RARA-AVIS: Re: Gil Brewer's newest Stark House twofer (Part II)

From: foxbrick ( foxbrick@yahoo.com)
Date: 21 Mar 2008


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue"
<jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "e_lynskey" <e_lynskey@> wrote:
> >
> > To piggy-back on my previous email re: Stark House's new Gil
Brewer
> > twofer, I finished the second novel, THE THREE-WAY SPLIT. It's
also set
> > in Florida, this time involving a shipwreck and treasure (like a
> > Charles Williams sea noir). Nice tension between the son and
rogue
> > father, and quite different than DEVIL. Both novels are great
stuff.
> >
>
> And piggybacking on your post to tie it in with another thread, Gil
> Brewer's work is proof that you can hook the reader and write fine
> noir stuff while disregarding realism. But they all do it:
Willeford,
> Thompson, Goodis, Woolrich... even William Campbell Gault in his
> marvellous noir _Death Out of Focus_. For some reason, a noir story
> allows for greater suspension of disbelief than other types of
crime
> stories. The reader apparently cuts the author a lot of slack in
> exchange for a damn good yarn.

Well, it's meant to be dreamlike, nightmarish, to some extent, at least some of the time.

And, fwiw, THREE WAY SPLIT was adapted for a good movie, teasingly entitled 3-WAY.

Todd Mason



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