RARA-AVIS: Dirda's hardboiled list

From: southpaw@altavista.net
Date: 27 Oct 2000


Michael Dirda, book editor of the Washington Post, won a Pulitzer a few years back for literary criticism and has a weekly chat session at washingtonpost.com. In this past Wednesday's chat session, he listed his top HB novels:

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/00/dirda1025.htm

     heverhill, MA: hey michael,
     
     Can I trouble you for a quick list of essential hard
     boiled detective fiction? I like Hammet, Chandler,
     McDonald, all the requisite guys. Who else is worth a
     read?
     
     Michael Dirda:
     
     Obviously the three you suggest. You might add Jim
     Thompson (The Killer INside Me), David Goodis, Paul Cain
     (Fast ONe), Edward Anderson (Thieves Like Us), Cornell
     Woolrich (The Bride Wore Black), Charles Willeford (Miami
     Blues), Richard Stark (The Hunter), George V. Higgins (The
     Friends of Eddie Coyle), Elmore Leonard (52-PIck up). For
     the Black Mask School of the 1920s, there are several
     anthologies around, edited by Herbertg Ruhm, Ron Goulart
     and Joseph T. Shaw. About 10 years ago Black LIzard
     Books--a paperback line--republsihed a good many classic
     pulp novels and Robert Polito recently edited a LIbary of
     America volume devoted to the genre. This seems somehow
     slightly wrong, but there you are.

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