>However, neither of these musics were of very
respectable or even
mainstream culture, always
>thought to be from the wrong side of the tracks. I
don't really recall any
hillbilly musicians in
>vintage hardboiled lit, either. Are there even many
(I can't think of any,
but my knowledge of
>vintage HB could be a lot better) scenes set in
roadhouses or juke joints?
>expanding contemporary movement of country
noir.)
Right off the bat? The Op visits roadhouses/dives in three
short stories
("The Big Knockover"; its sequel "$106,000 Blood Money"; and
"The Girl with the Silver Eyes"), and in all of them the
place is fairly important as a setting & plot device. My
recollection is that the places in the first two stories are
urban and the third is rural. And in the third (or so) part
of RED HARVEST, the Op and Dinah Brand set out for yet
another rural roadhouse but get caught in some crossfire and
never quite get there.
I don't know if this means anything to anyone, but in
"$106,000" Hammett actually mentions the song that's being
performed--"Tell Me What You Want and I'll Tell You What You
Get". It's stuck with me because the reference is so
specific--I don't know whether it was popular then or some
particular genre or just fits the story, or what
exactly.
Vicky
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 25 Sep 2000 EDT