Reviewed by Matthew C Funk
Being an American male with sharp sensibilities, I love The Simpsons and I love Jim Thompson. But sometimes, as brilliant a stable of writers as The Simpsons have gathered, they turn in a Halloween episode that is too ham-handed and corny to be worth more than a solitary chuckle. Apparently, Jim Thompson does too. Forever After, Jim Thompson’s short story selection in The Best American Noir of the Century, is his “Treehouse of Horrors” episode—his one-chuckle non-wonder of an otherwise sterling career of straight-to-the-bone prose.
I don’t fault him—Jim Thompson’s career is like the black monolith in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: It travels civilization, transcending time with its lightless purity, elevating the art form wherever its influence spreads. It is slick and strong and we do not doubt it.
All the same, his supernatural standalone about Ardis Clinton and her ill-fated plan to off her oafish husband is a pale glimmer on that monolith. Its narrative is little more than a six-page punchline, with a big shrug of an emotional wind-up and a cheesy zinger at the end. Forever After is over soon and quickly forgotten, and that’s probably for the best.
In “Forever After”, prose is lean, but I wouldn’t accuse it of being particularly well-constructed. It achieves its limited aim—to pile on enough engaging attention that the pay-off isn’t a complete washout—but beyond that, it offers little.
If anything, Thompson is too fast-paced in speeding us to the paranormal drumroll and cymbal crash at the end. He gives us little reason to care about Ardis or her slack-jacked man-toy, Tony, as they plot and execute the not-so-perfect murder of Ardis’ boorish hubby. Thompson has stripped away any literary muscle that could have forced us to care for the homicidal shrew.
Consequently, her comeuppance is only good for a quick laugh. There’s a dab of mystery as to what will come of Ardis, but Thompson makes it clear from the get-go that there’ll be a twist the size of his beloved state of Texas.
When the climax shows his hand, the reader is left with the impression of how heavy it was. For a superb storyteller who practically wrote the blueprint for high-octane, circuitous doom with works like The Killer Inside Me and After Dark, My Sweet, it’s a sad entry for a commemorative collection like this—a Jolly Rancher rather than a Communion Wafer.
Forever After is only worth the ten minutes it takes if you’re committed to the Thompson canon or if there’s nothing else on. Like the sorrier installments of The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, it takes a long time just to say “boo.” For a career that deserves immortality, this is a story that doesn’t stand any test of time.
Matthew C. Funk is the editor of the Genre section of the critically acclaimed zine, FictionDaily, and a staff writer for FangirlTastic and Spinetingler Magazine. Funk’s online work is featured at sites such as Thrillers, Killers and Chillers; Flash Fiction Offensive; ThugLit; Powder Burn Flash; Twist of Noir; Pulp Metal Magazine; Six Sentences and his Web domain.
