Pop. 1280

Last updated
Pop. 1280
Pop1280Novel.jpg
First edition
Author Jim Thompson
CountryUnited States
Language English
Genre Crime novel
Publisher Gold Medal Books
Publication date
1964
Media typePrint
Pages143 pp

Pop. 1280 is a crime novel by Jim Thompson published in 1964. [1] [2]

Contents

Set in the fictional town of Pottsville during the early 20th century, the novel follows Nick Corey, a seemingly dim-witted sheriff whose pleasant exterior hides a scheming, psychopathic personality. He holds a deeply cynical view of his town and views his place there as enforcing the law as little as possible. Through the course of the novel Nick commits a series of increasingly egregious crimes against deserving and innocent people alike and expertly manipulates those around him to avoid accountability and realize his desires.

The book's critical reception has been largely positive. NPR's Stephen Marche described it as Thompson's "true masterpiece, a preposterously upsetting, ridiculously hilarious layer cake of nastiness, a romp through a world of nearly infinite deceit." [3] Charlie Higson noted that "The book manages to switch between hilarious and horrific in a startling manner." [4]

Plot

Pop. 1280 is the first-person narrative of Nick Corey, the listless sheriff of Potts County, the "47th (out of 47) largest county in the state". He lives in Pottsville which has a population of "1280 souls". [3] The story takes place in the early 20th century. [4]

Sheriff Nick Corey presents himself as a genial fool, simplistic, over-accommodating, and harmless to a fault, given he is Pottsville's sole lawman. In reality, he is a clever psychopath who remorselessly murders several people and deceives everyone around him.

The novel begins with Nick visiting Ken Lacey, the sheriff of a nearby county, ostensibly to ask for advice about two pimps who regularly insult and bully him. Lacey mocks and belittles Nick, boasting that if any pimps disrespected him, he would shoot them dead on the spot. Later that evening Nick goes to see the two pimps, who it is revealed Nick has been taking bribes from. As they berate and mock him as usual, Nick fatally shoots them both.

Sheriff Lacey comes to see Nick, having become concerned that Nick might actually kill the pimps and make Lacey complicit in the crime. Nick reassures Lacey, then deceives him into staying at the pimps' brothel and boasting to the town that he had 'taken care of' the pimps.

The next day, county attorney Robert Lee Jefferson berates Nick for never making any arrests. Jefferson warns Nick that he will face a strong opponent in the coming election from Sam Gaddis. Nick replies that the people don't really want him to do his job, that they enjoy petty crimes such as gambling, public drunkenness, and prostitution, and that if he started to arrest people for such crimes he would have to arrest the whole town. He agrees that Gaddis is a man of moral character "regardless of all the rumors," planting the seed for those rumors to spread.

Nick then goes to find Tom Hauck, the husband of Rose Hauck with whom Nick is having an affair. He finds Hauck drinking and fishing at the river and kills him with Hauck's own shotgun. Nick then tells Rose he has killed her husband; she is overjoyed, and they have passionate sex.

In addition to Rose, Nick is also having an affair with Amy Mason. Whereas Rose is foul-mouthed and hypocritical, Amy is the only person in Pottsville that is beyond Nick's manipulation, which makes her more appealing to Nick than either Rose or his wife Myra. Nick comes up with a way to get rid of Myra, her brother Lennie, and Rose all at once. He manipulates Rose into telling Lennie that she has seen him having sex with Myra. Unbeknownst to Nick, Myra really is sleeping with Lennie, and confronts Rose at her house. Rose shoots both Myra and Lennie dead.

Rose finally realizes the extent of her manipulation by Nick, but when she confronts him, he laughs at her and suggests that she flee town before her murders are discovered. Nick's inner monologue becomes increasingly delusional and confused as he comes to believe he is God's agent sent to exercise divine justice upon Pottsville. The novel ends with Nick being privately confronted by Sheriff Lacey's deputy for yet another betrayal.

Themes

The character of a sheriff who plays the fool but is in reality highly intelligent is used several times by Thompson. Sometimes, as in this novel and The Killer Inside Me , the sheriff is a psychopath. In the novels Wild Town and The Transgressors , the sheriff is heroic, a highly intelligent man who was forced by circumstances to take a job that did not allow him to take full advantage of his abilities and who plays at being a clown to fit in to his role and to manipulate people for altruistic ends.

In his autobiography Bad Boy, Thompson wrote that this character was based on an actual deputy who pursued him when he neglected to pay a fine for being drunk and disturbing the peace. As recounted in a New York Times article, [5] Thompson describes the encounter he had with the deputy:

Alone with him on the vast prairie, the deputy becomes a creature of menace: "Lived here all my life . . . Everyone knows me. No one knows you. And we're all alone. What do you make o' that, a smart fella like you? . . . What do you think an ol' stupid country boy might do in a case like this?"

The deputy grins, puts on a pair of gloves, smacks a fist into the palm of his other hand.

"I'll tell you something. . . . Tell you a couple of things. There ain't no way of telling what a man is by looking at him. There ain't no way of knowing what he'll do if he has the chance. You think maybe you can remember that?"

The sheriff also is quite likely based to some degree on Thompson's own father, who had many of the same characteristics: a born politician who knew just what to say to win favor with anyone and who appeared friendly on the outside but inside harbored a great deal of pent up rage and misanthropy.

Pop. 1280 is also one of Thompson's most overtly political books. Nick constantly uses jokes to point out the racism, classism, and sexism of American society, for example at the end of Nick's discussion with the county attorney who is after Nick to make more arrests when Nick promises to arrest anyone who breaks the law, "Providing o' course, that he's either colored or some poor white trash that can't pay his poll tax". [6]

Kenneth Payne argued that a major theme of the book is "American emptiness," where Nick's psychosis and delusions are emblematic of the American psyche. This theme appears most explicitly near the book's climax, when Nick looks into Rose's house and is struck by its emptiness, thinking "I'd maybe been in that house a hundred times, that one and a hundred others like it. But this was the first time I'd seen what they really were. Not homes, not places for people to live in, not nothin'. Just pine-board walls locking in the emptiness." [7]

Adaptations

Pop. 1280 was adapted as the French film Coup de Torchon (1981), directed by Bertrand Tavernier, set in French West Africa in 1938. [8]

In 2019 Yorgos Lanthimos was tapped by Imperative Entertainment to write and direct a new adaptation of the novel. [9] [10]

In the 1997 film Cop Land , set in Garrison, New Jersey, the town sign reads: "Welcome To Garrison Population 1280". The director, James Mangold, is reputed to be a big fan of Jim Thompson.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Thompson (writer)</span> American novelist

James Myers Thompson was an American prose writer and screenwriter, known for his hardboiled crime fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belle Starr</span> American outlaw (1848–1889)

Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castle Rock (Stephen King)</span> Part of Stephen Kings fictional Maine

Castle Rock is a fictional town appearing in Stephen King's fictional Maine topography, providing the setting for a number of his novels, novellas, and short stories. Castle Rock first appeared in King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone and has since been referred to or used as the primary setting in many other works by King.

<i>The Grifters</i> (film) 1990 film by Stephen Frears

The Grifters is a 1990 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Stephen Frears, produced by Martin Scorsese, and starring John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, and Annette Bening. The screenplay was written by Donald E. Westlake, based on Jim Thompson's 1963 novel of the same name. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and was declared one of the Top 10 films of 1990 by The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

<i>Coup de Torchon</i> 1981 French film

Coup de Torchon is a 1981 French crime film directed by Bertrand Tavernier and adapted from Jim Thompson's 1964 novel Pop. 1280. The film changes the novel's setting from an American Southern town to a small town in French West Africa. The film had 2,199,309 admissions in France and was the 16th most attended film of the year. It received the Prix Méliès from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics as the best French film of 1981.

Phoenix New Times is a free digital and print media company based in Phoenix, Arizona. PhoenixNew Times publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music, arts, cannabis, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circulates every Thursday. The company has been owned by Voice Media Group since January 2013, when a group of senior executives bought out the founding owners. Matt Hennie was named editor-in-chief of Phoenix New Times in 2022.

<i>Poor White Trash</i> 2000 American film

Poor White Trash is a crime-comedy film directed by Michael Addis. The film was released on June 16, 2000, and was distributed jointly by Hollywood Independents and the Xenon Group. The film stars an ensemble cast of actors, including Jaime Pressly and others, most of them before they became famous. The film was actually filmed in southern Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Duhamel</span>

Marcel Duhamel was a French actor and screenwriter, founder of the Série noire publishing imprint.

<i>The Killer Inside Me</i> 1952 crime novel by Jim Thompson

The Killer Inside Me is a 1952 novel by American writer Jim Thompson published by Fawcett Publications.

Pottsville is an unincorporated community located in western Hamilton County in Central Texas, United States.

<i>The Killer Inside Me</i> (2010 film) 2010 US crime drama film by Michael Winterbottom

The Killer Inside Me is a 2010 American crime drama and an adaptation of the 1952 novel of the same name by Jim Thompson. The film is directed by Michael Winterbottom and stars Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, and Kate Hudson. It is the second film adaptation of Thompson's novel, the first being 1976's The Killer Inside Me, directed by Burt Kennedy.

<i>The Plunderers</i> (1948 film) 1948 film by Joseph Kane

The Plunderers is a 1948 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and written by Gerald Geraghty and Gerald Drayson Adams. The film stars Rod Cameron, Ilona Massey, Lorna Gray, Forrest Tucker, George Cleveland and Grant Withers. The film was released on October 31, 1948, by Republic Pictures.

<i>The Favourite</i> 2018 film by Yorgos Lanthimos

The Favourite is a 2018 period black comedy film co-produced and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, from a screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Set in early 18th-century Great Britain, the film's plot examines the relationship between cousins Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Masham as they vie to be court favourite of Queen Anne. Principal photography for the British–Irish–American production lasted from March to May 2017 and took place at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire and at Hampton Court Palace.

<i>Relentless</i> (1948 film) 1948 film by George Sherman

Relentless is a 1948 American Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Robert Young and Marguerite Chapman in the main roles. The film was based on the story, "Three Were Thoroughbreds," by Kenneth Perkins, originally published in the June 1938 issue of Blue Book and then as a hardcover novel in 1939. IMDb and other sources mistakenly claim that the film was remade as the 1953 Audie Murphy film Tumbleweed, which was based on a similarly named story, "Three Were Renegades," by Perkins. The later story, "Three Were Renegades," was published as a sort-of sequel to the earlier story, "Three Were Thoroughbreds," and the plotlines of the two films mirror the plotlines of their respective source stories.

<i>The Killing of a Sacred Deer</i> 2017 film by Yorgos Lanthimos

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a 2017 psychological thriller film directed and co-produced by Yorgos Lanthimos, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Efthimis Filippou. It stars Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone, and Bill Camp. It follows a cardiac surgeon who introduces his family to a teenage boy with a connection to his past, after which they mysteriously begin to fall ill.

<i>The Transgressors</i>

The Transgressors is a crime novel by Jim Thompson, published in 1961. It is one of a very few Thompson novels to feature a traditional love story as a major part of the plot where the lovers have a happy ending together rather than one murdering or betraying the other as is the norm in most of Thompson's novels. As with most of Thompson's novels it takes place in the Southwest (Texas) where Thompson grew up and it leverages Thompson's diverse life experiences in creating the characters and situations in a community dominated by the oil industry.

<i>The Act</i> (TV series) 2019 American limited series

The Act is an American biographical crime drama limited series that premiered in eight parts on March 20, 2019, on Hulu. The plot is based on the life of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who was accused of abusing her daughter by fabricating illness and disabilities as a direct consequence of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Joey King portrayed Gypsy, while Patricia Arquette played her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. AnnaSophia Robb, Chloë Sevigny, and Calum Worthy star in supporting roles.

<i>Wild Town</i> 1957 crime novel by Jim Thompson

Wild Town is a crime novel by Jim Thompson, published in 1957. It weaves together threads of murder, embezzlement, blackmail, and seduction in the post oil boom West Texas of the 1920s. The various locations and characters are all highly influenced by Thompson's jobs and homes growing up and living in Oklahoma and Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gothic Western</span> Contemporary subculture

Gothic Western is a subculture, artistically similar to gothic Americana, but blends goth and Western lifestyles that are notably visible in fashion, music, film and literature.

<i>Poor Things</i> (film) 2023 film by Yorgos Lanthimos

Poor Things is a 2023 sci-fy-drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Tony McNamara. It stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott and Jerrod Carmichael. Based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, the plot follows Bella Baxter, a young woman in Victorian London, who is resurrected by a scientist following her suicide and embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery and sexual liberation.

References

  1. Farber, Stephen (1990-01-21). "In the Desert, a Jim Thompson Novel Blossoms on Film". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
  2. McGrath, Charles (2010-06-03). "Filmed to a Pulp". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
  3. 1 2 Marche, Stephen (26 September 2012). "Bad Sheriff: Murder, Lies And Southern Fried Catfish". NPR . Retrieved 2015-05-08.
  4. 1 2 "Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson, book of a lifetime". The Independent. 2015-11-05. Retrieved 2023-06-20.
  5. Block, Lawrence (October 14, 1990). "CRIME/MYSTERY; A Tale of Pulp and Passion: The Jim Thompson Revival". The New York Times .
  6. Polito, Robert (1995). Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson. Vintage Books. pp. 450–458.
  7. Payne, Kenneth (1994). "Pottsville, USA: Psychosis and the American "Emptiness" in Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280". International Fiction Review. 21: 56.
  8. Maslin, Janet (1982-12-20). "Clean Slate (1981) 'Coup De Torchon,' Life In A French Colony". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
  9. Martin, Clare (February 22, 2019). "Yorgos Lanthimos to Write, Direct Adaptation of Crime Novel Pop. 1280". Paste . Retrieved February 24, 2019.
  10. Fleming, Mike Jr. (2019-02-22). "Yorgos Lanthimos To Write, Direct 'Pop. 1280' For Imperative Entertainment & Element Pictures". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-06-20.