Oh wow. I didn't even realize how much I had missed Thompson. I read a few of his short stories a while ago (they were mostly not that great), but it's been ages since I've gobbled up one of his novels. He really does handle noir well, the punch-in-the-stomach kind that leaves you gasping for air, but also simultaneously tickles you a bit with splashes of great writing.

The Grifters isn't the blackest or the craziest Thompson, and probably not even his best (despite the amazing rating on Goodreads that kind of confuses me), but it's a solid story with great characters. Sure, Carol is a bit of an oddball, because it turns out that the revelation about her past has no purpose whatsoever, but in a way that's a very familiar Thompson strategy. He just throws some off-kilter things in the mix, and it still works somehow.

You don't necessarily get that many surprises in classic noir, and The Grifters isn't an exception in that regard. It doesn't offer major plot twists, but one of the reasons why I like the genre in the first place is that the novels are like mood pieces of a cynical world, and that it's achieved in simple and no-frill terms (Well, ok... Who am I kidding? It's also entirely possible that I'm easy when it comes to noir). I can always rely on some crazy character getting all wacky or neurotic. Throw in a murder or two, and we have an excellent weekend read there. Thompson, on the other hand, decides to go further by making the relationship between mother and son seem very wrong and vile.

Another thing about Thompson is how well he handles his endings. They leave you hanging and wondering what will happen in the next chapter, until you realize there's no next chapter in this life. The Grifters is a classic storyline of a man who starts balancing between different worlds. There's a lot of foreshadowing going on, but Thompson executes it delicately and ambiguously. Then you start to get this very bad feeling that something's about to go down, and it's too late for anyone to turn back. A glass is teetering on the edge of the table, and just when you think it's going to stay where it is and survive, someone comes and smashes it to smithereens.