I'll second Dave Z.'s nomination of DOUBLE INDEMNITY for the
"disturbing novels" contest. I recently read this book for
the first time, and it really is a small, lean, and
ultimately almost surreally nasty masterpiece.
I was reminded as I was reading DOUBLE INDEMNITY of the
RARA-AVIS debate a while back about the definition of "noir."
DOUBLE INDEMNITY may be the best single example I could offer
of a noir novel: it starts out very sunny and matter-of-fact,
and then gradually the narrator gets caught in a vortex of
passions in which bad decisions lead to worse decisions, and
in some disturbingly dreamlike way he is suddenly at a
horrifying point of no return . . . .
As I have admitted, I'm still a crime fiction newbie,
catching up on the classics as well as the more recent books,
so I may be overestimating the uniqueness of DOUBLE
INDEMNITY. I'd love to hear reactions or corrections if
that's the case. I sure didn't expect the trajectory of the
novel based on the film, but now I want to watch the film
again. The effect of the ending of DOUBLE INDEMNITY is
remarkable--the only thing I could liken it to would be some
of the more extreme Jacobean revenge tragedies, e.g., THE
REVENGER'S TRAGEDY or 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE.
Another shocking scene (if not novel) that I came across
recently was the murder scene early in J. D. MacDonald's
Travis McGee novel A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD. The novel is
fairly conventional, but that scene in the hotel room was
vividly grisly in a way most of those kinds of scenes tend
not to be.
Best, Mark Nevins
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