Friday, June 25, 2010

Censorship as the father of invention?

He suffered from a total alleviation of the censorship he had worked under. Now Thompson could say anything rather than accomplish it through subterfuge. That had allowed Thompson to write on all cylinders. The Killer Inside Me was an allegory for the kind of pulp novel Thompson was writing: You think you're reading one kind of novel, and you're reading another. When you have to slip something by the official channels, it enforces subtlety and experimental art.

From a conversation with Robert Polito, the biographer of 20th C. thriller writer Jim Thompson, on Scott Timberg's blog. Timberg is an L.A. Times entertainment reporter.

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