South of Heaven

by Jim Thompson

Book Overview

Orphaned by a tragic accident at sixteen, Tommy Burwell's been scraping out a meager existence working dead-end jobs for years. When he and fellow nomad Four Trey Whitey get jobs working with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679740171
• ISBN13: 9780679740179
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Pipelaying in West Texas

The time is the 1920s. Tommy Burwell has been moving about the country working on jobs ranging from picking apples to laying pipe. He spends his money as fast as he earns it. Now he has heard about a pipelaying job in West Texas, and drifts into the area, waiting for the company to start hiring. The work is hard and dangerous, and working men are considered expendable. Most have no local connections. If they die, they will be buried on the job site - the pipeline is in a convenient ditch. If a man is injured or becomes ill, tough luck. Tommy has a side arrangement with his friend Four Trey to deal blackjack on payday nights. Payrolls are in cash. The workers live from payday to payday, blowing their money on liquor, cards, and women. Piles of cash draw predators, and some have thoughts for acquiring the cash. Along the way, Tommy experiences some Texas style justice. He is charged with a crime, but deals can be made. He is told by the sheriff which lawyer he should hire. If convicted, a pardon may be available for a price, even if convicted of murder. Tommy finds himself caught between various people, the pipeline boss, the law, his friend Four Trey, a woman he has met, and some unsavory characters in the construction camp. The company's prupose is to build the pipeline (there are penalties for being late, and bonuses for being early) - nothing can stand in their way. Everyone has their own motivations. You learn a lot about laying pipe.

A dish served cold

This novel, by the late Jim Thompson, is set in West Texas in the 1920s. The main character/narrator, Tommy, is 21, about the same age as the author during that time period. It's hard to say how much of the story is drawn from the author's first hand experiences. It was a time before OSHA and Social Security. Tommy has been knocking about the country, working on a variety of jobs, and spending money about as fast as he earned it. The word has been passed that a big pipeline job is starting up, and he has gone to a nearby hobo camp where men are gathering, waiting for the hiring. The work is dangerous, but the men are desperate for work. The conventional wisdom says that a man will die for every 10 miles of pipe in the ground. If a man dies on the job, his body is dropped into the ditch on top the pipe, and covered with backfill. Men live for the moment, or for the next payday, when they can blow their money on liquor, cards, and women. Tommy has met up with his "friend," Four Trey and has a private arrangement to work on the gambling games payday nights. In the meantime he works on the pipeline. Tommy has also met a young woman, Carol, who hangs about the the outside fringes of the camp. All is not quite as it seems. Payrolls are in cash, and cash draws human vultures. Some people have other plans. Therein lies the story. You learn a lot along the way about laying pipe (as it was done in the 1920s). You will be happy that you did not live in "the good old days" which usually were not that good for most people.

So brutally good, it hurts

It's 1920 and Tommy Burwell is in west Texas, looking for work on the pipeline. Hobos come from all over to work the pipelines, staying in tented camps, doing dangerous work for not much money. Tommy is brighter than most, could have a real future, but he's a bit lazy, looking for the easy way and money, when he has it, just sort of seems to slip through his hands. His first day in camp he runs into his old pal Four Trey Whitey, a gambling man. The Pipeline operators like gambling as it keeps the men in camp and keeps them occupied. The men also like the girls who follow the camp and they line up for their favors on pay day (more about that in the next paragraph). Four Trey asks Tommy to be his black jack dealer and offers him an easy job, working with Dyna (dynamite). Tommy balks at first, as the grandparents who raised him were killed by Dyna, but he finally agrees to work with Four Trey, who gives Tommy a five dollar advance. Tommy goes to town and meets Carol, who has a fast car. One thing leads to another and Tommy falls in love and they both lose their virginity. But to Tommy's chagrin, it appears Carol has come to west Texas as a camp follower, come payday in two weeks time, she's going to have a lot of men friends. This bothers Tommy a lot, but he's got bigger problems, as he's arrested for the murderer of a pipeline cop who he'd had a fight with earlier. Thinking things couldn't get any worse, Four Trey comes to the jail and tells Tommy not to worry, that he's not in the trouble he thinks he is. He tells Tommy that not only will he be cut loose in a day or so, but that he's put $4500 dollars in a local bank in his name, money he'd earned on their last gambling job together. Four Trey held it back so that Tommy couldn't drink and party it all away. He tells Tommy to take the money and git far away from the pipeline when he gets out of jail, to go away and make something of himself. Why would Four Trey suddenly give Tommy this money (and $4500 was a lot of cash in 1920)? Why does he want him out of town? What would cause a nice girl like Carol to turn to prostitution? And has she really? And why is Longie Long and his famous gang of criminals working on the pipeline? And why do they alibi Tommy so he can get out of jail? What does Four Trey know about the Long gang that he isn't telling? All questions that will keep you engrossed in this story that, although is not one of Mr. Thompson's better known works, is one that is so well written in his famous Chandler/Hemmingway type style that you'll be burning the midnight oil as you finger through the pages. Mr. Thompson draws his readers right in with his quick characterzations, his deft handling of time and place. His brutal descriptions, his sheer talent. If you have not read Jim Thompson yet you're missing one of America's great writers. This book is so brutally good, it hurts. Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Raymond Chandler meets The Grapes of Wrath

This was my second Thompson book, after 'The Killer Inside Me' ... & after starting with that, which I keep hearing is one of his best, I was afraid I'd be let down ... afraid because I enjoyed 'The Killer ...' tremendously. Happily, my fear was unfounded ... & I was delighted how different 'South of Heaven' is from 'The Killer ...' & how I got not only a fun piece of crime fiction but also something that evoked some of the same feelings as 'The Grapes of Wrath,' if written entirely differently. Thompson does an excellent job portraying the hard lives of the pipeliners without boring the reader. Tommy Burwell is a great character, too. ... I hope Thompson is in the midst of being rediscovered (judging by how many of his books are in print, maybe so) & I know I'm gonna enjoy him as much as Graham Greene (who's my all-time favorite writer), if for entirely different reasons. Greene, who was a wonderful writer, dismissed his own books as mere "entertainments." The same could easily be (wrong-headedly) said of the two Thompson books I've read thus far ... but oh man are they ever entertaining.

As touching as Jim Thompson gets

This book really surprised me. There's something of a sense of humanity and impotence that Thompson touches on here that is absent from his other work. Don't get me wrong- the novel is devoid of sentimentality. The setting is dated but that really appealled to me. It functions as a work of history to those of us born in the mid-late seventies. It is also a hard-boiled love-story and crime story taking place at a work camp comprised of hoboes laying a gas pipeline in west Texas, just "south of heavan." As a recent college grad I could really identify with the human protagonist, a kid who has a gift, a set of skills, who is being pushed around by others and on the inside. He has a decision to make. And that decision isn't as obvious as everyone is telling him it is. What I love about Jim Thompson is that nothing is black and white. Nothing is one or two diminsional. There are good guys and bad guys. Most of the time its the supposed bad guy, or a terrific sociopath that the reader is forced to identify with. And if a guy is really bad through and through, Thompson gives you a damn good reason why. This isn't my favorite Jim Thompson book. I prefer the classics like After Dark my Sweet, the Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, etc. etc. But South of Heavan definitely belongs in the top ten, maybe even top five in the pantheon.