This question is mostly for the writers. What makes DC a
distinctive location for hardboiled?
I know Benjamin Schutz and George Pelecanos grew up in the
area, so they are writing about where they know. Schutz's
description of a visit to The Wall, the Vietnam War Memorial,
in All the Old Bargains, is as moving as the one in Bobbie
Ann Mason's In Country.
However, is there anything in particular about "where you
know" that makes it a particularly good set for this kind of
literature? Did you feel you were taking the hardboiled
traditions from other cities and imposing them upon DC? Or
did your preexisting view of the city require that any tale
you told would be noir? For instance, both authors make very
good use of the not so nice 14th Street corridor of a few
years ago.
Also, how do you decide when to use the right name or a fake
one for real places? I can understand why you might change
the name of places where bad things happen -- for instance,
Schutz changes the name of the location of an armed
confrontation from Foxchase Cinema to Princess Cinema in All
the Old Bargains; and George changes the names of bars and
clubs he says bad things about. Of course, many locals
immediately know the real name. However, sometimes even
benign places are not given their real names. Schutz has very
complimentary things to say about the seafood at Crisfield's,
a real restaurant in Silver Spring, Md, but does not name the
Biograph, the arthouse theater in which his PI Leo Haggerty
watches Road Warrior.
Are these choices arbitrary or are there reasons?
Mark
-- # 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 : 03 Dec 2001 EST