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Texas By The Tail (1965)

by Jim Thompson(Favorite Author)

3.45 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0316403741 (ISBN13: 9780316403740)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Mulholland Books

review 1: Thompson is a man who sees the world as a series of near misses. He views every moment in life as a step closer to a happiness and goodness that will, ultimately, be taken from you before it comes to fruition. The human condition, it seems to Thompson, is one in which we are always almost there, always getting close and some lucky few may pass the gates, but the rest of us will be chewed to bits by the great grinder.All of this probably comes back to his father who made and lost a fortune in the Texas oil boom, while he watched his peers get richer and more sinister. The good, in Thompson's experience, did not thrive. The vile thrived and the rest of us were left with the scraps from their table for which we were expected to be endlessly grateful.Not that his protagoni... morests are moral milestones, of course. Sure, they have their code and live by it and there's some inherent value in that, but mostly, they just lack the power to do big things and, perhaps more importantly, they lack the moral blackness to ever amass any real wealth or power. Texas by the Tail is perhaps his purest vision of this world. In it, we find Thompson clearly drawing the line between those that are outside the law and those that make the laws and we are never given a moment to doubt which are the most reprehensible.You would be missing something if you didn't pay close attention to the direction the river runs in all this, though. It does not seem to be part of Thompson's vision that wealth makes a person immoral. Rather, it is that only the most monstrous specimens of humanity have what it truly takes to amass great wealth. And, ultimately, that difference makes all the difference.Thompson chooses to explore this idea in Texas by the Tail, through the lens of professional gambler, Mitch Corley. Mitch is a man with a code. Sure, he plays dice for a living, but he never uses violence and only gambles with those that can afford it. Unfortunately for him, that's just too much honor (even as little as it is) for him to make it cleanly through dark underbelly of Texas in the peak of the Oil Boom.At risk for Mitch is the love of his life ("Red") and the money they've squirreled away over the years toward their retirement. The villains of the piece include:- the wretched wife, who was spent their years together working secretly, as a whore and now proceeds to blackmail Mitch for even the money used to pay their son's school tuition.- a wealthy land family that has two reputations: (1) they've run much of Texas since the civil war, and (2) they take a malicious delight in destroying people emotionally and physically.- the ultimate oil tycoon, a man who wants for nothing but seems to pass his days looking for someone to shatter to bits, regardless of whether they deserve it or not.- a hapless banker, as corrupt as he is pathetic, who is so desirous of the approval of others that he will stoop to almost anything to get it.- a school headmaster who wants to kick Mitch's son out of the fine boarding school he attends on the grounds that the boy's mother is a prostitute.I won't go into details about who comes into play where and how it all comes together, but suffice to say that the central journey of the book is the journey by Mitch through the mud of his life and the characters that inhabit it so that he can emerge on the other side with a little nest egg that he and Red can use to live the life of their dreams.Don't get me wrong, Mitch is far from a saint. In fact, a large chunk of the problems in this book are, while directly brought on by sinister external forces, at least partially his fault. But even those are shaped by Thompson to be somehow understandable. A lie Mitch told long before the story starts is what begins the great downward spiral from which Mitch, in all his sincerity, is trying to escape. A poorly thought out plan based on greed and desperation sets another villain after him. But again, Thompson designs the story such that even the poor decision is based on desperation rather than any real sinister motive. The question, finally, that Thompson looks to answer here is whether any nominally decent man can carve out a little slice of happiness in a world owned and operated by sadistic people who have everything and want more. Always more.
review 2: I recently re-read this book and remembered liking it more than I did the second time. Possibly the least "hard-boiled" of Thompson's books and not nearly as dark as the writing he is known for. I would never suggest this as an introduction to Jim Thompson. It's more of a supplement to the style of writing that he fathered. Still it is a testament to Thompson's extensive knowledge of certain facets of fringe or underworld culture such as shooting dice. less

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