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The Menace of the Post-Hardboiled Maverick: Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 and Modern Television Detective Drama.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: The Menace of the Post-Hardboiled Maverick: Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 and Modern Television Detective Drama.
Authors: Lee, Susanna
Source: Journal of Popular Culture (Wiley-Blackwell). Summer2003, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p43-55. 13p.
Subjects: Pop. 1280 (Book), Thompson, Jim, Psychopaths in literature, Law enforcement in literature, Social Darwinism, Ethics
Abstract: The article examines the book "Pop. 1280," by Jim Thompson. In the book, the narrator and principal character, Nick Corey, is a sociopathic small-town sheriff whose actions are born from social Darwinism, messianic delusion and an inclination to spectacular violence. Corey is not a renegade resistant to social contamination and bureaucratic limitations, but a confused genius interested in destruction and his ethics are his own, as they were for the hardboiled characters. The novel is very much about individual agency and the moments when the narrator pretends to be but another cog in an unfortunate machine inevitably give way to spectacular declarations of his singular accountability.
Database: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Description
Abstract:The article examines the book "Pop. 1280," by Jim Thompson. In the book, the narrator and principal character, Nick Corey, is a sociopathic small-town sheriff whose actions are born from social Darwinism, messianic delusion and an inclination to spectacular violence. Corey is not a renegade resistant to social contamination and bureaucratic limitations, but a confused genius interested in destruction and his ethics are his own, as they were for the hardboiled characters. The novel is very much about individual agency and the moments when the narrator pretends to be but another cog in an unfortunate machine inevitably give way to spectacular declarations of his singular accountability.
ISSN:15405931
DOI:10.1111/1540-5931.00053