I've found O'Brien's hardboiled list very useful.
Interestingly, the list in the first edition is quite different.
I like having the both of them.
John
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, T. Kent Morgan <tkmorgan@shaw.ca> wrote:
From: T. Kent Morgan <tkmorgan@shaw.ca>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Non-Fiction About Crime Fiction
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, October 20, 2008, 9:50 AM
After the mention of Geoffrey O'Brien's Hardboiled America, I pulled
my copy of the expanded edition off the shelf. It includes a checklist
for 1929-1960 titled The Hardboiled Era. I'm interested in hearing the
thoughts of the experts about the list plus any suggestions as to
books that might be missing. I was surprised to see a couple of Brett
Halliday's Michael Shayne books and some Ellery Queen on his list plus
more "mainstream" authors such as Faulkner, Caldwell, Graham Greene,
Hemingway, Kerouac, O'Hara and Gore Vidal. He does say that he has
included "into the mix a variety of dissimilar works, naturalistic
novels, political novels, spy thrillers, conventional whodunits: all
those books that seem to orbit near the undefinable quantity that I
have referred to as the hardboiled novel." I love his use of the
word "undefinable" which I hope members will remember the next time
that debate about the definitions of hardboiled and noir arises on the
list.
Kent Morgan
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