What is literary noir? How do British and American noir thrillers relate to their historical contexts? In considering such questions, this study ranges over hundreds of novels, analysing the politics and poetics of noir from the hard-boiled fiction of Hammett, Chandler and Cain to the exciting diversity of nineties thrillers, with sections on the tough investigators, gangsters and victims of the Depression years: the first-person killers, femmes fatales and black protagonists of mid-century; the game-players, voyeurs and consumers of contemporary thrillers and future noir.
'A good treatment of the fiction, its cultural relevance, cinematic parallels, and criticism; highly recommended for undergraduate and research collections supporting film and popular culture.'
– J.R. Christopher, Choice, 2001
'The Noir Thriller… marks another title in Palgrave's "Crime Files" series, whose editorial philosophy…is to offer "scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fiction", a philosophy Lee Horsley admirably meets with her readable, serious (though sometimes humorous) journey through noir streets and landscapes more varied than critics recognize.'
- Anthony Bukoski, Studies in the Novel, 2002
'In constructing her constantly original argument, Lee Horsley rams unstoppably through many hundreds of books and a good range of films; astonishingly, either by their positioning in her well-conceived categories or through more detailed analysis, she implies a fresh, carefully nuanced reading of each. This study of the twentieth-century thriller in all of its darker manifestations is from now on indispensable.'
- Martin Priestman, International Fiction Review, 2006
'It's a pleasure to follow her journey from Joseph Conrad to James Ellroy, from Black Mask magazine to William Gibson...Very inspiring is [her] attention to the links between literature and film throughout the book...recommended as a handbook for anyone with a deeper interest in classic as well as modern crime fiction. Audiences of noir and neo-noir cinema are sure to find in it their favourite genre's sources of inspiration.'
- Marcus Stiglegger, Gutenberg-University, Mainz Germany, Paradoxa
'A welcome scholarly project...The Noir Thriller will stand for the foreseeable future as the one-volume scholarly handbook to the hardboiled/bleak/violent end of crime fiction...The range and depth of her scholarship is impressive - not only does she know about more crime novels than anyone I know of, she knows more about what's been written about them.'
- Crime Factory, The Australian Crime Fiction Magazine
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: 1920-45
Hard-boiled Investigators
Big-shot Gangsters and Small-time Crooks
Victims of Circumstance
PART II: 1945-70
Fatal Men
Fatal Women
Strangers and Outcasts
PART III: 1970-2000
Players, Voyeurs and Consumers
Pasts and Futures
Bibliography
Index
LEE HORSLEY is Senior Lecturer in English at the Lancaster University. Her publications include Political Fiction and the Historical Imagination (1990), and Fictions of Power in English Literature 1900-1950 (1995) as well as recent articles on crime fiction published in Clues and Modern Fiction Studies.
Description
What is literary noir? How do British and American noir thrillers relate to their historical contexts? In considering such questions, this study ranges over hundreds of novels, analysing the politics and poetics of noir from the hard-boiled fiction of Hammett, Chandler and Cain to the exciting diversity of nineties thrillers, with sections on the tough investigators, gangsters and victims of the Depression years: the first-person killers, femmes fatales and black protagonists of mid-century; the game-players, voyeurs and consumers of contemporary thrillers and future noir.
Reviews
'A good treatment of the fiction, its cultural relevance, cinematic parallels, and criticism; highly recommended for undergraduate and research collections supporting film and popular culture.'
– J.R. Christopher, Choice, 2001
'The Noir Thriller… marks another title in Palgrave's "Crime Files" series, whose editorial philosophy…is to offer "scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fiction", a philosophy Lee Horsley admirably meets with her readable, serious (though sometimes humorous) journey through noir streets and landscapes more varied than critics recognize.'
- Anthony Bukoski, Studies in the Novel, 2002
'In constructing her constantly original argument, Lee Horsley rams unstoppably through many hundreds of books and a good range of films; astonishingly, either by their positioning in her well-conceived categories or through more detailed analysis, she implies a fresh, carefully nuanced reading of each. This study of the twentieth-century thriller in all of its darker manifestations is from now on indispensable.'
- Martin Priestman, International Fiction Review, 2006
'It's a pleasure to follow her journey from Joseph Conrad to James Ellroy, from Black Mask magazine to William Gibson...Very inspiring is [her] attention to the links between literature and film throughout the book...recommended as a handbook for anyone with a deeper interest in classic as well as modern crime fiction. Audiences of noir and neo-noir cinema are sure to find in it their favourite genre's sources of inspiration.'
- Marcus Stiglegger, Gutenberg-University, Mainz Germany, Paradoxa
'A welcome scholarly project...The Noir Thriller will stand for the foreseeable future as the one-volume scholarly handbook to the hardboiled/bleak/violent end of crime fiction...The range and depth of her scholarship is impressive - not only does she know about more crime novels than anyone I know of, she knows more about what's been written about them.'
- Crime Factory, The Australian Crime Fiction Magazine
Contents
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: 1920-45
Hard-boiled Investigators
Big-shot Gangsters and Small-time Crooks
Victims of Circumstance
PART II: 1945-70
Fatal Men
Fatal Women
Strangers and Outcasts
PART III: 1970-2000
Players, Voyeurs and Consumers
Pasts and Futures
Bibliography
Index
Authors
LEE HORSLEY is Senior Lecturer in English at the Lancaster University. Her publications include Political Fiction and the Historical Imagination (1990), and Fictions of Power in English Literature 1900-1950 (1995) as well as recent articles on crime fiction published in Clues and Modern Fiction Studies.
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