On 4/14/07 10:37 AM, "Kerry J. Schooley" <
gsp.schoo@murderoutthere.com> wrote:
³Not that it was all that easy for Margaret. And if it ever
got easier, it was because Hollywood made Rachel, Rachel,
based on her Stone Angel. The talent was always there, the
work strong, but she had to be validated by the dominant
culture before becoming acceptable here. Even then, I seem to
recall that she was not very welcome back in the small
Manitoba town where she grew up. And there was a push to ban
her books in the Ontario school district where she spent the
the last decades of her life.²
** We were still studying her work when I was in high school,
which was the late 80¹s. I remember watching a film on her
life. I still remember one of my classmates in Gr 13 English
saying, ³Why does every book we read have to be so
depressing?²
³Again, this is all magnified by Canada being a relatively
small market- one tenth the size of the US, but I think this
also feeds into what Willow is saying about self-perception
(we're too nice and polite to murder anyone) becoming a
difficult to overcome reality (we're too boring to host noir
fiction.)²
** I think if it can work for England/Scotland it can work
for Canada/US. The main obstacle is perception from the
publishers. I¹ve found the US readers very open to foreign
authors and work set elsewhere, they just seem to have a hard
time getting it.
³Would you describe Giles Blunt's fiction, definitely good
stuff, as noir?²
** I think my great sin is that I haven¹t yet read Giles
Blunt. I have the small excuse of still being (relatively) a
baby in this field, as it¹s only been about three years since
I¹ve been really learning the genre. Prior to that I was
maintaining my monogamous reading habits of finding an
author, reading everything by them and then reluctantly
starting from scratch.
When I heard about Giles I was very interested in reading his
work. Being from Gravenhurst originally, I¹m pretty familiar
with North Bay. What stopped me was when I heard about the
bipolar theme. My reasons on that are personal, but I
preferred reading rape and dismemberment or just about
anything else to that. I still maintained I¹d read the books,
just needed to wait until I felt I could handle it. I¹ve
since met Giles and heard him speak and do look forward to
his work. I read some sample chapters online, but since I
haven¹t read an entire book don¹t feel I can offer an opinion
on whether or not he¹s noir.
Which would likely just spark a whole new debate on that
definition anyway. But he¹s on my tbr pile as a Œlong weekend
of reading¹ - at some point when I can put a few luxury reads
back to back I¹m going to start working through the series.
Maybe the August long weekend, camping in the
Rockies...
Sandra
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