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But when they encounter somebody they consider “real people,” they will respect such a person and do them no harm. The outlaws don’t mind taking money that belongs to those kinds of citizens, and they have no love for the cops who help maintain the system whereby this kind of accepted thievery can take place. The way Bowie and his pals see it, the kinds of people who own banks and otherwise take financial advantage of the common man are “thieves like us,” just ones who rip people off legally.
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The men have a code of honor by which they live, one that is separate from the normal behavior system of common, law-abiding folk. Throughout, the novel is sympathetic to Bowie and his two accomplices, who go by the names T-Dub and Chicamaw. Much of the novel’s tension comes via the dilemma faced by Bowie, who gets torn between his lover and his criminal brethren Keechie doesn’t mind that her man is a killer and a fugitive, but she wants him to make a life with her and to stay away from the men with whom he fled from prison. Along the way, Bowie becomes romantically involved with Keechie, a no-nonsense, wise-beyond-her-years young woman who is the daughter of a man who aids Bowie and his criminal buddies in their post-jailbreak endeavors. The cons survive by becoming traveling bandits who rob banks in various towns and then hide out between heists.Įventually, the tale comes to focus on one of the three: Bowie Bowers, 27, who was jailed for the fatal shooting of a shopkeeper during a holdup that occurred when he was 18. In Anderson’s book-which is set in his home territory of Oklahoma and Texas and is told in a lean, hard way that will win favor from noir fiction enthusiasts-the story opens with the exploits of a trio of men who have escaped from prison together. With Thieves Like Us, the second of his two novels, he created not just a classic story of a fugitive and his lady accomplice but a memorable tale of Depression-era desperation. He also made an unsuccessful attempt to work as a screenwriter in Hollywood. For one stretch, he led the life of a train-hopping hobo.
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Born and raised between Texas and Oklahoma, Anderson often worked as a journalist and was also a professional boxer and musician.
What’s striking about Anderson (1905-69) is that he authored this excellent book-which reads like a mashup of John Steinbeck, Dashiell Hammett, John Fante, and Jim Thompson-yet only had one other novel published in his lifetime.
Criterion Collection’s new edition of They Live by Night is a prompt for a fresh look at both the film and novel. Anderson was little known in his time and is still under-recognized today. Ray’s film was based on a gritty 1937 novel called Thieves Like Us, which was written by Edward Anderson. But the title that many credit as the original gangster couple film was made before either of those.Ĭritically revered auteur Nicholas Ray made his directorial debut with 1948’s They Live by Night, the plot of which largely revolves around an escaped convict and the woman who becomes his lover and traveling companion.
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Bonnie and Cl yde (1967) might be the most well-known movie about an outlaw couple, and Gun Crazy (1950) might be the best.