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eBook Category: Mystery/Crime
eBook Description: America's low-key high priest of human vice and violently wounded psyches, Jim Thompson emerged from the darkness with his first novel. Now and On Earth is proof that Thompson has always been the bleak and compassionate teller of tawdry terror that critics and fans have come to treasure. Amid the fresh landscape and smooth illusions of wartime California, a young bellboy is tipped into a world too rich in corruption. A lonely down-and-out writer tries to finish just one more book before the bottle finishes him off first. A worn out and tumbling Okie family, displaced and depressed, tries to hold on to the coarse edge of destruction at the end of the road. Thompson takes these characters and imbues them with a disgruntled grace and disillusion that perfectly echoes the dark sinking sensation that American prosperity was built on.

eBook Publisher: e-reads, Published: 1942
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2002

5 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [709 KB], eReader (PDB) [225 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [223 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [199 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [221 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [247 KB], hiebook (KML) [550 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [269 KB], iSilo (PDB) [182 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [229 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [265 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [304 KB]
Words: 73274
Reading time: 209-293 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

i got off at three-thirty, but it took me almost an hour to walk home. The factory is a mile off Pacific Boulevard, and we live a mile up the hill from Pacific. Or up the mountain, I should say. How they ever managed to pour concrete on those hill streets is beyond me. You can tie your shoelaces going up them without stooping.

Jo was across the street, playing with the minister's little girl. Watching for me, too, I guess. She came streaking across to my side, corn-yellow curls bobbing around her rose-and-white face. She hugged me around the knees and kissed my hand--something I don't like her to do, but can't stop.

She asked me how I liked my new job, and how much pay I was getting, and when payday was--all in one breath. I told her not to talk so loud out in public, that I wasn't getting as much as I had with the foundation, and that payday was Friday, I thought.

"Can I get a new hat then?"

"I guess so. If it's all right with Mother."

Jo frowned. "Mother won't let me have it. I know she won't. She took Mack and Shannon downtown to buy 'em some new shoes, but she won't get me no hat."

"'No hat'?"

"Any hat, I mean."

"Where'd she get the money to go shopping with? Didn't she pay the rent?"

"I guess not," Jo said.

"Oh, goddam!" I said. "Now, what the hell will we do? Well, what are you gaping for? Go on and play. Get away from me. Get out of my sight. Go on, go on!"

I reached out to shake her, but I caught myself and hugged her instead. I cannot stand anyone who is unkind to children--children, dogs, or old people. I don't know what is getting the matter with me that I would shake Jo. I don't know.

"Don't pay any attention to me, baby," I said. "You know I didn't mean anything."

Jo's smile came back. "You're just tired, that's all," she said. "You go in and lie down and you'll feel better."

I said I would, and she kissed my hand again and scurried back across the street.

Jo is nine--my oldest child.