Jim Thompson (writer) - Cultural References

Cultural References

• Thompson was a major influence on the songwriting style of Mark Sandman, the singer for Morphine (band) and Treat Her Right; see Sandman songs like "Murder for the Money" and "A Good Woman is Hard to Find".
• There is a reference to Thompson's book The Killer Inside Me in the song, "Sri Lanka Sex Hotel", on the Dead Milkmen's Beelzebubba album, and in the song "Killer Inside Me" on MC 900 Ft. Jesus' album Welcome to My Dream.
• David Thomas, lead singer of Pere Ubu, says of the band's album Why I Hate Women: "the back story for this album was the Jim Thompson novel he never wrote."
• Songwriter, guitarist, and singer John Wesley Harding, in an introduction to his song "The Truth" during the WXRT-FM Twilight Concert at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, Ill., on Sep 12, 1992, said the song was for anyone who had seen the 1950 American film Sunset Boulevard or "read a Jim Thompson novel."
• Donald Westlake, who adapted The Grifters for film in 1990, satirized Thompson later that year in his own novel Drowned Hopes. This book features a character named "Tom Jimson" who is hard-boiled to the point of absurdity.
• In the 1997 film Cop Land, which takes place partly in (fictitious) Garrison, New Jersey, the "Welcome to Garrison" sign pictured sixteen minutes into the film indicates that the population of the town is 1280, a reference to Thompson's novel "Pop. 1280".
• On the Cable show Californication the character Hank Moody steals a book that he wrote called "South of Heaven", which is also the title for a novel by Jim Thompson.
• Jim Thompson has been cited by Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbo as being a major influence on his style of writing, particularly because of the way in which he described the human mind and nature.