Oh Frabjous Day!

Right, it's hard to concentrate on something like literary translation, with the elections tomorrow. Our hero, Harrison Rhodes, being...

thompete6

Nov 7, 20221 min read

FROM AFRICA TO THE MADHOUSE

OK, Rhodes is elusive. But really, with the latest, Rhodes To Morocco, just out, and his sharing a mirthless laugh or two over it--we...

thompete6

Sep 23, 20221 min read

Rhodes To Morocco

Super responses to the novel (above) -- all gratitude here. Rhodes seems cheered, but, in truth, a tad evasive as usual. Can't pin down...

thompete6

Aug 28, 20221 min read

Rhodes is off to Morocco!

Well, Rhodes has done it now! Poor guy is in the mountains in Morocco, not sure what has brought him to this teaching post--and beset by...

thompete6

Jun 2, 20221 min read

PANDEMIC, THEATER OF VIOLENCE

Today's capricious spree in the Brooklyn subway, with its many victims, its smoke-bomb and disappearing perp (along with the two-year...

thompete6

Apr 12, 20221 min read

Rhodes to Morocco

This new novel of mine (title above) about our sterling character Harrison Rhodes, is out in a few weeks. The same borderline tasteless...

thompete6

Mar 30, 20221 min read

Hitler, He Only Had One Ball

This just in from Rhodes (to a well-known ditty): Hitler, he only had one ball Goring had two but they were small Himmler was very...

thompete6

Mar 20, 20221 min read

SPOT OF BOTHER

For reasons that are obscure, the prequel to the Harrison Rhodes trilogy won't be out until November. Sigh. Bughouse Blues, a rousing...

thompete6

Feb 26, 20221 min read

Still Hell On The Back Wards

Just so you know, my state is running a constant scandal--hits the news about once a week--over the public mental hospital. A facility...

thompete6

Feb 3, 20221 min read

HELL-IN-A-HANDBASKET

OK, I'm trying here. Really trying. About recent news--about the WRITING. I guess I'm venting (the word makes me uncomfortable--do you...

thompete6

Jan 21, 20221 min read

BLOWING UP, IN REAL TIME

This just in, from Rhodes, and I DO agree--but he still doesn't say where he IS: "I've long been irked, I admit it, overwrought, in fact,...

thompete6

Jan 8, 20221 min read

Happy Nude Cheer!

It's supposed to be all NEW, like a beaming baby. But the top stories are still virus, plane cancellations, wildfires and Jan.6. What a...

thompete6

Jan 1, 20221 min read

Grinching Out

I'm OK, I guess, with the past tense of "grind" being "grinded." As it is now in the sports world. "We grinded it out." I would have...

thompete6

Dec 22, 20211 min read

Exquisite? Squalid?

If I ask Rhodes where he is I'll get punished with two months of silence. So I'm not doing that. We can only guess. I got an email, some...

thompete6

Dec 10, 20211 min read

Bit My Head Off

I tried to ask Rhodes something about his past, working in a mental hospital (covered in Bughouse Blues, out soon)--and the stream of...

thompete6

Dec 5, 20211 min read

We Stagger On

The blog carries on at www.peterthompsonbooks.com #peterthompsonbooks, teetering between mere folly and irretrievable madness, as it...

thompete6

Dec 1, 20211 min read

Where's Rhodes now?

Looking at that hotly worded email from Rhodes, about the sports pages, it occurs to me he might be in-country! Not in one of those awful...

thompete6

Nov 27, 20211 min read

Rhodes-to-Hell-blog

Life is like Martin Amis--nasty, British and short. Rhodes once said that. And if you don't know this, I do, having lived over there....

thompete6

Nov 23, 20211 min read

Grammar Grump

Hardly the style and grammar maven, still the depravity in what passes for newspapers these days has spurred Rhodes to check in: "Look at...

thompete6

Nov 21, 20211 min read

Rhodes-to-Hell-blog

This is the Harrison Rhodes humor blog, curated by yours truly, fed by his occasional eruptions and reappearances from abroad. It is...

thompete6

Nov 20, 20211 min read

Letter to the Head Fascist

How strange, that Fernando Arrabal's book-length Letter to General Franco --written and mailed to him in 1971--has never until now been translated. A searing plea for compassion and change in Spain. Timely, in view of our current vale of tears. The great playwright's letter is full of details about life under fascism, informative of the weird little mechanism's of fascist control. Available in English from dialogosbooks.com

thompete6

Nov 181 min read

End of Rhodes

Right. Well, we seem to be done. Rhodes' end, though a bit unclear where he goes after the spell of rotting in a Marseille prison ( The...

thompete6

May 31 min read

The Jailbird's Song

This may be the end of the Rhodes (take a look, the novel The Jailbird's Song , www.dialogosbooks.com , amazon etc). This bulletin, just...

thompete6

Jan 251 min read

The Horror Highway

And so we stagger on... with our tear-streaks, our clenched fists... bleeding brains. Those who have fled are dogged by our shadows, by...

thompete6

Dec 12, 20241 min read

Hell Roads

Is my hero, Rhodes, really off--with jutting jaw, or merely Beckettian shuffle--to the flames of Hell? What is the end, in the final...

thompete6

Aug 19, 20241 min read

Fargue-in awesome, as always

Soon, there was nothing before the last men but a long boulevard beyond which the Void could be read like a poster. The Earth Affair was...

thompete6

Jun 14, 20241 min read

With A Mouth Full Of Vomit

We can't go on. We go on. We'll stagger through the miasma of corruption that lies ahead, then we'll try to vote in the fall. The...

thompete6

Apr 30, 20241 min read

A Harmonica, or A Calendar

You expect life to contain its own magic. You want to reach into it and pull out, I don't know, a... calendar, or a harmonica. But no, it...

thompete6

Mar 15, 20241 min read

Yikes! Rhodesie in jail!

This is bad. Is my guy--your guy, Rhodes--in a foreign jail? Has his exquisite rage with humanity caused some giant misunderstanding?...

thompete6

Jan 12, 20241 min read

Before It's Too Late!

Bukowski writes "orientate," as a verb. I mean, I know he's supposed to be rough, but not that rough. And Rhodes, Harrison, you know, my...

thompete6

Dec 9, 20231 min read

Peter Thompson books

Novels (the HARRISON RHODES STORIES), poetry, translations, anthologies

The anthologies have been used for many years in French language and literature courses, high school and college.

The translations are from French. Most of the works on this site derive from a multicultural interest and wide travel.

Learn More