{"product_id":"roughneck-9780316403818","title":"Roughneck","description":"By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, ROUGHNECK chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction's most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir--or wildly entertaining tall tale--as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to \u003ci\u003eTrue Detective\u003c\/i\u003ewhen he was only fourteen. Thompson eventually wrote twenty-nine novels, all but three of which were published as paperback originals. Thompson also co-wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films \u003ci\u003eThe Killing\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePaths of Glory\u003c\/i\u003e). Several of his novels have been filmed by American and French directors, resulting in classic noir including \u003ci\u003eThe Killer Inside Me\u003c\/i\u003e (1952), \u003ci\u003eAfter Dark My Sweet\u003c\/i\u003e(1955), and \u003ci\u003eThe Grifters\u003c\/i\u003e (1963).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Mulholland Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50503249068306,"sku":"9780316403818","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_9e6f75ad-774b-4683-9944-1a56fc090757.jpg?v=1730786245","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/roughneck-9780316403818","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}