I guess you're writing neo-hardback-noir rather than
neo-paperback-noir, Dave. Very classy!
The book that instantly sprung to mind from the reviewer's
description of the kind of "grim noir novel" he's thinking
of, is Paul Cain's Fast One. But to answer your own question
-- about noir writers as defined by Jack Bludis rather than
the reviewer -- in addition to the writers Jeff mentioned,
there's also Benjamin Appel, Nathanael West, Edward Anderson,
Erskine Caldwell, Richard Hallas, Dorothy Hughes, James Ross,
James Curtis, Gerald Butler, Gerald Kersh and no doubt a
bunch of others. Certainly noir exploded in the late 40s with
the arrival of the paperback original, but it was doing okay
in hardcover much earlier.
Al
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Zeltserman" <
dave@hardluckstories.com>
>A review in the London Times favorably compared my
latest book, Small
> Crimes, with: "the kind of grim noir novel they used
to write in the
> Thirties and Forties. There are no good guys, only
men who are mean,
> vicious, tough, corrupt and amoral. Action is
frenzied and bloody,
> women easy but vulnerable, dialogue curt and the
plot not necessarily
> convincing."
>
> To me this raised the question, who was writing
these types of grim
> noir novels in the 30s and 40s?? The only writers I
could think of were
> James M. Cain, Cornell Woolrich and David Goodis (at
least he started
> in the 40s). If the reviewer had mentioned the 50s
instead it would've
> made more sense as it would've opened up a host of
other writers,
> including Charles Williams, Gil Brewer, Dan Marlowe,
etc. So here's the
> question--who else other than the writers I
mentioned were writing noir
> novels in the 30s and 40s (noir with Jack Bludis's
definition of
> screwed as opposed to dark + sinister)???
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