2/11/1949 Jim Thompson gets the bird

February 11, 1949.  Like any proper noir writer Jim Thompson had a life full of bad luck and weirdness.  But extra points for style, as they say.

On this day he was fired from his job as a reporter at the Los Angeles Mirror.  According to the gossip in the newsroom, he was sent down to the San Diego Zoo to interview a mynah bird, and while he was gone the boss called his wife and told her he was not to come back to the paper.


By happy coincidence, the same date saw the publication of his novel Nothing More Than Murder.

Source: Polito, Robert.  Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson.