What do you think?
Rate this book
Savage Night
Jake Winroy had no looks, no education, and little else before he'd worked his way to the top of a million-dollar-a-month horse-betting ring. But when the state's latched onto his game, the feds take a bite and the lawyer fees eat away at the rest, all Jake's got left is the bottle and a beautiful wife whose every word is ugly.
Jake's to be the top witness in a major case against organized crime -- if he hasn't already kicked the bucket before the trial has its day in court. But an enigmatic mafioso known only as The Man has a plan to make dead certain Jake never gets the chance to testify.
The Man's hired Charlie "Little" Bigger, a hit man barely five feet tall, to infiltrate the Winroy residence as a tenant and murder Winroy in cold blood. To Little, it seems like the easiest job on Earth. Until he lays eyes on the beautiful and dangerous Fay and the Winroy's young housemaid Ruth, a woman as sensual as she is vulnerable. Savage Night is Jim Thompson at his most unpredictable and deeply suspenseful, in a claustrophobic thriller of one man's fractured mind.
Jake's to be the top witness in a major case against organized crime -- if he hasn't already kicked the bucket before the trial has its day in court. But an enigmatic mafioso known only as The Man has a plan to make dead certain Jake never gets the chance to testify.
The Man's hired Charlie "Little" Bigger, a hit man barely five feet tall, to infiltrate the Winroy residence as a tenant and murder Winroy in cold blood. To Little, it seems like the easiest job on Earth. Until he lays eyes on the beautiful and dangerous Fay and the Winroy's young housemaid Ruth, a woman as sensual as she is vulnerable. Savage Night is Jim Thompson at his most unpredictable and deeply suspenseful, in a claustrophobic thriller of one man's fractured mind.
229 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
About the author
Jim Thompson
140 books1,563 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
James Myers Thompson was a United States writer of novels, short stories and screenplays, largely in the hardboiled style of crime fiction.
Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority of which were original paperback publications by pulp fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. Despite some positive critical notice, notably by Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow, when in the late 1980s, several novels were re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered crime fiction.
Thompson's writing culminated in a few of his best-regarded works: The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. In these works, Thompson turned the derided pulp genre into literature and art, featuring unreliable narrators, odd structure, and surrealism.
The writer R.V. Cassills has suggested that of all pulp fiction, Thompson's was the rawest and most harrowing; that neither Dashiell Hammett nor Raymond Chandler nor even Horace McCoy, author of the bleak They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, ever "wrote a book within miles of Thompson". Similarly, in the introduction to Now and on Earth, Stephen King says he most admires Thompson's work because "The guy was over the top. The guy was absolutely over the top. Big Jim didn't know the meaning of the word stop. There are three brave lets inherent in the forgoing: he let himself see everything, he let himself write it down, then he let himself publish it."
Thompson admired Fyodor Dostoevsky and was nicknamed "Dimestore Dostoevsky" by writer Geoffrey O'Brien. Film director Stephen Frears, who directed an adaptation of Thompson's The Grifters as 1990's The Grifters, also identified elements of Greek tragedy in his themes.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 229 reviews
May 29, 2021
While not the equal of his best novels like Pop. 1280 or The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night is still pure Jim Thompson, which is to say that it is set in a seamy, violent, corrupt world populated by amoral, damaged, and sadistic characters. Like most Thompson novels, it's not for the feint of heart.
The main protagonist is a hitman named Charlie "Little" Bigger. Approximately thirty-five years old, Bigger stands at barely five feet tall and weighs only around a hundred pounds. His eyesight is terrible; most of his teeth have fallen out, and he suffers from tuberculosis. Still, Bigger is reputed to be "the deadliest, most elusive killer in criminal history," and despite his appearance, he has a reputation for being "very ingratiating, particularly in the case of women..."
Bigger dropped off the map in 1943, but now a mob boss in New York, known only as "The Man," has tracked him down to Arizona, where Bigger had gone for his health. The Man is forcing Charlie to do one last job, which is to assassinate a former member of the mob who has turned rat and is scheduled to testify for the prosecution in an upcoming trial. However, Bigger is tasked with killing his target in a way that will not look like murder.
The target is a man named Jake Winroy who is now living in Pearldale, a dead-end little town about a hundred miles from New York City. Masquerading as Carl Bigelow, Bigger arrives in Pearldale and takes a room in the rooming house run by Winroy's wife, a "stepper" named Fay. Also living in the house is a peculiar man named Kendall, who runs the local bakery. The maid is a young college student named Ruthie who is missing most of her left leg and who has a very odd deformity. Bigger announces that he's in town to enroll in the local teacher's college and begins worming his way into the household, plotting out the best way to kill Jake Winroy.
This may be the most bizarre cast of characters assembled in a crime novel since Nightmare Alley, and as the story unfolds things go from Very Strange to Even Stranger. The book takes a number of unexpected twists and turns, and reading it is a deliciously nasty business. Again, it's not for everyone, but if you like your novels dark, and sick with no redeeming value whatsoever, you might want to seek it out.
The main protagonist is a hitman named Charlie "Little" Bigger. Approximately thirty-five years old, Bigger stands at barely five feet tall and weighs only around a hundred pounds. His eyesight is terrible; most of his teeth have fallen out, and he suffers from tuberculosis. Still, Bigger is reputed to be "the deadliest, most elusive killer in criminal history," and despite his appearance, he has a reputation for being "very ingratiating, particularly in the case of women..."
Bigger dropped off the map in 1943, but now a mob boss in New York, known only as "The Man," has tracked him down to Arizona, where Bigger had gone for his health. The Man is forcing Charlie to do one last job, which is to assassinate a former member of the mob who has turned rat and is scheduled to testify for the prosecution in an upcoming trial. However, Bigger is tasked with killing his target in a way that will not look like murder.
The target is a man named Jake Winroy who is now living in Pearldale, a dead-end little town about a hundred miles from New York City. Masquerading as Carl Bigelow, Bigger arrives in Pearldale and takes a room in the rooming house run by Winroy's wife, a "stepper" named Fay. Also living in the house is a peculiar man named Kendall, who runs the local bakery. The maid is a young college student named Ruthie who is missing most of her left leg and who has a very odd deformity. Bigger announces that he's in town to enroll in the local teacher's college and begins worming his way into the household, plotting out the best way to kill Jake Winroy.
This may be the most bizarre cast of characters assembled in a crime novel since Nightmare Alley, and as the story unfolds things go from Very Strange to Even Stranger. The book takes a number of unexpected twists and turns, and reading it is a deliciously nasty business. Again, it's not for everyone, but if you like your novels dark, and sick with no redeeming value whatsoever, you might want to seek it out.
August 6, 2011
Carl Bigelow comes to Peardale to go to college. Or that's his story, at any rate. In reality, he's Charles "Little" Bigger, a tuberculotic hitman, tasked with killing a witness before a case goes to trial. Too bad Bigelow gets entangled with the man's wife...
No two ways about it; there's a lot of weird stuff going on in this one. You've got a five-foot hitman with tuberculosis, an odd cleaning woman , and more dysfunction than you can shake a stick at.
While it's definitely a second tier Thompson, it's still a good read. Bigelow's descent into madness is well done. Has Thompson ever told a story where the narrator isn't unreliable? The supporting cast drove the story along, specifically wondering which of them, if any, were working for The Man. There were a ton of twists at the end that I didn't really see coming. Bigelow's final fate wasn't all that surprising. This IS Jim Thompson we're talking about.
Not my favorite Jim Thompson but not a bad read either. I wouldn't start my Jim Thompson reading with this one though.
No two ways about it; there's a lot of weird stuff going on in this one. You've got a five-foot hitman with tuberculosis, an odd cleaning woman , and more dysfunction than you can shake a stick at.
While it's definitely a second tier Thompson, it's still a good read. Bigelow's descent into madness is well done. Has Thompson ever told a story where the narrator isn't unreliable? The supporting cast drove the story along, specifically wondering which of them, if any, were working for The Man. There were a ton of twists at the end that I didn't really see coming. Bigelow's final fate wasn't all that surprising. This IS Jim Thompson we're talking about.
Not my favorite Jim Thompson but not a bad read either. I wouldn't start my Jim Thompson reading with this one though.
August 31, 2022
"And a punchy booze-stupe without enough guts to string a uke could come along and put the blocks to you."
...Come again?
Jim Thompson as usual brings the authentic hillbilly dialogue, and his cold-storage room- the kind that only opens from the outside- is an unnerving variation on Chekhov's gun.
That said, I didn't enjoy this quite as much as some of the other Thompson novels I've read- The Grifters still being my favorite. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a character as absurd as Charlie "Little" Bigger, the five-foot assassin.
March 9, 2021
Deranged existentialist noir filtered through an unreliable first-person narrator who is a schizophrenic hit man with tuberculosis. Is the novel flawed or genius? Hard to say, probably both. First time through I struggled a bit with the pacing because some of the scenes appear filler and move slow and the dialog is full of dashes and ellipses and stuttered words. By the end, wow. Immediately reread it and then again. Those filler scenes are packed full of clues and edginess that only become apparent later as the story winds down and the narrator unravels. A pulp noir with grotesque and carnivalesque styling. Thompson is in a class by himself when it comes to unreliable narrators.
January 25, 2020
Jim Thompson has a well-deserved reputation as one of the greatest of all the pulp writers. He wrote thirty novels in the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, including The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night, Hell of A Woman, The Getaway, and The Grifters. The Getaway was a huge box office hit in 1972 starring Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw. Its 1994 remake was also a hit, starring Baldwin and Basinger. The Grifters also became a big hit in the movies in 1990, produced by Scorsese and starring Cusack, Huston, and Bening. Donald Westlake wrote the screenplay. But watching a movie based on one of Thompson’s books is not the same as reading the original material. Although hundreds of writers have tried to ape his style, there was only one Jim Thompson. His tales are sordid. They are filled with psychopaths and grifters. His heroes are anti-heroes. They are not just criminals, but often mean, violent, sadistic men. Also, his books are filled with a sardonic sense of humor that often leaves the reader laughing out loud.
Savage Night is a tale about a pint-sized contract killer who has been brought out of Arizona retirement to do one last job for “the Man” and Thompson never gives “the Man” a name. He is just a shadowy figure, representing mobster chieftains. It begins with “Little Biggers” arriving in New York after “three days of babes and booze while [he] waited to see the Man.” He then takes the railroad out to some poh-dunk dead- end town called Peardale where Jake Hinson is living – Jake Winroy who is about to testify at a trial that will bring down the gambling interests in the city. He explains that the farther he got into Peardale, the less he liked it. “The whole place had a kind of decayed, dying-on- the-vine appearance.” It was ninety-five miles from the city and nothing there but a small teacher’s college. “There was something sad about it, something that reminded [him] of bald-headed men who comb their side hair across the top.”
Because he looked young for his age, Biggers is to enroll at the college and take a room in the Winroy house and wait for his instructions to off Winroy. He uses the name Carl Bigelow since it is close enough to his real name- Charles Bigger- that he can remember it. Bigger is an odd hero for a book- he is short. He wears elevator shoes. He has false teeth and is barely healthy enough to get around without losing his lunch.
When he gets to the Winroy house, he notes the brown grass and the paint-peeled fence, but then his eyes came up and looked across the street and saw Fay, Jake’s wife, who had a reputation as quite a “stepper.” “She had one of those husky well-bred voices.” “One look at that frame of hers, and you knew the kind of breeding she’d had: straight out of Beautyrest by box-springs. One look at her eyes, and you knew she could call you more dirty words than you’d find in a mile of privies.” But Biggers knows what she is. And, he ain’t falling for her. As he pulls her by the hair up out of the tub, “She stood there on the bathmat, fighting with everything she had to fight with - - offering it all to me. And she saw it wasn’t enough. She knew it before I knew it myself.” And, after that scene, he’d broken the ice but good and she knew who he was now if she hadn’t had a damned good idea before and she knew why he was in Peardale and it was okay with her. “She was stacked. She was pretty. She was just about everything you could want in a woman – as long as you were on top or you looked like you might be on top.”
In the hands of a lesser author, this book would be slow as Biggers bides his time until he does the hit, but Thompson fills that time up with an odd assortment of characters, including a one-legged girl who Biggers takes advantage of, the calculating femme fatale of Fay, the old peculiar bakery manager who must be in on the deal to act so queer (Mr. Kendall), and the sheriff who won’t let up on Biggers. The time is filled with exploiting cripples, plotting to kill his landlord, putting out matches on a woman’s chest, sticking knives in his associates’ necks, and other beastly acts. All the while, Biggers puts on an act as if he were the prince of innocence himself.
One of the oddest episodes is his dalliance with Ruthie, she of the one- legged fame. When she arrived, one good look is all he got, but what he saw interested him. “Maybe it wouldn’t interest you, but it did me.” She had on “an old muckledung-colored coat – the way it was screaming Sears-Roebuck they should have paid her to wear it.” He observes that “the swinging around on that crutch hadn’t done her rear end any harm. If you saw it by itself, you might have thought it belonged to a Shetland pony.”
The ending is Thompson-esque in its strangeness and uniqueness as blood and mental illness take over. This is prototypical nihilism and is found throughout the book such as a scene where Biggers is angry and elbows through a crowd getting on a subway car, noting he had elbowed a woman holding a baby good and wondering if the baby would be better off under the wheels of the train than going through the crap of life.
This is vintage Thompson and it is noir like nothing else you have ever read. Enjoy.
Savage Night is a tale about a pint-sized contract killer who has been brought out of Arizona retirement to do one last job for “the Man” and Thompson never gives “the Man” a name. He is just a shadowy figure, representing mobster chieftains. It begins with “Little Biggers” arriving in New York after “three days of babes and booze while [he] waited to see the Man.” He then takes the railroad out to some poh-dunk dead- end town called Peardale where Jake Hinson is living – Jake Winroy who is about to testify at a trial that will bring down the gambling interests in the city. He explains that the farther he got into Peardale, the less he liked it. “The whole place had a kind of decayed, dying-on- the-vine appearance.” It was ninety-five miles from the city and nothing there but a small teacher’s college. “There was something sad about it, something that reminded [him] of bald-headed men who comb their side hair across the top.”
Because he looked young for his age, Biggers is to enroll at the college and take a room in the Winroy house and wait for his instructions to off Winroy. He uses the name Carl Bigelow since it is close enough to his real name- Charles Bigger- that he can remember it. Bigger is an odd hero for a book- he is short. He wears elevator shoes. He has false teeth and is barely healthy enough to get around without losing his lunch.
When he gets to the Winroy house, he notes the brown grass and the paint-peeled fence, but then his eyes came up and looked across the street and saw Fay, Jake’s wife, who had a reputation as quite a “stepper.” “She had one of those husky well-bred voices.” “One look at that frame of hers, and you knew the kind of breeding she’d had: straight out of Beautyrest by box-springs. One look at her eyes, and you knew she could call you more dirty words than you’d find in a mile of privies.” But Biggers knows what she is. And, he ain’t falling for her. As he pulls her by the hair up out of the tub, “She stood there on the bathmat, fighting with everything she had to fight with - - offering it all to me. And she saw it wasn’t enough. She knew it before I knew it myself.” And, after that scene, he’d broken the ice but good and she knew who he was now if she hadn’t had a damned good idea before and she knew why he was in Peardale and it was okay with her. “She was stacked. She was pretty. She was just about everything you could want in a woman – as long as you were on top or you looked like you might be on top.”
In the hands of a lesser author, this book would be slow as Biggers bides his time until he does the hit, but Thompson fills that time up with an odd assortment of characters, including a one-legged girl who Biggers takes advantage of, the calculating femme fatale of Fay, the old peculiar bakery manager who must be in on the deal to act so queer (Mr. Kendall), and the sheriff who won’t let up on Biggers. The time is filled with exploiting cripples, plotting to kill his landlord, putting out matches on a woman’s chest, sticking knives in his associates’ necks, and other beastly acts. All the while, Biggers puts on an act as if he were the prince of innocence himself.
One of the oddest episodes is his dalliance with Ruthie, she of the one- legged fame. When she arrived, one good look is all he got, but what he saw interested him. “Maybe it wouldn’t interest you, but it did me.” She had on “an old muckledung-colored coat – the way it was screaming Sears-Roebuck they should have paid her to wear it.” He observes that “the swinging around on that crutch hadn’t done her rear end any harm. If you saw it by itself, you might have thought it belonged to a Shetland pony.”
The ending is Thompson-esque in its strangeness and uniqueness as blood and mental illness take over. This is prototypical nihilism and is found throughout the book such as a scene where Biggers is angry and elbows through a crowd getting on a subway car, noting he had elbowed a woman holding a baby good and wondering if the baby would be better off under the wheels of the train than going through the crap of life.
This is vintage Thompson and it is noir like nothing else you have ever read. Enjoy.
September 21, 2010
This is one of my favorite pulp crime novels. Jim Thompson is a master at pedestrian dialogue in the first person structure (see also the Killer Inside Me and After Dark My Sweet), especially in this novel. The narrative is a strange journey into a surreal and maddening hell. It is strange to see some of the reviews cite the book as being boring, and typical noir fair, this book is anything but. From the description of Carl's journey through Grand Central Station where he actually hits a woman with a child in the breast to the flash back of him being picked up by the strange porn writer who talks about growing the better parts of the female anatomy on his farm. There's sex, booze, weird sex on booze and an ever encroaching sense of dread that hangs like a hallucination over the narrators head. Absolutely one of my favorite American crime novels by one the best crime writers.
Read
July 6, 2023A wild ride. 4.5 stars for the first four-fifths of this truly surreal noir. Written in indelible prose, it's narrated by an ailing baby-faced hitman and chocked full of matter-of-fact violence, tender and transgressive sex, multiplying identities, switching allegiances, and churning betrayals. It offers a funhouse portrait of American values and shows how we're all pinned down by the system.
Then there's the end... the novel doesn't so much go off the rails as invent an entirely new track for itself. It's such a mess that it's almost avant garde, but that doesn't mean it remotely works. Wonder if Thompson ever fantasized about revisiting this and giving it a worthy conclusion?
Then there's the end... the novel doesn't so much go off the rails as invent an entirely new track for itself. It's such a mess that it's almost avant garde, but that doesn't mean it remotely works. Wonder if Thompson ever fantasized about revisiting this and giving it a worthy conclusion?
October 22, 2011
kind of the batshit version of cain, hammett, & chandler. sluggishly paced, schematic, w/o much true conflict -- flawed, for sure, but elevated by the vagina farm, all those damn goats, a femme fatale on crutches with a baby foot jutting out of her knee, and those transcendent last few pages. 3.7 rounded down b/c i'm mean.
March 29, 2022
b a n g e r
July 14, 2017
Although hundreds of writers have tried to ape his style, there was only one Jim Thompson. His tales are sordid. They are filled with psychopaths and grifters. His heroes are anti-heroes. They are not just criminals, but often mean, violent, sadistic men. Also, his books are filled with a sardonic sense of humor that often leaves the reader laughing out loud.
Savage Night is a tale about a pint-sized contract killer who has been brought out of Arizona retirement to do one last job for "the Man" and Thompson never gives "the Man" a name. He is just a shadowy figure, representing mobster chieftains. It begins with "Little Biggers" arriving in New York after "three days of babes and booze while [he] waited to see the Man." He then takes the railroad out to some poh-dunk dead- end town called Peardale where Jake Hinson is living - Jake Winroy who is about to testify at a trial that will bring down the gambling interests in the city. He explains that the farther he got into Peardale, the less he liked it. "The whole place had a kind of decayed, dying-on- the-vine appearance." It was ninety-five miles from the city and nothing there but a small teacher's college. "There was something sad about it, something that reminded [him] of bald-headed men who comb their side hair across the top."
Because he looked young for his age, Biggers is to enroll at the college and take a room in the Winroy house and wait for his instructions to off Winroy. He uses the name Carl Bigelow since it is close enough to his real name- Charles Bigger- that he can remember it. Bigger is an odd hero for a book- he is short. He wears elevator shoes. He has false teeth and is barely healthy enough to get around without losing his lunch.
When he gets to the Winroy house, he notes the brown grass and the paint-peeled fence, but then his eyes came up and looked across the street and saw Fay, Jake's wife, who had a reputation as quite a "stepper." "She had one of those husky well-bred voices." "One look at that frame of hers, and you knew the kind of breeding she'd had: straight out of Beautyrest by box-springs. One look at her eyes, and you knew she could call you more dirty words than you'd find in a mile of privies."
But Biggers knows what she is. And, he ain't falling for her. As he pulls her by the hair up out of the tub, "She stood there on the bathmat, fighting with everything she had to fight with - - offering it all to me. And she saw it wasn't enough. She knew it before I knew it myself." And, after that scene, he'd broken the ice but good and she knew who he was now if she hadn't had a damned good idea before and she knew why he was in Peardale and it was okay with her. "She was stacked. She was pretty. She was just about everything you could want in a woman - as long as you were on top or you looked like you might be on top."
In the hands of a lesser author, this book would be slow as Biggers bides his time until he does the hit, but Thompson fills that time up with an odd assortment of characters, including a one-legged girl who Biggers takes advantage of, the calculating femme fatale of Fay, the old peculiar bakery manager who must be in on the deal to act so queer (Mr. Kendall), and the sheriff who won't let up on Biggers. The time is filled with exploiting cripples, plotting to kill his landlord, putting out matches on a woman's chest, sticking knives in his associates' necks, and other beastly acts. All the while, on an act as if he were the prince of innocence himself.
One of the oddest episodes is his dalliance with Ruthie, legged fame. When she arrived, one good look is all he he saw interested him. "Maybe it wouldn't interest you, She had on "an old muckledung-colored coat - the way screaming Sears-Roebuck they should have paid her to
observes that "the swinging around on that crutch hadn't done her rear end any harm. If you saw it by itself, you might have thought it belonged to a Shetland pony."
The ending is Thompson-esque in its strangeness and uniqueness as blood and mental illness take over. This is prototypical nihilism and is found throughout the book such as a scene where Biggers is angry and elbows through a crowd getting on a subway car, noting he had elbowed a woman holding a baby good and wondering if the baby would be better off under the wheels of the train than going through the crap of life.
This is vintage Thompson and it is noir like nothing else you have ever read. Enjoy.
Savage Night is a tale about a pint-sized contract killer who has been brought out of Arizona retirement to do one last job for "the Man" and Thompson never gives "the Man" a name. He is just a shadowy figure, representing mobster chieftains. It begins with "Little Biggers" arriving in New York after "three days of babes and booze while [he] waited to see the Man." He then takes the railroad out to some poh-dunk dead- end town called Peardale where Jake Hinson is living - Jake Winroy who is about to testify at a trial that will bring down the gambling interests in the city. He explains that the farther he got into Peardale, the less he liked it. "The whole place had a kind of decayed, dying-on- the-vine appearance." It was ninety-five miles from the city and nothing there but a small teacher's college. "There was something sad about it, something that reminded [him] of bald-headed men who comb their side hair across the top."
Because he looked young for his age, Biggers is to enroll at the college and take a room in the Winroy house and wait for his instructions to off Winroy. He uses the name Carl Bigelow since it is close enough to his real name- Charles Bigger- that he can remember it. Bigger is an odd hero for a book- he is short. He wears elevator shoes. He has false teeth and is barely healthy enough to get around without losing his lunch.
When he gets to the Winroy house, he notes the brown grass and the paint-peeled fence, but then his eyes came up and looked across the street and saw Fay, Jake's wife, who had a reputation as quite a "stepper." "She had one of those husky well-bred voices." "One look at that frame of hers, and you knew the kind of breeding she'd had: straight out of Beautyrest by box-springs. One look at her eyes, and you knew she could call you more dirty words than you'd find in a mile of privies."
But Biggers knows what she is. And, he ain't falling for her. As he pulls her by the hair up out of the tub, "She stood there on the bathmat, fighting with everything she had to fight with - - offering it all to me. And she saw it wasn't enough. She knew it before I knew it myself." And, after that scene, he'd broken the ice but good and she knew who he was now if she hadn't had a damned good idea before and she knew why he was in Peardale and it was okay with her. "She was stacked. She was pretty. She was just about everything you could want in a woman - as long as you were on top or you looked like you might be on top."
In the hands of a lesser author, this book would be slow as Biggers bides his time until he does the hit, but Thompson fills that time up with an odd assortment of characters, including a one-legged girl who Biggers takes advantage of, the calculating femme fatale of Fay, the old peculiar bakery manager who must be in on the deal to act so queer (Mr. Kendall), and the sheriff who won't let up on Biggers. The time is filled with exploiting cripples, plotting to kill his landlord, putting out matches on a woman's chest, sticking knives in his associates' necks, and other beastly acts. All the while, on an act as if he were the prince of innocence himself.
One of the oddest episodes is his dalliance with Ruthie, legged fame. When she arrived, one good look is all he he saw interested him. "Maybe it wouldn't interest you, She had on "an old muckledung-colored coat - the way screaming Sears-Roebuck they should have paid her to
observes that "the swinging around on that crutch hadn't done her rear end any harm. If you saw it by itself, you might have thought it belonged to a Shetland pony."
The ending is Thompson-esque in its strangeness and uniqueness as blood and mental illness take over. This is prototypical nihilism and is found throughout the book such as a scene where Biggers is angry and elbows through a crowd getting on a subway car, noting he had elbowed a woman holding a baby good and wondering if the baby would be better off under the wheels of the train than going through the crap of life.
This is vintage Thompson and it is noir like nothing else you have ever read. Enjoy.
July 13, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 104 (of 250)
HOOK=3 stars: "The Man" is going to pay our narrator [Carl] $30,000 to do a job. Thompson doesn't clue us in to the nature of the job at first, and neither does he tell us the name of the person at the bad end of said job. But it's Thompson!
PACE= 3: A slow start gets into gear within a chapter or so.
PLOT=3: Carl doesn't understand much about the hit he is about to make. Is Carl the only hitman? Or is Carl going to be the victim? Thompson puts a number of possible plot lines into the readers head. It's as if the author, half through the novel, hasn't yet fully outlined the story and is leaving himself open to interesting possibilities. The final pages are great, but did they come to Thompson in a dream the night before he typed the final pages?
CHARACTERS=4: Our narrator, Carl, is about 5 feet tall, is very ill, and often vomits. He is on the repulsive side and readers realize he in an unreliable narrator as he brags about all the ladies in line for him. He is memorable, completely unreliable as a narrator and he is the only character I could remember the name of upon finishing the book. Then there is a lady possessing a shortened leg and a baby foot, thus moves on one leg and one knee. Very unusual. Above an average cast.
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4: I thought this great: a group of characters stay through Sunday School and Church and by the time Church ends, Carl had figured out the plan to kill the victim. The term 'church' is used correctly as a substitute for "church service" that includes a sermon, singing, passing the plate for $$$ collection, etc. And it's in church the murder method is ironically revealed. A signature Thompson oddity. There is a boardinghouse and a bakery that could be any place. But then, oh, there is the cabin in the forest....not to mention a farm raising "the more interesting portions of the female anatomy." That begs for further explanations, but Thompson leaves it at that. An atmosphere of odd hangs all over this book. This feels a bit Southern Gothic.
SUMMARY: My average rating is 3.4. There is a lot of fascinating things going here, but for me the plot doesn't play logically. Not one of Thompson's best for me.
BOOK 104 (of 250)
HOOK=3 stars: "The Man" is going to pay our narrator [Carl] $30,000 to do a job. Thompson doesn't clue us in to the nature of the job at first, and neither does he tell us the name of the person at the bad end of said job. But it's Thompson!
PACE= 3: A slow start gets into gear within a chapter or so.
PLOT=3: Carl doesn't understand much about the hit he is about to make. Is Carl the only hitman? Or is Carl going to be the victim? Thompson puts a number of possible plot lines into the readers head. It's as if the author, half through the novel, hasn't yet fully outlined the story and is leaving himself open to interesting possibilities. The final pages are great, but did they come to Thompson in a dream the night before he typed the final pages?
CHARACTERS=4: Our narrator, Carl, is about 5 feet tall, is very ill, and often vomits. He is on the repulsive side and readers realize he in an unreliable narrator as he brags about all the ladies in line for him. He is memorable, completely unreliable as a narrator and he is the only character I could remember the name of upon finishing the book. Then there is a lady possessing a shortened leg and a baby foot, thus moves on one leg and one knee. Very unusual. Above an average cast.
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4: I thought this great: a group of characters stay through Sunday School and Church and by the time Church ends, Carl had figured out the plan to kill the victim. The term 'church' is used correctly as a substitute for "church service" that includes a sermon, singing, passing the plate for $$$ collection, etc. And it's in church the murder method is ironically revealed. A signature Thompson oddity. There is a boardinghouse and a bakery that could be any place. But then, oh, there is the cabin in the forest....not to mention a farm raising "the more interesting portions of the female anatomy." That begs for further explanations, but Thompson leaves it at that. An atmosphere of odd hangs all over this book. This feels a bit Southern Gothic.
SUMMARY: My average rating is 3.4. There is a lot of fascinating things going here, but for me the plot doesn't play logically. Not one of Thompson's best for me.
August 8, 2021
Carl Bigelow is one of the most memorable characters in fiction; his boyish looks at five feet tall, his platform shoes, his contact lenses, false teeth and toupee, add to his manner to make him a wonderful invention. Bigelow is a pseudonym. Little Bigger is a contract killer, and has been persuaded to travel to Peardale in Long Island to join the College as a student, and in due course, carry out ‘one last job’.
With the exception of Pop. 1280, other Thompson books didn’t have such a powerful effect on me as this. This is classic noir, so convincing in its narrative that it is frequently frightening.
Here’s a couple of clips..
And…
With the exception of Pop. 1280, other Thompson books didn’t have such a powerful effect on me as this. This is classic noir, so convincing in its narrative that it is frequently frightening.
Here’s a couple of clips..
Kendall. Was he just a nice old busybody, a man who’d taken a fancy to me like a lot of elderly people had, or had The Man got to him? I couldn’t make up my mind about him. Twice now, well three times, I’d thought I had him figured. And each time, even now, right after he’d practically told me where I stood and handed me the deal on a platter, I began to doubt my figuring. I still wasn’t sure.
And…
There was a woman getting on, and I gave it to her in the breasts with my elbow, so hard she almost dropped the baby she was carrying. And she was lucky, too, but maybe the baby wasn’t. Maybe it would have been better off under the wheels. Everything ended.
August 2, 2009
Moments of brilliance and flashes of morbid insanity tempered by occasional lapses of turgid explorations of minutiae, all redeemed/ruined by one of the most absurdly surreal endings of any crime novel I could hope to imagine. There's a running theme of duality, mainly relating to the characters' true motives versus the lies they present; ultimately, Savage Night, both in plot and writing style, appears as a whole to be yet another demonstration of that same theme... it makes out to be a crime novel, but ultimately proves to be something far... weirder. Not brilliant, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.
January 22, 2012
"Sure there's a hell..." I could hear him saying it now, now as I lay here in bed with her breath in my face, and her body squashed against me..."it is the drab desert where the sun shines neither warmth nor light and Habit force-feeds senile Desire. It is the place where mortal Want dwells with immortal Necessity, and the night becomes hideous with groans of one and the shrieks of the other. Yes, there is a hell, my boy, and you do not have to dig for it..."
Thompson plumbs the depths of mundane hell in this stark, bizarre and dark novel. Does it succeed, for all its excesses? All I can say is, read it in a well-lit place, surrounded by people you love and trust.
Thompson plumbs the depths of mundane hell in this stark, bizarre and dark novel. Does it succeed, for all its excesses? All I can say is, read it in a well-lit place, surrounded by people you love and trust.
January 15, 2011
Great writing marred by discursive and inexplicable subplots, problems with the overall story structure, much too slow a pace, and a murky ending that I found totally incomprehensible. Stylistically, it's great at times, but there are just too many logic problems and weird characterization glitches for me to really think it was a good book. However, there are a few passages that should be textbook examples of building suspense.
August 27, 2014
There's nobody who writes like Jim Thompson, and that's the truth. There are crazy things in this book, and if you keep reading, they keep getting crazier. Is it one long metaphor? Is it psychological horror? Is it a comment on the American dream? I'd hazard that the answer is yes, but it's also one hell of a read.
June 23, 2021
For meaningless pictures....https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
I guess it’s no coincidence that I am about to recommend four books read in a row since they are all authors whose works I have determined to read in their entirety.
(1) Savage Night by Jim Thompson. It’s been a while since I’ve read a Jim Thompson and this one seemed more ambitious than I recall. The anti-hero is a tragic figure. The reader may not be able to go as far as empathy – none of us have lived anywhere near this place and these people. But Thompson himself lived the life. So his clever way with words is true. It makes such a difference to know that.
(2) Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks. Not a million miles from Savage Night, but this time the anti-hero is a failed Northern Brit who is doomed to a life on the edge of failure, teaching English in Italy. What could be more demeaning a life? And, of course, like Thompson, Parks is writing for real, having been a teacher of English in Italy for his life’s work. The subtitle says it all ‘A novel of menace’. He is super good at the unease which ensures the reader is gripped in the tale’s vice. Only finishing it gives release.
(3) Harlequin House by Margery Sharp. One could scarcely change the tempo more. A typical story marked by gentle social digs, a love of words and a hilarious motley collection of characters, lead by the protagonist Mr Partridge with his dapper style and overactive imagination. Delightful.
(4) To Siberia by Per Petterson. I did this the discourtesy of it being my reading on the bus book. It definitely deserved better than to be picked up and down half a dozen times a day. It has the trademark Norwegian glumness, but despite that being the basic beat of the book it nonetheless outdoes itself with the very saddest last two sentences. Your heart will sigh when you get there.
I guess it’s no coincidence that I am about to recommend four books read in a row since they are all authors whose works I have determined to read in their entirety.
(1) Savage Night by Jim Thompson. It’s been a while since I’ve read a Jim Thompson and this one seemed more ambitious than I recall. The anti-hero is a tragic figure. The reader may not be able to go as far as empathy – none of us have lived anywhere near this place and these people. But Thompson himself lived the life. So his clever way with words is true. It makes such a difference to know that.
(2) Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks. Not a million miles from Savage Night, but this time the anti-hero is a failed Northern Brit who is doomed to a life on the edge of failure, teaching English in Italy. What could be more demeaning a life? And, of course, like Thompson, Parks is writing for real, having been a teacher of English in Italy for his life’s work. The subtitle says it all ‘A novel of menace’. He is super good at the unease which ensures the reader is gripped in the tale’s vice. Only finishing it gives release.
(3) Harlequin House by Margery Sharp. One could scarcely change the tempo more. A typical story marked by gentle social digs, a love of words and a hilarious motley collection of characters, lead by the protagonist Mr Partridge with his dapper style and overactive imagination. Delightful.
(4) To Siberia by Per Petterson. I did this the discourtesy of it being my reading on the bus book. It definitely deserved better than to be picked up and down half a dozen times a day. It has the trademark Norwegian glumness, but despite that being the basic beat of the book it nonetheless outdoes itself with the very saddest last two sentences. Your heart will sigh when you get there.
August 24, 2012
I hesitate between a 4 or a 5 star rating. It was not flawed. It was masterful. But did I love it? Hmm. It started out with a classic noir plot but the details were so interesting and the writing was so remarkable, then it veered into the totally unpredictable. Then it just kept veering.
November 15, 2021
Has Jim Thompson ever written a likeable character? 80% are arseholes and the other 20% are pathetic...
I was digging this most of the way so 2-stars feels mean but the end was dumb so fuck it.
I was digging this most of the way so 2-stars feels mean but the end was dumb so fuck it.
March 23, 2022
Savage Night is considered to be one of Thompson’s major works (at least according to Wikipedia), so I was very excited to read it. It is a very good novel, but I wouldn’t place it *quite* in the top tier with his greatest masterpieces. It’s the story of a diminutive hit-man with TB, sent to a small town in Long Island kill a mob informant in a way that must look accidental beyond any doubt. Every page drips with paranoia, as the main character doesn’t know who in the town might be sent by the mob to make sure he completes his assignment. He makes a lot of mistakes along the way, really undermining his reputation as a great hitman— for example, he seduces the target’s wife (in classic Thompson fashion, said seduction involves crude violence as foreplay) and brings her in on the scheme. He operates under the tutelage of a scholarly baker he assumes works for the Outfit, and in one suspenseful scene gets locked in a walk-in freezer, something his weak lungs are hardly equipped to handle. The ending packs a vicious wallop, and the book is suspenseful, but I question the internal logic of some of the characters’ choices and how much of the book consists of waiting around for the right moment to strike. I wouldn’t quite put it amongst Thompson’s best, but that still makes it better than nearly any crime novel by another writer.
June 20, 2022
It’s thirty years since I last read this book, but it has stayed with me all this time.
A diminutive hitman takes on one last job in a depressing college town.
Thompson is really good at world building. At creating these bleak towns at the desperate edge of nowhere, then populating then with men and women who would do anything to change their lives. This book falls apart a bit before the end; but it’s still a hell of a read.
A diminutive hitman takes on one last job in a depressing college town.
Thompson is really good at world building. At creating these bleak towns at the desperate edge of nowhere, then populating then with men and women who would do anything to change their lives. This book falls apart a bit before the end; but it’s still a hell of a read.
May 14, 2021
Savage Night might be the most existential Thompson novel I've yet read. The story of Carl Bigelow, a malformed man, someone who only makes five feet by wearing enormous lifts, who operates as a mob boss's hired executioner, takes place against a background of sordid lust, looming death, and purposeless existence. Nobody is safe, not Carl's target, his ally in the plot, the man he thinks is standing watch over him, or the even more malformed woman, Ruthie, he pities. And in fact Carl and Ruthie essentially are man and wife here, two corrupted monsters who also seem to operate with an aura of magic surrounding them.
The style of Savage Night also stands out. There is the usual amorphous and ambiguous start to things, where the world only seems to come into focus in a manner of someone emerging from a hangover. But the surprise is the ending. Often, Thompson leaves things hanging. But, here, he's gone one step further. Carl Bigelow transitions into the essence of non-existence, unlife, which isn't so shocking, because he has been chasing it down the path of madness throughout the novel.
Reading Thompson makes you realize just how much of a level he existed at above other writers of the genre. I've read a lot of James Hadley Chase lately, working on him from an academic point of view, and while Chase has a few works that hop on the boundary of literary modernism, none come close to the world Jim Thompson creates.
Final note: I haven't read a Thompson novel in a few years. One reason is that I ran out of books of his I owned copies of. This is the first downloaded digital Thompson I've read. And he is one of those authors that does not lend his work to digital e-readers. You need the visceral feel of the pages in your hand. He's like Maugham in that regard. Or Conrad. Turning the pages of a Thompson novel are part of the experience that I miss with the digital format. It just doesn't seem the same.
The style of Savage Night also stands out. There is the usual amorphous and ambiguous start to things, where the world only seems to come into focus in a manner of someone emerging from a hangover. But the surprise is the ending. Often, Thompson leaves things hanging. But, here, he's gone one step further. Carl Bigelow transitions into the essence of non-existence, unlife, which isn't so shocking, because he has been chasing it down the path of madness throughout the novel.
Reading Thompson makes you realize just how much of a level he existed at above other writers of the genre. I've read a lot of James Hadley Chase lately, working on him from an academic point of view, and while Chase has a few works that hop on the boundary of literary modernism, none come close to the world Jim Thompson creates.
Final note: I haven't read a Thompson novel in a few years. One reason is that I ran out of books of his I owned copies of. This is the first downloaded digital Thompson I've read. And he is one of those authors that does not lend his work to digital e-readers. You need the visceral feel of the pages in your hand. He's like Maugham in that regard. Or Conrad. Turning the pages of a Thompson novel are part of the experience that I miss with the digital format. It just doesn't seem the same.
March 4, 2022
My first book by Jim Thompson, and I'm not entirely sure this was the right novel to start with. I liked the subject - a hitman who reluctantly starts his last job, but whose best days are behind him and who is deteriorating physically and mentally. I liked the noir elements, but in my eyes the plot is a bit incomprehensible: It's about eliminating a witness before a hearing. This is supposed to be done inconspicuously, which is why the protagonist, disguised as a student, rents a room in the target's house in order to slowly stalk him. In the process, he hooks up with both the kitchen help and the witness's wife, befriends the sheriff and his wife, and is otherwise involved in numerous small-town entanglements. All in all, a rather roundabout approach.
The people involved are also partially privy to his mission, and every word spoken is weighed in the balance in a constant analysis. It was often unclear to me what the contract killer actually wants and intends. If Thompson only wanted to credibly portray that the anti-hero actually has no more desire to kill and disdains his previous life, he succeeded well. However, the way to get there is a bit complicated. The end comes very abruptly and ends in a frenzy fever fantasy, which can only be explained by the fact that the protagonist has gone completely insane. In conclusion, "Savage Night" is certainly a very special book. However, both in terms of style and plot, the book made me nervous and restless. But maybe that was exactly Thompson's goal.
The people involved are also partially privy to his mission, and every word spoken is weighed in the balance in a constant analysis. It was often unclear to me what the contract killer actually wants and intends. If Thompson only wanted to credibly portray that the anti-hero actually has no more desire to kill and disdains his previous life, he succeeded well. However, the way to get there is a bit complicated. The end comes very abruptly and ends in a frenzy fever fantasy, which can only be explained by the fact that the protagonist has gone completely insane. In conclusion, "Savage Night" is certainly a very special book. However, both in terms of style and plot, the book made me nervous and restless. But maybe that was exactly Thompson's goal.
February 28, 2019
Nudo, crudo e surreale
Per non smuovere troppo le acque, l'omicidio di un ex malavitoso, Jake Winroy, dovrà tassativamente sembrare un incidente. Così non potrà testimoniare al processo. E la malavita potrà continuare i suoi affari.
Carl Bigelow — dietro questo nome, in realtà si nasconde Charlie “Little” Bigger, un inafferrabile killer —, 1 metro e 52 centimetri, è l'uomo che viene assoldato per il lavoretto, lui che di uccisioni se ne intende.
Si inventa una parte per poter avvicinare la vittima, quella di uno studente in cerca di alloggio. Da lì in poi sarà solo la sua furbizia lo strumento per creare l'occasione propizia. E l'aiuto della bella mogliettina della vittima, così smaniosa di diventare vedova.
Un'altra avventura alla Thompson, questa volta con un protagonista forse meno carismatico del solito, meno folle, ma certamente non meno incisivo.
Bigelow convive con le sue menomazioni, la sua altezza, una tubercolosi in atto, i denti mancanti, che lo collocano in un universo di freaks cui appartiene anche Ruthie, una ragazza con una gamba sola che lavora in casa di Jake. Si riconosce in lei, la capisce, la vuole aiutare.
Nel frattempo, porta avanti il suo piano per far capitare un incidente a Jake.
Come spesso accade nelle storie di Thompson, il finale ribalta le cose, le modifica o le rende diverse, e anche questo romanzo non fa eccezione: un sentiero 'surreale' si insinua tra le parole e le smembra. Loro e non solo loro.
Per non smuovere troppo le acque, l'omicidio di un ex malavitoso, Jake Winroy, dovrà tassativamente sembrare un incidente. Così non potrà testimoniare al processo. E la malavita potrà continuare i suoi affari.
Carl Bigelow — dietro questo nome, in realtà si nasconde Charlie “Little” Bigger, un inafferrabile killer —, 1 metro e 52 centimetri, è l'uomo che viene assoldato per il lavoretto, lui che di uccisioni se ne intende.
Si inventa una parte per poter avvicinare la vittima, quella di uno studente in cerca di alloggio. Da lì in poi sarà solo la sua furbizia lo strumento per creare l'occasione propizia. E l'aiuto della bella mogliettina della vittima, così smaniosa di diventare vedova.
Un'altra avventura alla Thompson, questa volta con un protagonista forse meno carismatico del solito, meno folle, ma certamente non meno incisivo.
Bigelow convive con le sue menomazioni, la sua altezza, una tubercolosi in atto, i denti mancanti, che lo collocano in un universo di freaks cui appartiene anche Ruthie, una ragazza con una gamba sola che lavora in casa di Jake. Si riconosce in lei, la capisce, la vuole aiutare.
Nel frattempo, porta avanti il suo piano per far capitare un incidente a Jake.
Come spesso accade nelle storie di Thompson, il finale ribalta le cose, le modifica o le rende diverse, e anche questo romanzo non fa eccezione: un sentiero 'surreale' si insinua tra le parole e le smembra. Loro e non solo loro.
January 11, 2009
simply the greatest psycho noir novel written. Carl Bigelow, the self-delusional hit man, is a brilliant creation, as he's literally disintegrating throughout the novel. The ending is devastating. I love Jim Thompson's books, and this is my favorite.
Read
August 3, 2018not my thing... didn´t finish it and passed it on.
August 24, 2018
A terrific Noir set-up with an uneven follow through and a confusing conclusion.
March 23, 2023
Through and through, an utter masterpiece. Wow! Fast-paced, suspenseful, surprising. About to go order every book this guy ever wrote.
February 2, 2015
A shadowy crime boss known as ‘The Man’ sends contract killer Carl Bigelow to a small town, on a mission to kill a man, by the name of Jake Winroy. Jake is a key witness in a forthcoming court case. Carl, whose ruse is that he has come to study at a language school, finds lodgings with Jake’s family, and takes a part-time job at a bakery.
Matters start to go awry for the diminutive, doomed hit man, when he first arouses the suspicion of the town’s sheriff, and later goes on to have an affair with both Jake’s wife, and Fay, the disabled housekeeper. Events eventually culminate in an unpredictable end.
Protagonist Carl is a paranoid, pensive and perplexing character, who suffers poor health, and is convinced that he is disintegrating - he often comments that there is not much of him left. Acutely aware of his weaknesses, Carl is attracted to ugliness, as he sees himself reflected in it.
Savage Night is a suspenseful crime novel about a vulnerable narrator, who is both a victim and perpetrator, that explores the ugly side of the human condition. This is a nihilistic and violent book that utilises Jim Thompson’s trademark stark, pulp prose style.
Matters start to go awry for the diminutive, doomed hit man, when he first arouses the suspicion of the town’s sheriff, and later goes on to have an affair with both Jake’s wife, and Fay, the disabled housekeeper. Events eventually culminate in an unpredictable end.
Protagonist Carl is a paranoid, pensive and perplexing character, who suffers poor health, and is convinced that he is disintegrating - he often comments that there is not much of him left. Acutely aware of his weaknesses, Carl is attracted to ugliness, as he sees himself reflected in it.
Savage Night is a suspenseful crime novel about a vulnerable narrator, who is both a victim and perpetrator, that explores the ugly side of the human condition. This is a nihilistic and violent book that utilises Jim Thompson’s trademark stark, pulp prose style.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 229 reviews