<<Mario's review was educational in another way for me.
I never knew that neo-noir started with Willeford's WOMAN
CHASER. I've got it on the shelf, but haven't read it. Pretty
impressive for such a skinny little book to start a new
genre.>>
Michael: I coined postnoir because it's an ironic, knowing
type of noir fiction. The distinction may be useful for
discussion. The origin with The Woman Chaser is tentative and
subject to revision. It's the earliest example I know, but
then, maybe older books by Goodis and Thompson or Gil Brewer
are ironic, too, and it just shows less (or I am blind to the
irony).
On this subject: a reader commented privately that Adolfo
Bioy Casares did write an early ironic-noir work (The
Invention of Morel, 1940), but he writes with distance and
the doings aren't dark enough -- and noir hadn't yet come on
the scene. He is sophisticated and philosophical, not raw and
direct as the great American noirists. Bioy did write many
stories and other novels that do qualify as noir
(Diary of the War of the Pig, Adventures of a Photographer in
La Plata), but in those the irony is toned down.
For those chasing parallels, I highly recommend reading
Bioy's Morel back to back with William Campbell Gault's noir
masterpiece Death Out of Focus.
Hell, we may even end up looking at Chesterton, H.G. Wells
and Aldous Huxley next.
Regards,
MrT
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