Thompson was a concierge at a hotel in Fort Worth. Soon, his job took on more responsibility ; he supplied customers with bootleg alcohol, heroin, marijuana, and prostitutes. At 19 he drinks dry, smokes like a firefighter, accumulates odd jobs. These colorful, often illicit experiences and the encounters that go with them often inspire many of his books. In 1931, he began to write short stories for various magazines specializing in detective stories, which had recently become fashionable.
Jim Thompson - The Dark Work
Nicholas Ungemuth
Le Figaro
2012
https://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2012/10/19/03005-20121019ARTFIG00700-jim-thompson-l-339uvre-au-noir.php
Their existence was centred around existing. They had no hope of anything more, no comprehension that there might be anything more. In a sense they were an autonomous body, functioning within a society which was organized to grind them down. The law did not protect them ; for them it was merely an instrument of harassment, a means of moving them on when it was against their interest to move, or detaining them when it was to their disadvantage to stay.
Jim Thompson
The Getaway
1958
https://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/keyword/Jim+Thompson.html
