Now and on earth

Description

America's low-key high priest of human vice and violently wounded psyches, Jim Thompson emerged from the darkness with this 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.

Description

"San Diego in the years before World War II. James Dillon is barely scraping by working a menial job in manufacturing, trying to raise a family and support his elderly mother and sister Frankie at the same time. He drinks too hard--just like his father and nearly everyone in his extended family. With so many people crammed into one home, sometimes there's so much fighting he can barely stand it. But if James can survive the chaos of everyday life long enough, maybe--just maybe--there's a chance it'll all get better. NOW AND ON EARTH, Jim Thompson's first novel, draws on personal experience to depict a hardscrabble life in the sun-soaked streets of mid-20th century California. Chronicling the birth of a writer and the plight of the working man, it prefigures the American classics that followed, in a deeply-felt, autobiographical tale that shows a writer just coming into his own"-- ?c Provided by publisher.

Subjects

Series Statement

• Vintage crime/Black Lizard

Other Editions

• Now and on earthVintage Books1994-01-01
• Now and on earthModern Age Books1942-01-01
• Now and On EarthE-bookereads.com2002-01-01