![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Several sequences appear to be either fantasy or wilful misdirection. Much of the narrative suspense within the novel relies on the reader’s understanding of Lou’s duplictious nature and the discrepancy between what is said, who is being addressed and what is actually happening. However, rather than a straight set of ‘seeing eye’ descriptions from Lou’s perspective Thompson employs a rhetorical device which incorporates Lou’s awareness of an audience– the reader– and his potential unreliability as a narrator. Walker’s suggestions slyly nods toward the evasive form Thompson adopts for his novel, whereby the reader is inescapably immersed in Lou’s sick, tormented psyche as his murderous urges boil over into several horrendous acts of violence. It’s easier that way’: Billy Boy Walker’s advice to psychopathic protagonist Lou Ford towards the end of Jim Thompson’s blistering novel The Killer Inside Me (1952). He is the editor of the essay collection Consider David Foster Wallace: Critical Essays, released August 2010. His literary reviews have appeared in the Journal of American Studies and Movable Type. ![]() David Hering is writing his PhD thesis at the University of Liverpool, where he is currently researching the works of David Foster Wallace and Mark Z. ![]()
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