Talk of shabby people and their shabbiness, could there ever be a writer who captures the world of shabbiness more than Jim Thompson? The underbelly's underbelly - the beaten down, the psychopathic, the desperate, carousing around in their filthy cars, eating slop and drinking booze in their filthy houses; where brutal, cruel men and women pound on one another with their foul-mouths and fists. Is it any wonder that in such a world out-of-control violence is so prevalent? All twenty-nine of Jim T...

Thompson earned money to go to college by selling bootleg whiskey for Al Capone's network.Take THAT, Don Fucking DeLillo.

This is the only nonfiction Thompson out of the nineteen I've read. Not a memoir of his entire life, but just his early life up to age twenty two. His fiction is more entertaining but these stories hold their own. Fascinating enough to me of course I've never found a Thompson I didn't like.

Episodic and often funny "novel" or memoir about Thompson's childhood. Thompson has a dark humor that can be found in all of his books. I'll read the sequel soon.

in his novels, thompson comes off as a guy who understands the ins and outs of everything-- every person, every business, every relationship, every idea... and in this autobiographical work, it is the same way. he takes you on a really fascinating journey through the places and people and events of his youth, many of which formed the basis for his later novels (especially A Swell-Looking Babe and South of Heaven). the difference between his novels and this book, though, is that, in this, thompso...

Jim Thompson’s Bad Boy is tepid autobiography in the vein of Jim Tully’s early books: a series of broad-stroke anecdotes in search of a narrative. The book gets stronger as it goes, with its most famous section detailing Thompson’s encounters with the sheriff who inspired the creation of The Killer Inside Me’s Lou Ford. But this juxtaposition serves only to highlight the comparative thinness of Bad Boy: Thompson may have been haunted by his memories of this man, but in the real-life telling he i...

Thompson’s memoir is entertaining, but nowhere near as good as his fiction - just a long string of raucous anecdotes from his childhood through early twenties, but with no narrative arc or any pause for context or self-analysis. Still, it was interesting to see that he mined much of his early life as the raw material for his unforgettable fiction.

A great auto-biography detailing Thompson's youth. About as wild and lively as you'd expect, but without the hard-boiled veneer of his fiction.

Bad Boy is the first part of Jim Thompson's autobiography. What a life! Enough for a dozen novels in his first 20 years. Well written, of course, and very funny. Ghastly events, like falling five storeys down an elevator shaft, are underplayed, but for a reason. He started his professional writing career at about 14, but simultaneously held all sorts of "real" jobs, where he learned a lot about human nature, not to mention crime.The book ends abruptly, in a strange place, in the middle of nowher...

Jim Thompson’s proto/pseudo autobiography Bad Boy is not one of his better efforts and seems hardly worth the effort. If Bad Boy was your first experience with his work you might not be tempted to read more. It has been described as a series of anecdotes in search of a narrative. This pretty much sums up the book. Though this book was a bust, there are others of Thompson’s which are brilliant. Notables would be: The Getaway, The Killer Inside me, Savage Night, After Dark, My Sweet, Pop. 1280, A

BAD BOY is more than a book, it's more than fiction or nonfiction, it's a document of a time in American history that was unlike any other. A time when the power of the nation was on the cusp of exploding forth in a wave of possibility and it's captured perfectly by one of the most linguistically creative writers the twentieth century was fortunate to have.

Jim Thompson evocatively recreates the Texas and Oklahoma of his boyhood with this autobiographical novel.

Jim Thompson's "Bad Boy," is a quick and effective autobiographical account of his early life. Thompson was a hard-boiled crime writer that often seemed fit to be sold next to pornography. The depictions of the author's early life are just as grimy and tough as his novels. Bad Boy will certainly spur my mind into reading more of his words.The only novel of Thompson's I've read was "After Dark, My Sweet." There's a moment in that novel where you have to say to yourself, "Holy- I'm reading a book

Jim Thompson’s Autobiographical rendition of his early childhood to his early/middle twenties. Reading this is like sitting down on the porch, drinking whisky with your grandfather and listening to his stories of the old days, if your grandfather was Jim Thompson. In my opinion, Jim Thompson never wrote a bad sentence in his life and this is another great read.

Worth a read, some good tales and the cop who scared him enough to become The Killer Inside Me, that was my favourite story...

Jim Thompson. He wrote what he knew.

I don't really like Jim Thompson's autobiographies, but I prefer this one to Roughneck.

His father was a lawman who was run out of the country and later an oilman who gambled with Warren G Harding, before bankrupting the family.Jim Thompson was a farmhand at his grandparents' homestead, bellhop, a failed film actor ('Kid, Charlie Chaplin will have to swim back to England!'), a diaper-act in a burlesque show, alcoholic, highschool student, pulp fiction writer and a gambler. And that's all before he turned eighteen. After he forges enough high school credits, he leaves Fort Worth to

Bad Boy isn't essential Thompson, mostly because it's unlike anything he's ever written (except for the sequel, of course). With this book, Thompson forgoes his typical lewd tales of murder and desperation for a collection of humorous accounts of his young life. While Thompson seems to bend the truth for the sake of making things more colorful, Bad Boy still provides a compelling look at pre-WWII America, and the craftiness Thompson had to exploit without a social safety net to protect him (and

Multi - generational self - destructiveness! Some people can't help but hit the skids, it's bred in the bone. Intelligence, hardwork & ambition cannot overcome generations of self - defeatism. (As successful as JT became he was always prepared for defeat.) But when it does something fantastic happens. It's no wonder the USA created, or at least lead, the post - WWII boom. Nothing was impossible after 2 generations of WWI, the reckless boomtime 1920's, the despair of the 1929 economic crash & Gre...

The first of 2 volumes of autobiography by Thompson. His first novel, "Now and on Earth" covers some of the same material. Raised in OK, moved as a teen to Fort Worth. Pretty straight forward, at times bordering on "Texas Tall Tales". But there are a few anecdotes that you can see later made it into his novels (especially the story of dealing with the man who would later become "The Killer Inside Me"). His stories of working as a bell boy in a hotel are worth the read, as are his tales of workin...

I didn't realize this book was nonfiction until I started reading it, but I like the way Jim Thompson writes, so I read on. It almost felt like Thompson was playing a character in his own life and though it didn't have a great story arc, I liked reading about his difficulties graduating from high school and all the crazy jobs he had. Over all it was interesting, but not a book I'd read again or probably even remember much about, partly because his early life plodded along like real life, no over...

An honest autobiography by one of the best crime writer of all ages with razor sharp account of personal experience with honest description of real life experience. Jim Thomson ingenuity is realised by this departure from the real world. One of the few writer to write and think beyond ages and has the imagination of being ageless.One should get Lesson from his honest description of childhood howsoever dark it may be. Lesson learnt from jim novels is to be brutally honest and do not hesitate to t...

At times this was compelling; at other times I wanted more insight or details. The narrative just ends abruptly, rather than wrapping up in any sort of fashion. Does offer fascinating glimpses into the lives of this family; however, another writer (that is, one who is not famous) may have been asked for another re-write before publishing. Some details are coyly glossed over, even though they concern events from decades ago. This volume did not leave me wanting to read more memoir from this autho...

Oh, Jim Thompson. What a life led. This autobiographical account recalls his problematic early years. You can see the seeds planted of the great dark novelist he would become. This book makes you laugh, cry, and feel terror (the recounting of the fight with the deputy who inspired Lew Ford from The Killer Inside Me was positively bone chilling). Should be read by anyone who is a fan of the man's work.

This is not a typical Jim Thompson novel, and it will also likely disappoint anyone looking for an in-depth biography. It's a series of short anecdotes - a sortof pointillist memoir. I liked it a lot because its lack of cohesive narrative feels so honest. This is how life really is - we impose narrative on it after the fact. Thompson was a remarkable writer to be able to avoid the urge to do so.

Raised by a family that could have inspired the Royal Tennanbaums Jim Thompsom packs a lot of hard living into his first 16 years. Laugh out loud funny with inspired criminal hijinks. A wonderful companion to You Can't Win and any John Fante.

My first Jim Thompson book. Interesting book. Don't like how it just ended midway through ditching town -- with 'no' explanation as to what book the story continues in. Being a Part 1 you would think finding the title of Part 2 would not be so difficult.

I'd rather have given this 3.5 stars, but alas, that option doesn't exist. I really enjoy his writing and reading this portion of his autobiography was interesting (especially since he spent time in Fort Worth), but the ending? C'mon, Jim!! -.5 stars for a very unsatisfying, abrupt ending.

Jim Thompson. Autobiographical. 1920-40's. Dark side of Texas and Oklahoma in a often amusing tone. Oilfield stories, Dallas.