> Don Lee wrote:
>
> I thought COCKFIGHTER (which I read about 3 weeks
ago)
> was really really good. However, it struck me
only
> after I had finished it to wonder, why is this
noir?
> I mean, it is and it isn't, maybe.
>
> ****************
> I don't see it as noir. Maybe I would if I was
a
> chicken.
>
> miker
>
That's one of the things that makes Willeford great, he
didn't care about standard mystery/noir conventions. He's an
original with a powerful voice who did things his own way.
His best books are grimly funny despite their bleak subject
matter.
I'm in the minority, but I loved SHARK INFESTED CUSTARD. It
doesn't have much plot, but it's a darkly comic snapshot of
the death of the Swinging 70's. His four main characters are
just living their life and bad things happen to them with
funny/tragic results.
Willeford's Hoke Mosely books are wonderful as well. They
inverted many of Chandler's themes about the lone hero. Hoke
was one of the first Cop/Detectives novels where the family
story gets as much weight as the crime solving. Hoke is
literally toothless,and beaten down by his life and his job,
but he keeps clocking in because he has to.
I think the idea that COCKFIGHTER was based on The Odyssey is
a Willeford joke. I can't recall any events in the book that
mirror Homer. No cyclopses, no sirens, no guys turned into
swine. Lots of Cockfighting action though.
The COCKFIGHTER movie is also pretty good with Willeford
appearing in a minor role.
--Chan
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