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    The Grifters
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    The Grifters
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    The Grifters
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Grifters

    Written by Jim Thompson

    Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

    Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars--the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life--until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.

    THE GRIFTERS, one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, is an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for Stephen Frears' and Martin Scorsese's critically-acclaimed film of the same name.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateNov 1, 2011
    ISBN9781611137293
    Unavailable
    The Grifters
    Author

    Jim Thompson

    Jim Thompson is an internationally published firearms writer, photographer, and consultant with more than five decades of experience as a serious shooter and experimenter. He purchased his first M1 in 1963. His dedication to precise historical research combined with his practical, empirical insight has yielded significant contributions to the fields of military history and weapons development. He resides in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

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    Reviews for The Grifters

    4/5

    296 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A wild, unpredictable crime-noir tale that reads like Hammett or Chandler with the foot on the pedal and no working breaks. The loopiness of the plot could swing this toward either 2/5 or 4/5, and I'm choosing the latter because, while this isn't a classically excellent novel, it's memorably unique.
    • 4/5
      The Grifters is the story of Roy Dillon con-artist specialising in short, quick scams, the son of Lilly, who is a con-srtist of a different type, working on horse betting, long-term scams.

      After leaving home and traveling the country picking up money by the time the story kicks in Roy is based out of L.A. having successfully staying in one place long-term while still being able to run his cons. After a near brush with death Roy begins reconsidering his chosen life. At the same time he's dealing with his mother and his sometimes girlfriend, Moira, an older woman who unbeknownst to Roy is also a con artist.

      It was interesting to read a noir novel based in the 60's and Roy was the perfect lead character plus two femme fatales. The ending was a great twist and the book was good from start to finish. I would have liked to have seen more of Roy doing his cons though and the whole Carol section was a little odd. It felt like an unfinished idea. I believe they dropped it from the film version and I can understand why. I really want to see the film now, I can't really picture John Cusack as Roy. A good book, worth reading.
    • 5/5
      The story follows twenty-five year old grifter Roy Dillon as he struggles to keep his older girlfriend happy, avoid his evil mother and stay alive after a well-deserved beating. It's a Thompson novel, which means that even though there isn't a single redeeming quality amongst the whole cast of characters, you can't turn away. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The Grifters is an exercise in animal behavior, specifically the reptilian overtures of homo sapiens. It is a feral book. What saves it, what elevates the narrative from the primordial is its kinetic codes of communication. The novel triumphs through its five or six principal conversations. The characters expand outside of type and blur our ready verdicts. There are human truths being issued from the mouths of vipers: assassins, certainly, but ones with souls.

      The film adaptation reveals the central set pieces, with one notable exception. It rained here this a.m. before the Manchester Derby, the solace of Roy Dillon was illuminating by contrast.
    • 5/5
      The Grifters = Gritty. Ravenous. Icy. Ferocious. Turbulent. Exceptional. Ruthless. Storytelling.

      Here is one of the greatest novels ever written in literary fiction. The same that inspired the Stephen Frears-directed work of outstanding cinematic art of the same name. One of my favorite books in a collection of many read: Jim Thompson's The Grifters. The great novelist never ceases to amaze ... In fact, as far as I'm concerned, he never had in his entire career.

      The Grifters is a well-written, page-turning tale of greed, deception, corruption, incestous depravity and murder. It's a five-star masterpiece?all in plot, character-development, and pace. Lilly is a villainess who has cherry red ice water flowing through her veins. She is as brutal as they come, and certainly not a character for the fainthearted.

      The Grifters is phenomenal in every sense of the word itself. Perfection!
    • 5/5
      Dark, depressing, and beautiful. Black Lizard had yet too steer me wrong.
    • 5/5
      A great book that makes for a good movie too. Family, learning about life -- an exciting read.
    • 4/5
      Twenty five year old Roy Dillon's apple doesn't fall far from the family tree. His mother Lilly, barely 15 years older, is a con-artist and as a result Roy grew up having to hustle to make an existence for himself. By the time he turned eighteen Roy couldn't wait to strike out on his own; to try grifting for himself. Only he's not that good at it. Grifters opens with Roy badly beaten and bleeding internally, staggering back to his rented hotel room after a failed attempt to con someone. His girlfriend Moira, nurse Carol and mother all take turns nursing him back to health, each with their own con game in the works. It's a disaster waiting to happen as no one in the group is truly honest. Everyone is blinded by greed and what they think is love.
    • 1/5
      It was well written & read, but I never wanted to listen to it because it was so depressing. Everyone sucked & I couldn't find a character to connect to, to root for. Something bad would happen to one of them & my mind just said, "OK, now wander off & die, jerk." They didn't. They kept hanging around being miserable, living for no other reason than dying would have put me out of their misery, so I stopped about 2/3 of the way through. Haven't missed it & don't wonder what happened to them. Couldn't care less.
      :(
    • 3/5
      There is a reason they call Jim Thompson the Dimestore Dostoevsky; his works really spotlight the moral dilemma his protagonists and main characters face, so I was really looking forward to reading The Grifters; I’ve seen the movie so I was interested in seen the inner thoughts of the characters. 25-year-old short con operator Roy Dillion suffers an injury when a simple con goes horribly wrong, he finds himself in hospital recovering from an internal haemorrhage. This brush with death has led him to rethink his life, thought his mother Lilly feels like Roy still owes her. She’s inattentive and manipulative while trying to care for Roy, but she is also trying to pull off a long con at the race tracks at the same time. Throw in another femme fatale; Moira, Roy’s girlfriend who also find out is also a grifter who favours the long con. The three explosive characters make for an interesting and twisted noir story, much to what we have come to expect from Jim Thompson.

      I have to admit I do love Jim Thompson’s twisted plotting, he captures the pulp feel well while giving it is own flavour of surrealism. While The Grifters is not is most solid piece it does a good job at spotlighting what this author can do, with crime and with is unreliable narrating. The characters are great and they each work well together while making life difficult for each other. His is one of the few pulp authors that break into the world of serious literary while never losing sight of what he does best.

      If you haven’t read a Jim Thompson book maybe this is a good place to start, it’s not as dark or gritty, they characters are great, the plot isn’t as twisted as some of his other works and the suspense is a bit watered down. Let’s just call this book ‘Jim Thompson for beginners’ it gives you everything you expect in a Thompson book, just not to the same intensity while making the book approachable and easy to read.
    • 3/5
      I didn't think this story of three losers trying to improve their lot made a lot of sense, but that might the characters' fault, not the author. I found it strangely fascinating until the last two pages, where a deux ex machina of a glass bottle creates a heading that would be horrible if it wasn't over the top.
    • 3/5
      Just didn't thrill me. Left me with the thought the Jim Thompson doesn't end his novels to my liking.
    • 4/5
      Here we are again, courtesy of the Waterstones summer sale, another “Crime Masterwork”. This series has been selected by critics and authors as the best crime novels around, ones which should never be out of print - their spines are ugly, but their covers are nice. I'd thought about Jim Thompson for a while; I’d seen the film so went for the Grifters as a safe way in.Though he is now a cult figure, when Thompson died none of his books were in print. He wrote quickly, and you can tell, just about: sometimes there is an odd turn of phrase, something you feel he would have changed if he'd gone over and over his manuscript. But this also gives the novel its vibrancy and interest. You notice Thompson’s writing and syntax; his writing is more conspicuous than a Cain or Hammett.Thankfully the characters are scum-bags - each working an angle and out for themselves. It’s a book about con-men and women, and how bad can that possibly be? It doesn’t quite work, and having seen the film first, the ending was a bit spoilt for me, but con-men, people, con-men!