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Read Heed The Thunder (2014)

Heed the Thunder (2014)

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Rating
3.67 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0316403776 (ISBN13: 9780316403771)
Language
English
Publisher
mulholland books

Heed The Thunder (2014) - Plot & Excerpts

Heed the Thunder is an ambitious work by Thompson who considered making this novel the first of a projected trilogy. Per Robert Polito in his biography of Thompson "Savage Art" this book is "a panoramic country life chronicle after the model of Nebraska novelists Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather, a scurrilous family history, and a brutish descent into degradation, sadism, incest, homicide, and dementia." In his short introduction, James Ellroy believes Thompson's influences to possibly be Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. I see possible traces of Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters, John O'Hara, and Faulkner. The book is an expose of a Nebraska farming town shortly prior to the outbreak of World War I.Ellroy states Thompson to be "flirting" with "horror" in this book while correctly noting that Thompson has "essential sympathy for his characters." In fact, the book contains many autobiographical references which caused distress in his hometown in the way "Look Homeward Angel" by Thomas Wolfe vexed the residents Wolfe's hometown of Asheville. It is true some horrible events occur in the novel, but the horror is balanced with humor. Thompson addresses serious themes like the changing of society with the rise of the railroads, industry, and corporations. Many plot lines are left available for the sequels which never came.

Heed The Thunder was Jim Thompson's second novel, and although it doesn't fall under the heading of crime there's a definite element of noir permeating every page. The first half of the novel reads like Flannery O'Connor meets The Magnificent Ambersons,bu then by the second half we get to watch the entire family hit the wall with disaster over murder over scandal over deception. If you ever watched Little House On The Prairie on acid it doesn't even come close to what you're about to read.BTW, as an Oklahoman, did Mister Thompson possibly hold any resentment towards the winning side of The Civil War? The three wicked Fargos in the book are named Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. Hmmm......

What do You think about Heed The Thunder (2014)?

Magnífica historia y sobre todo magníficos personajes. Último párrafo, sin spoilers, que resume el espíritu del libro:"La tierra. La buena tierra, la mala tierra, la regular, la tierra hermosa, la fea, la tierra hogareña, la tierra amable y la odiosa; la tierra con sus torres altas, sus graneros grandes, sus casas espaciosas, sus pozos de polea, sus cabañas abandonadas, sus corrales; la tierra con sus pequeños pueblos y ciudades, ciudades grandes y pequeñas, sus herrerías y fábricas, sus escuelas de una única clase; la tierra de los húngaros, la de los rusos, la de los alemanes, los holandeses y los suecos, la tierra de los protestantes y de los católicos y de los judíos: la tierra de los americanos... La misma tierra que ahora se deslizaba con seguridad y delicadeza hacia el gran abismo de la noche."
—Atram_sinprisa

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