This was in Rodney Welch's review of Savage Art. I guess It's
time to re-read A Hell of a Woman. I also read that it was a
re-work of Crime and
Punishment?------------------------
Frank Dillon in A Hell of a Woman (Thompson's true magnum
opus) has it equally bad as he sees it, his whole life has
been squandered on one bitch after another, so much so that
all women become a blur. But just as they are crowding into
one person, Frank is turning into two; halfway through the
book he creates a new persona, and by the end he's talking
out of both sides of his mouth.
The text splits into lines of alternating type, so that
we actually read two stories at once, both of which end with
Frank getting desexed. (It's the literary equivalent of what
the Velvet Underground would do years later with their song
"The Murder Mystery," which makes the left and right stereo
speakers sound like they're arguing.)
Paul Miller
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