I love Daedalus Books. It’s a fantastic place to buy new books at great prices. If you are unfamiliar with them, it’s kind of like a big store consisting of nothing but the bargain book tables found at Barnes & Noble or Borders, plus with some DVDs and CDs in the mix. Between them and the Wheaton Public Library, my book needs are pretty well set.
I went up to the Daedalus a couple weeks ago with my pops, and proceeded to spend more than I should have — I probably have more books “to read” than “have read” in my collection, but, man, I can’t help myself sometimes. It was on this visit that I saw The Getaway by Jim Thompson.
I saw the book on a table for $1.99, and picked it up hoping that it was the book the movie was based on (rather than the book being based on the movie — I’m not a huge fan of those), and I was pleasently surprised to find it was the former, especially since I had no idea there was a book at all. Having enjoyed the Sam Peckinpah flick (staring Steve Badass McQueen and Ali Holy Hell Hot MacGraw), it was a no-brainer to pick it up.
If you’ve never seen the movie (or read the book), The Getaway centers around Doc McCoy and his wife Carol. Recently released from prison (with a little help from Carol, who may or may not of slept with the warden), McCoy plans a bank job to get his debts paid. Things, of course, go wrong and he and Carol end up on the lamb.
I tore into the book, and really enjoyed it. The movie followed it rather closely for the most part, but the book takes a weird and ugly turn about the last third of it, and is completely different from the movie. It’s not bad, both are quite good, actually, but there’s a part in the book — a part that centers around suggested cannibalism — that really didn’t work. At all. It didn’t work so much, that it affected what could have been a much stronger ending.
It’s rare when a movie is better than the book that it’s based on, and while Thompson’s Getaway was pretty damn enjoyable, Peckinpah’s is a little stronger. That, though, could be the McQueen factor.
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