I'm reading this book now, the source for the film Thieves'
Highway, and I think it is poetic, exciting and
quintessentially hard boiled. The best aspect is the detailed
delineation of what a working class male's toughness meant in
the mid-20th century: cynicism, anger at the many
impediments, a bulldogish tenacity to claw one's way to
financial security and self-respect, and the ability to make
other men believe that your bragging about sexual exploits
can be backed up with action. Also, there is the power of the
male bond (part of which is a sense that women are
unknowable--they trip up a guy, shame him, and tame him, and
then try to "civilize" him, as Huck Finn would say). In
Thieves' Market, the protagonist, Nick, is a newcomer to the
produce trucking business. His partner and mentor, Ed, is
feisty, grasping and nasty (these truck drivers bully and
ridicule each other as if their pecking order is
re-established every working day). But Ed also cares for Nick
almost as a son, saving him from being crushed by his own
truck, guiding him to the produce market and suggesting the
kind of hard-bitten shrewdness it takes to get established.
The "produce shylock," Figlia, is a nemesis of almost
mythical proportions. There's definitely a "you can't win"
flavor to the book--early on, Bezzerides talks about the
American Dream--and what Nick's father's experiences with it
were. That's what this book is really about.
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