Okay, I see the distinction you're making, and agree with it, that Lane was outward directed in the sense that he was trying to sell an idealized image of himself, whereas Thompson's duo adopted anti-images to mess with people.
> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> From: Dave.Zeltserman@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 13:49:36 +0000
> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Random Notes On Redemption
>
> Mark, here's how I see the difference--all three (Lane, Ford, Corey) might be unreliable narrators, but in Fast Lane, Lane is up to the very end trying to get away with crimes. This is more to keep people from knowing what he is than the threat of prison--nothing is more painful to Lane than the idea of his guilt being exposed. That's what I mean by his stumbling towards the abyss. Lou Ford and Nick Corey rush head long and gleefully into it! Both of them are living in what they consider morally bankrupt worlds, and they look at themselves as almost saviors, their killings rescuing their victims form the cruelty and the hypocrisy of the world. Ford and Corey are not as much interested in hiding their guilt as rubbing it into people's faces.
>
> At least that's my take.
>
> --Dave
>
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Mark Sullivan <DJ-Anonyme@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dave wrote:
> > "While I enjoy almost any well-written noir, the books that I've written that critics have categorized as noir tend to fall squarely in the "fall from grace" category. Fast Lane, for example, follows a protagonists stumble into the abyss, . . ."
> > Really? Guess I can't really argue with the author, but that wasn't how I took that book. I would definitely group Fast Lane with Thompson's Kill Inside Me and, especially, Pop 1280 (which is a big compliment, by the way).
> > SPOILER ALERT
> > Instead of falling from grace, I saw Johnny Lane as an unreliable narrator who eventually stopped trying to fool the reader, but never really saw him as fooling himself, in much the same way I took Nick Corey in Pop 1280.
> > Now Small Crimes was different -- Joe Denton was kidding himself, but not the reader, who saw his impending descent very clearly in that seeming slow motion as cars are about to crash kind of way.
> > Mark
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>
>
>
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