Jim Thompson is the antidote to all the fetid tastes of modernism. The Getaway is two-thirds detailed fallout from a caper and one-third descent into metaphorical hell. It shows a mastery of cause-and-effect tension for a long while, but then throws it all away for modes of expression that are directly antithetical to plot-based crime.
Our “heroes” are Doc and Carol. He’s the life of any party, armed with the gift of the gab and a smile as enticing as Ted Bundy’s. He’s also smart; Doc has the angles figured before the lines even think about intersecting. She’s newer to the life of crime, but fiercely protective of the taste she’s already gotten. This swell-looking babe will kill for Doc. Of course, when your husband’s a stone-cold killer, trust doesn’t really exist, does it? There’s a frightening moment when she believe Doc will murder her. I believed it too.
The story begins just before a bank robbery. Thompson fractures the POV, allowing us to come at this thing from all sides with a good understanding of the different violent psychoses affecting our characters. Doc is the mastermind behind the deal, while Rudy is the viscous dog assigned to the actual task. There’s a guy with Rudy, but that guy doesn’t last too long. A lot of guys don’t last too long in this book.
Once the robbery is done, there are a series of double crosses and bad luck surrounded by bad omens. The frustrating part is that Doc makes a lot of intelligent decisions, things that should logically work. But when there’s blood dripping from your money and a pile of bodies acting as breadcrumbs, good decisions become disasters.
Somewhere down the line–about the time Doc and Carol are on their last legs, Thompson completely checks out. He’s no longer intersted in capitalizing on plot points. His main characters begin a dehumanizing journey through pure hell. Both film versions (Peckinpah’s [1973] and Donaldson’s [1994]) excise this portion of the book in favor of happier climes. That explains why the films are mindless entertainments and the book is a masterpiece.
After a metaphorical, nightmarish burial and a baptism by shit, Doc and Carol finally make their getaway to the Kingdom of El Ray, where they can retire and pray for a quick death among the cannibals and murderers. Their money runs out and their love is like salt poured over their wounds. Thompson swung for the fences and he hit a homerun.
And he doesn’t give a shit that you don’t like his characters. They don’t like you either.
Tell him that such and such a thing is bad, and suggest a goodly substitute, and he will quote you the ancient proverb about the king with two sons named Either and Neither. “An inquiry has been made as to their character, senor. Were they good or bad boys, or which was the good and which the bad. And the king’s reply? ‘Either is neither and Neither is either.'”
James Scott Byrnside 
Thompson is magnificent, and I’m thrilled that you got as much out of this as you did. As a huge Peckinpah fan in my teenage years I’d seen the film before reading the book, and was not ready for the satirical twist that it takes — it left an impression that I still feel to this day.
Man, it’s been an age since I read any Thompson. I should correct that.
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The ending stunned me into admiration. That sort of final snap into cohesiveness is something I usually associate with a well-crafted short story or (dare I say) a murder mystery that explains its puzzles in a satisfying way.
I hadn’t read Thompson since high school, but I’d always known this book was worth checking out even after seeing the films. It’s understandable why Hollywood would want to slap a happy ending on this thing, but why bother adapting it in the first place? There are plenty of crime thrillers that would provide an intelligent but safe caper that the whole family can enjoy. Honestly, the remake from ’94 is closer in tone to what Thompson intended. Unfortunately, that makes the divergence even more glaring, and the film seems nasty only for sake of nastiness. It’s also not nearly as skillfully made as Peckinpah’s.
When I was in college, I had vague notions of filming The Alcoholics.
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