"Cropper' Cabin" is unlike anything else Thompson published. It is bereft of psychopathic deputies, lacking dirty, underhanded tricks, and doesn't detail a descent into the depths of hell. The protagonist Tommy Carver is not a conman or other shady dealer. This is a piece of country pulp like what Harry Whittington put out. Tommy grew up in a shareholder's shack in the Oklahoma countryside with his meanspirited stepfather and Tommy is busy romancing a rich man's daughter and causing all kinds of havoc at school. Thompson paints this bitter town with a broad brush, encompassing poverty, incest, race relations, legal affairs, and more. But there are few who can write country pulp this good or this believable. In many ways, it is a coming of age story as Tommy has to grow up and stand up to his father, to his girlfriend's father, and to the law, which it appears Tommy has run afoul of.
This is a fairly short book and very easy to read. ( )