Since then a new generation has discovered the furtive pleasures of such books as “the Grifters” and “A Swell-Looking Babe.” Creative Arts, a small publisher, began reissuing Thompson’s titles and those of Charles Williams and Charles Willeford in the mid-’80s. Last year Vintage Books folded that series into its crime-fiction line, putting the pulp writers on the same shelf with Hammett and Chandler.
Hollywood, too, has rekindled its romance with the pulps. Besides “The Grifters,” there have been two other recent Thompson-based movies (“After Dark, My Sweet,” “The Kill-Off”) and films of books by Williams (“Dead Calm,” “The Hot Spot”) and Willeford (“Miami Blues”)–not to mention David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” based on a novel by Thompson fan Barry Gifford.
Thompson’s “amazing” revival “fits Jim’s view of life,” said “Grifters” screenwriter Donald E. Westlake: “He gets his 15 minutes of fame 13 years after his death.”
