632 ratings · 192 reviews

As high sheriff of Potts County, Nick Corey spends most of his time eating, sleeping and avoiding trouble. If only people--especially some troublesome pimps, his foul-tempered wife, and his half-witted brother-in-law--would stop pushing him around. Because when Nick is pushed, he begins to kill . . . or to make others do his killing for him!

Paperback, 217 pages

Published October 3rd 1990 by Vintage (first published 1964)

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Jun 06, 2012 mark monday rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: blood-and-danger

hee haw! a rambunctious, heartwarming delight! loveable and sweet-tempered Nick Corey, Sheriff of Potts County, has more problems than you can shake a stick at. poor guy! all he wants to do is kick back and hold on to his dippity-doo-da job not-arresting people. that's not too much to ask, is it? but things are always getting him down. pimps, bitches, and in-laws - the works! what's an amiable, peace-loving soul to do? well, happily, Nick's also a Medici-level manipulator, stone-cold killer, and...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Tfitoby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: black-as-night, hrf-keating-100

EDIT: Another great novel selected as part of the HRF Keating Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books list and therefore part of my challenge to read the entire 100. Keating mentions that the novels of Thompson are without good taste and this one has the least taste of all thanks to a hero who kills somebody and kicks the dead body because he'd always wanted to, indepth discussions of bodily functions. But he also praises Thompson for the serious purpose and darker vision of life that lies behind...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Anthony Vacca rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was all of fourteen when I read Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, and I remember finishing that book with the notion that this was probably one of the best books I had ever read—if not one of the greatest books ever written! A couple of years back I had to read the book again in an upper level English course, and I’d like to think that at some point during those seven years I must have done some growing up, because I couldn’t help but be a little let down by this novel I had once thought oh-...more I was all of fourteen when I read Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, and I remember finishing that book with the notion that this was probably one of the best books I had ever read—if not one of the greatest books ever written! A couple of years back I had to read the book again in an upper level English course, and I’d like to think that at some point during those seven years I must have done some growing up, because I couldn’t help but be a little let down by this novel I had once thought oh-so great. I can see why that teenaged version of myself loved the book. It was violent. It was irreverent. It was funny while at the same time being about as bleak and pessimistic as can be. There was a little kitsch thrown in there and a lot of fear and loathing when it comes to pop culture.

To tell the truth, I still love all of these things, but given the fact that Mr. Ellis’ book is like 400 and something odd pages, the themes all got bogged down with repetition. Sure, on any given day I will agree with the book: humans are narcissistic, automatons with about much depth and genuine feeling as plastic (I also enjoy having friends and for people to actually want to talk to me when I go out to parties; so some pieces of one’s personal pop-philosophy/psychology is better left to oneself, or at least contained within quasi-anonymous internet reviews); but you can only say it so many times in the exact same fashion before the glazing over of eyes sets in and drool starts to form at the corner of the mouth.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Bret Easton Ellis; he has written some very fine novels—and the parts, much more than the whole, of American Psycho, really do have something worth saying. The book just could have used some rigorous edits and a much tighter plot and structure…like the one in Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280! (So this is actually a review for that book, you’re probably thinking about now.)

I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarities between the two works: both feature a narrator who wears a mask of “normalcy” so that he can function in his given society unnoticed, while in private he plays out his own warped vision of the American dream via violence and the need to consume; both are at times as genuinely funny as they are disturbing. The difference lies in the point I made at the end of the previous paragraph, and that instead of the world of designer clothes, food, and drugs we find in Mr. Ellis’ novel, Pop. 1280 features the low-down dirty south of the early twentieth century, a place full of rednecks, ignorance, anf poverty. (It’s worth noting that if you look past the obvious differences in dialect, the characters in both novels are about on par in regards to intelligence).

Our guide through Mr. Thompson’s bleak view of the world, is a good old boy named Nick Corey, who just so happens to be the Sherriff of Pots County, and just so happens to have a whole mess of worries on his mind. Nick wants more than eight or nine hours of sleep at night. Nick wants to not be married so he can sleep around with every woman who will let him. Nick wants to be able to eat his five or six square meals a day in peace, and for everyone just to let him do his job as the sheriff of Potts county—which, in Nick’s own estimation, amounts to little more than hustling pimps for money and keeping a blind eye to the moral vacuity of his constituency.

But God or whatever existential forces that govern Mr. Thompson’s world are not going to just give Nick what he wants. So it’s up to Nick to take matters in his own hands. If he wants to enjoy all he can enjoy in life, then it’s going to have to start coming at the expense of other people’s lives.

To tell much more than this is to give away one of the real joys of Pop. 1280. At no given time could I really predict what tragedy/farce would befall the characters next, keeping the novel moving quickly at a suspenseful pace. A lot of this in part to the masterful way Mr. Thompson has crafted Nick’s voice. Nick acts and sounds a lot like everyone else in the novel (which is not a compliment), but the key difference is the underlying cunning that teems just beneath his every word. Nobody thinks Nick is very smart, which is exactly what Nick wants them to think because Nick thinks everyone else in the world is just as dumb, if not more. So Nick plays the role of redneck clown, using this as a means to manipulate everyone around him into doing exactly as he wants.

And Nick is funny too. Which is exactly why this book is as effectively disturbing as it is. Beneath all the over-the-top going-ons in the novel, is a real serious stream of critique on the role of power structures within any given society. Minorities are mistreated. The rich are left to do what the rich want to do. The poor and the ignorant are kept exactly that. And it seems in Mr. Thompson’s estimation, this is exactly what everyone truly wants. As Nick argues with a lawyer who is trying to persuade Nick into really doing his job: “They elected me didn’t they? They keep on electing me.”(less)

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Aug 07, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: january-list-next

"I said I meant I was just doing my job, followin' the holy precepts laid down in the Bible. "It's what I'm supposed to do, you know, to punish the heck out of people for bein' people. To coax 'em into revealin' theirselves, an' then kick the crap out of 'em. And it's a god-danged hard job, Rose, honey, and I figure that if I can get a little pleasure in the process of trappin' folks I'm mighty well entitled to it."

This excerpt from Thompson's novel sums up the sheriff who's a sociopathic...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: who haven't i recommended this to? :)

Shelves: favourites, novels, noir

some people prefer the killer inside me, jim thompson's earlier take on this story, to pop. 1280, but i am not one of those people. this is my favourite jim thompson novel, by turns and all at once charming, horrifying, funny, and wise. i posted this quote, this flashpoint of the novel for me, really, on myspace many moons ago, where this book was first recommended to me, after i chose the "wrong" jim thompson book as my first jim thompson book. i have it posted it up on my wall, and i read it o...more some people prefer the killer inside me, jim thompson's earlier take on this story, to pop. 1280, but i am not one of those people. this is my favourite jim thompson novel, by turns and all at once charming, horrifying, funny, and wise. i posted this quote, this flashpoint of the novel for me, really, on myspace many moons ago, where this book was first recommended to me, after i chose the "wrong" jim thompson book as my first jim thompson book. i have it posted it up on my wall, and i read it over, and think about it a lot. the wisdom of nick corey:

***********

"Yeah?" I said. "So ain't we all relatively inanimate, George? Just how much free will does any of us exercise? We got controls all along the line, our physical make-up, our mental make-up, our backgrounds; they're all shapin' us a certain way, fixin' us up for a certain role in life, and George, we better play that role or fill that hole, or any goddang way you want to put it or all hell is going to tumble out of the heavens and fall right down on top of us. We better do what we were made to do, or we'll find it being done to us."

"You mean it's a case of kill or be killed?" Barnes shook his head. "I hate to think that, Nick."

"Maybe that's not what I mean," I said. "Maybe I'm not sure what I mean. I guess mostly what I mean is that there can't be no personal hell because there ain't no personal sins. They're all public, George, we all share in the other fellas' and the other fellas all share in ours. Or maybe I mean this, George, that I'm the savior himself, Christ on the Cross come right here to Potts County, because God knows I was needed here, an' I'm goin' around doing kindly deeds -- so that people will know they got nothing to fear, and if they're worried about hell they don't have to dig for it. And, by God, that makes sense, don't it George? I mean obligation ain't all on the side of the fella that accepts it, nor responsibility neither. I mean, well, which is worse, George, the fella that craps on a doorknob or the one that rings the doorbell?"
(less)

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Feb 28, 2011 Dan Schwent rated it 5 of 5 stars

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

Nick Corey is the High Sheriff of Potts County and kind of a simpleton. He doesn't arrest anyone and mostly stays out of trouble, other than affair he's having with another man's wife. Or is his genial nature a cover for something more sinister... ?

Yes. Yes it is. It's a front for the fact that he's a manipulative, cold-blooded killer. He kills two pimps and tricks another sheriff into taking the blame. He launches a smear campaign against another man running for sheriff. He does a handful of ot...more

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Jun 14, 2007 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jim Thompson wrote about a lot of sociopaths, but the narrator of "Pop. 1280" is the tops--a cold-blooded sheriff who represents himself as a dumb, aw-shucks good old boy to his townspeople, to the reader, and to himself, even as he plots and does horrible things. By the time you get to the end, you need a shower.

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Sep 10, 2008 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Barney Fifes

Shelves: pulp-fiction

Nobody wrote crazy like Jim Thompson, and this is one of his best. A big oaf with shit for brains who happens to be the town sheriff gets walked on by every creep and low-life in town. He settles the score by taking advantage of everyone under-estimating him as the Village Idiot even though he's got a psychopathic streak a mile wide. Screw that terrible French film, read the book instead.

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May 26, 2008 J rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Thompson has a gift for making an audience underestimate his characters - the simpler they seem, the more trouble they're probably cooking up . Needless to say, this book is all poker faces until Nick Corey unloads double-ought into the guts of some very deserving townsfolk. These murders go to the sheriff's head, and the remaining narrative develops his twisted conception of doing the Lord's work, drawing out the worst in people only to punish them for it. This is a classic slice of noir, very...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Ron rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set in the 1910's in a small county seat in rural Texas, this Jim Thompson novel explores his customary moral terrain, where crime, duplicity, and infidelity flourish, and the truth is so hard to come by you couldn't buy it with a truckload of money. The central character, a sheriff named Mitch, pretends to be not too bright while scheming against anyone who happens to be an inconvenience in his life. Beginning with the removal of the public outdoor privies outside his living quarters in the cou...more

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Jun 20, 2010 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson (1964)

What we have here is a crime fiction mostly with a first person viewpoint of a thoroughly and casually corrupted sheriff. Through his eyes, we live vicariously through his evil deeds and enjoy being powerful as he sleeps with various keys women that he is physically attracted to, outwits the slow witted town folks who gets in his way of being reelected sheriff, and fakes being a slack jawed yokel. While he murders or frame for murder the constituents of Pottsvil...more

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Jan 11, 2013 blake rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature-modern

I'd like to give it a 4.5 in that I don't think it's perfect, but I gave Thompson's The Killer Inside Me a (deserved) 4, and I liked this one a lot better, so a "non-favorite 5" it gets, one of my rarest categories. I read it in one sitting of three and a half hours, so it's compelling to say the least.

Perhaps the main flaw of the book is that it's essentially the same narrator as "Killer," albeit more fleshed out and more consistent in tone. But the similarity in narrators and the similarity i...more I'd like to give it a 4.5 in that I don't think it's perfect, but I gave Thompson's The Killer Inside Me a (deserved) 4, and I liked this one a lot better, so a "non-favorite 5" it gets, one of my rarest categories. I read it in one sitting of three and a half hours, so it's compelling to say the least.

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

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

The narrator's voice is so authentic (much like Cormac McCarthy), it's really a joy to be in such capable hands as a reader.

Humor is one more thing it has over "Killer," and I actually can't remember a novel that ever made me laugh out loud like this one. During a large percentage of Nick's interactions, you as a reader are in on a hilarious (if sadistic) joke that he is playing on his unwitting acquaintances. Chuck Palahniuk would be a modern-day equivalent for this type of humor, or perhaps Saramago's Blindness or Seeing (not really the same type as much as the same amount of humor, if that makes any sort of sense).

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

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

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Oct 26, 2012 Tim Niland rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

Nick Corey is the "high sheriff" of Potts County, a small town in the armpit of the deep American south. He seems like the prototypical good 'ol boy, a glutton and a bigoted fool. Nick's also in trouble, too - pimps from the local whorehouse are talking back to him and giving him grief when he comes for his monthly graft. He's having a hard time juggling his wife and all of the other women in town he is sleeping with. To top it all off, for the first time, there's a strong candidate running agai...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Saretta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca, crime, language-ita, other-violence-lots_of, sfida-alphabet

4.5/5

Una cittadina da 1280 abitanti, tutti con una doppia faccia: mariti che tradiscono le mogli e viceversa, eminenti esponenti della comunità che nascondono un odio per gli abitanti neri, cittadini dai segreti inconfessabili; però più di tutti una doppia faccia ce l'ha Nick Corey, sceriffo, da tutti ritenuto uno stupido fannullone, solo che, mentre vorrebbe continuare a non fare nulla, stupido non lo è affatto, anzi, è il miglior affabulatore della città.
Nel romanzo Nick avrà diversi problemi...more 4.5/5

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

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

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Feb 05, 2013 Manuel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

Lately I’ve been in the mood for some pulp and noirish movies. Because of that I’ve just seen the movie “Coup de Torchon” (Clean Slate) by Bertrand Tavernier, which is loosely based on the book Pop.1280 by Jim Thomson. I just had to get my hands on the book… This is pulp fiction at its darkest. The story is dark, cynical and offensive, the last due in part to the time. The abrupt ending puzzles me though but still. There is humor within these pages to lighten up things. I laughed quite a bit at...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Trixie Fontaine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-books-consumed, taboo, vigilante-justice-and-revenge, favorites

There are plenty of people who will tell you why this is a classic and what it's about and why you should read it. So I'll just say a couple of not-so-book-related things:

*This cover art sucks

and

*I finally can believe that George W. really *IS* smart, and just PLAYS dumb! I totally imagine his mind working exactly like Sheriff Nick Corey's, but more evil. Like when Nick says "radius" and "ulna", it was like if shrub slipped and pronounced "nuclear" correctly.

The only disappointment I had was tha...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Becca Loo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i've heard this is his best book but i didn't think it was very good so now i'm not sure if should keep on reading him. the ending flat out sucked. i didn't like the main character. but...i liked him more than the "after dark, my sweet" main character, collie. there was humor in this story. sheriff nick corey is hapless until we find out how ruthless he is. by the end of the book after his character transformation he sort of reminds me of the judge from blood meridian. corey's outlook on the hum...more

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Oct 06, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: noir, crime, mystery, pulp, 1960s, country-noir

High Sheriff Nick Corey acts like a simpleton, he doesn’t arrest anyone, he doesn’t stir the pot, he acts and behaves the exact way everyone wants him to act; well at least the way he thinks he should act. But this kind and gentle nature is just a cover from his sinister attitude. But has this side of Nick always been there, or was this just a result of always acting the way he thinks he should?

The way Nick Corey acts, the lies and manipulating as scary; it’s like Jim Thompson is holding a mirro...more

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Dec 24, 2009 Kareeeeem rated it 4 of 5 stars

Extremely well written narrative of a complete psychopath that is both horrifying and hilarious at the same time. I enjoyed it more than Thompson's earlier, and similar book, The Killer Inside Me.

I'm not well read but from the authors I am familiar with, Thompson is the undisputed king of deranged protagonists.

But, the final character developments left me torn between two emotions. The religious angle works fine as the disillusioned reasoning of a mad man. The comparison drawn by the main chara...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, thriller

Actual rating: 2.5 stars.

I read an enthusiastic review of Pop. 1280 that made me think I'd missed an important chapter in American frontier lawman fiction, like somehow never getting around to reading Charles Portis' True Grit. In fact, that's what I was expecting (and for the first few pages thought I'd found) ... the progenitor of Portis' later novel.

But instead of Portis, the author of this slim novel reminds me of Aesop. Pop. 1280 reads like a child's fable. Sheriff Nick Correy plays the rol...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Belinda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, detective-noir-fiction

So this was my second Jim Thompson in almost as many days---I enjoyed this book===like the first I read, The Killer Inside Me, it has a unique and easy to read style. I think I referred to it as loping in my last review and this one was the same--told once again in the first person, a way I find extremely quick to read for some reason. My big complaint here is that it is almost exactly the same as The Killer Inside Me--insane lawman, extremely dull headed people in a small town, similar setting,...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Chris Chester rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't know quite what to make of this book at first, but once I settled into the mind of Sheriff Nick Corey, I didn't want this smash-up work of stylistic genius to end.

Sociopaths aren't uncommon in literature. Sometimes they're painted in caricature, like Fight Club's Tyler Durden. Other times they're painted up with all the trappings of demons or monsters, like Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men.

But Nick Corey is as believable a sociopath as I can remember reading. I don't think a so...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Timothy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

"But I didn't have no real idea of what the plan was; I purely didn't. Except that it was probably pretty unpleasant..." Do we believe him or not...I am not sure, and that is what makes this book so intriguing.

I really liked this book. I don't know that I was crazy about the way it ended, but I was intrigued by the character of Nick Corey. It felt wrong liking him or rooting for him, but... I often found myself doing just that. I felt sorry for Rose and wonder what is going to happen with Amy Ma...more

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Dec 05, 2010 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: hard-boiled, pulp, black-humor, western

An impressive work for Jim Thompson - just dropped Tavernier's Coup de Torchon, the French film adaptation, into my Netflix queue. With Thompson's screenwriting credits - Path's of Glory, Killer Inside Me - and the generally cinematic adaptability of his work, can't wait to see how Tavernier attacks the delusional transformation at the core of the book, adapting what many would see as a very American story in a very American genre to French colonies.

The story is simple: ignorant, exploited, and...more An impressive work for Jim Thompson - just dropped Tavernier's Coup de Torchon, the French film adaptation, into my Netflix queue. With Thompson's screenwriting credits - Path's of Glory, Killer Inside Me - and the generally cinematic adaptability of his work, can't wait to see how Tavernier attacks the delusional transformation at the core of the book, adapting what many would see as a very American story in a very American genre to French colonies.

The story is simple: ignorant, exploited, and harmlessly crooked small-town policeman begins to see the truth of his situation and take revenge. Falls in the tradition of works that examine the hollow or rotten core at the center of public life ... or almost all human interaction. Particularly ripe in examinations of small town life. Think anything from The Scarlet Letter, to Twin Peaks, or Haneke's White Ribbon. But add a Cape Fear style layer of delusional divinity and retribution, wielding a scythe as the right hand of God. But the humor and language set it apart. Rather than describe, I offer a few examples:

"I'd been chasing females all my life, not paying no mind to the fact that whatever's got tail at one end has teeth at the other, and now I was getting chomped on."

Or, more elaborately:

"There were the helpless little girls, cryin' when their own daddies crawled into bed with 'em. There were the men beating their wives, the women screamin' for mercy. There were the kids wettin' in the beds from fear and nervousness, and their mothers dosin' 'em with red pepper for punishment. There were the haggard faces, drained white from hookworm and blotched with scurvy. There was the near starvation, the never bein full, the debts that always outrun the credits. There was the how we gonna eat, how we gonna sleep, how we gonna cover our poor bare asses thinkin'. The kind of thinkin' that when you ain't doing nothing else but that, why you're better off dead. Because that's the emptiness thinkin' and you're already dead inside, and all you'll do is spread the stink and the terror, the weepin' and wailin', the torture, the starvation, the shame of your deadness. Your emptiness.

I shuddered, thinking how wonderful was our Creator [...]"
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Jan 08, 2012 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you've seen "The Grifters", "The Getaway" or most recently "The Killer Inside Me", you are familiar with Jim Thompson's work. Plumbing the minds of psychopaths, sociopaths and other unsavory characters (both on the fringe of and pillars of society), Thompson wrote thriller crime novels that were more deserving of the pulp fiction / dime-store tag with which they were labeled for years.

"Pop. 1280" is a dark tale told by an unreliable narrator that isn't nearly as daft as he lets on. At times f...more

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Oct 29, 2010 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french

A very pleasant surprise - my husband scavenged this from a pile of old books left in the lobby of our building, so my expectations were low.

But why was the number of people in the town changed from 1280 in the original to 1275 in the French tranlation? There didn't seem to be any reason for this. Hmmm....

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Apr 30, 2010 Pete rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Well, there are a couple different things I've read about this book.

1. Reviews along the lines of "Nobody writes through the mind of a sick bastard like Jim Thompson."

2. Reviews that say something about a dopey small-town sherriff who bumbles his way through things.

I think I was expecting something like Confederacy of Dunces by Cormac McCarthy. But I was a little disappointed.

If you're thinking about reading this book, give it until at least page 57. That's where the real tone of the book begin...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 03, 2011 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

The problem with "Pop. 1280" is that there are no characters to cheer for. Absolutely nobody in this book is sympathetic. They're all despotic psychopaths screwing each other over (literally and figuratively). Don't get me wrong. I'm no wilting flower. But Thompson goes way over the top in this one, cramming the pages with scatological dialogue, rape, racism, violence and sadistic cruelty. I felt physically sick while reading parts of this book.

Whereas Chandler's baddies all ultimately get their...more

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Dec 21, 2007 Brendan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hard to describe this book. Crime? Western? Satire? Most definitely comedy. Pop. 1280 is hilarious. Jim Thompson's main characters aren't what you might call heroes, but I was somewhat fond of Sheriff Nick Corey. He's a not-so-dumb good-guy loser.

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 10, 2012 Susan Emmet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Don't know where I got this book, but found it while culling stacks at home. Hadn't heard of Jim Thompson, but did recognize "The Grifters" and "The Getaway" - films based on his novels.
Lewd, crude, rude,manipulative, sharp smart, hateful, often hilarious, and deep-down, dadgum disgusting. But truthful.
Nick Corey, High Sheriff of Potts County, TX, maneuvers himself in and out of trouble as he tries to exact his own kind of justice on horrible people, becoming a sadistic psychopath himself, but o...more

1 like · like · see review

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About Jim Thompson

Librarian 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 lat...more

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After Dark, My Sweet (Crime Masterworks)

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Quotes from Pop. 1280

“I looked at her, with her hair spilled out on the pillows and the warmth of her body warming mine. And I thought, god-dang, if this ain't a heck of a way to be in bed with a pretty woman. The two of you arguing about murder, and threatening each other, when you're supposed to be in love and you could be doing something pretty nice. And then I thought, well, maybe it ain't so strange after all. Maybe it's like this with most people, everyone doing pretty much the same thing except in a different way. And all the time they're holding heaven in their hands.” — 10 people liked it

“I ain't saying you're a liar, because that wouldn't be polite. But I'll tell you this, ma'am. If I loved liars, I'd hug you to death.” — 6 people liked it

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