The Ideal Man: The Tragedy of Jim Thompson
By PAVIN CHACHAVALPONGPUN
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Ideal Man is the new biography of silk magnate Jim Thompson by Joshua Kurlantzick. (Photo: John Wiley & Sons)
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Rumors swirled around Bangkok and Washington about his mysterious vanishing. Different theories emerged, from Thompson committing suicide or being kidnapped to just getting lost in the dense woods. Nobody ever saw him again.
Readers may want to know more about the disappearance of Thompson. Sadly, there is no new theory in the book. But what one may find even more important is the fact that Kurlantzick is successful in delving so grippingly into the life of Thompson, rather than his death, and how he lived through America’s way of war and its missed opportunities in post-war Southeast Asia, as well as such turbulence in Thai domestic politics.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
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