Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Getting Sentimental (or Hardboiled Hearts
of Mush)
Mario Taboada (matrxtech@sprintmail.com)
Thu, 21 May 1998 08:28:26 +0000
There is a long tradition of sentimentality (even melodrama) in
the
hardboiled genre; writers like Horace McCoy, James Cain and Jim
Thompson
could be as melodramatic as the drippiest romance writers (try
Cain's
"Love's Lovely Counterfeit" for laughs). These guys are
Ellroy's direct
ancestors - not thematically, but in spirit. Ellroy is *not* in
the
tradition of "pure" hardboiled exemplified by Hammett, Paul
Cain, and
Raoul Whitfield (and, much later, guys like Richard Stark and
E. Richard
Johnson).
Regards,
Mario Taboada
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