--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "George Tuttle"
<noirfiction@...> wrote:
> A follow up question to all:
> Do you find that psychotics are greatly maligned in
crime fiction?
> That they get a bad rap? I mean that word psycho is
so often
> associated the word "killer," do you think it is
unfair? Do you find
> that there are a disproportionate number of
psychotic criminals to
> psychotic victims in noir fiction?
>
> When I think of a psychotic victim, the first
protagonist that comes
> to mind is Jim Thompson's Kid Collins in After Dark,
My Sweet. His
> psychotic tendencies make him highly vulnerable,
easy to exploit. I
> tend to see him more of a victim, than a criminal,
but that might be
> the romantic in me.
George,
I haven't read AFTER DARK in a while, but my memory of Kid
Collins is that he is not very clever. There's a difference
between stupid and crazy, as everyone knows. I guess he's
crazy too, but I think his lack of intelligence makes him
vulnerable as much as anything else. I dunno, maybe my memory
of that novel is shaky. Isn't he prone to violent
outbursts?
In noir fiction (and crime fiction in general) it is usually
so much more fun to have a psycho character in the
villain/antihero role, rather than victim. I guess I never
really thought about it. Who are the victims in noir novels?
Isn't the hero the victim? He's gonna wind up screwed in the
end. Fate is the villain.
Charlie.
----- charliewilliams.net
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