Introduction

Literary Noir

July 2006

Over dinner with friends recently, the conversation gravitated to great literary noir novels - those stories in which you don't know whether to love or hate the protagonist.

"Like high art," James Sallis writes, "these stories...unfold the lies society tells us and the lies we tell ourselves."

"The term was coined by postwar French film critics as film noir (black film) to describe the sort of movie characterized by dark photography and a despairing, doom-laden sense of life. Scholars of the mystery story found it convenient to use the term for work that shared the same attitude...Typical themes in noir work include obsessive love (or hate, or both), amnesia, illness, betrayal, and man-as-the-plaything of fate" DeAndrea, William L. Encyclopedia Mysteriosa

The main things to consider when reading literary noir are: the shifting roles of the protagonist; the ill-fated relationship between the protagonist and society (generating the themes of alienation and entrapment); and the ways in which noir functions as a socio-political critique.

But please don't be put off by this scholarly talk. Escape with Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Ernest Hemingway and many more and lose yourself in these classic literary noir novels.

Recommended Reads

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
ISBN: 0394758285
Publication Date: 1988-07-12
When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in. Chandler's first novel, published in 1939, introduces Philip Marlowe, a 38-year-old P.I. moving through the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s.
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
ISBN: 0892962062
Publication Date: 1987-09-01
Building like a symphony, this is a wonderful, complicated but accessible tale of ambition, insanity, passion and deceit, with the perfect setting of booming, postwar Los Angeles.
Chicago Noir by Joe Meno (Editor)
ISBN: 9781617753770
Publication Date: 2015-09-01
In this superior entry in Akashic's noir series, Meno offers nearly a century of Chicago crime fiction.
Crime Novels by Robert Polito (Editor); Horace McCoy; Cornell Woolrich; James M. Cain; Kenneth Fearing; Edward Anderson; William L. Gresham
ISBN: 1883011469
Publication Date: 1997-09-01
Presents six early classics of American noir fiction: James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Edward Anderson's Thieves Like Us, Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley, Cornell Woolrich's I Married a Dead Man, and Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane
ISBN: 0688153321
Publication Date: 1998-07-22
Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous, drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Dennis Lehane takes you into a world of triple crosses, elaborate lies, and shrouded motives, where the villains may be more moral than the victims, the missing should possibly stay missing, and those who go looking for them may not come back alive.
A Hell of a Woman by Megan Abbott (Editor); Val McDermid (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9780979270994
Publication Date: 2007-12-01
A collection of twenty-five original female noir stories by some of today's top crime writers, including Vicki Hendricks, Sara Gran, Christa Faust, Naomi Hirahara, Charlie Huston, and more. Includes a special fifty-page appendix of essays on female noir pioneers.
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
ISBN: 9780062267528
Publication Date: 2015-02-03
On a flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning Lily Kintner. Over martinis, the strangers play a game in which they reveal intimate details about themselves. But what begins as playful banter between Ted and Lily takes a turn when Ted claims, half-seriously, that he would like to kill his wife. "[It] would have made a great Hitchcock movie."-- Fort Worth Star-Telegram "
L. A. Confidential by James Ellroy
ISBN: 0892962933
Publication Date: 1990-06-01
Three troubled cops--Ed Exley, desperately seeking glory; vengeful Bud White, a witness to his mother's murder by his father; and Jack Vincennes, a shakedown artist with a dark secret--tread a fine line between right and wrong in 1950s Los Angeles.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
ISBN: 0679722645
Publication Date: 1989-07-17
A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shop-worn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, a fat man named Gutman, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers.
The Mike Hammer Collection by Mickey Spillane; Max Allan Collins (Introduction by)
ISBN: 0451203526
Publication Date: 2001-06-01
Includes the classic, I, the Jury...Mickey Spillane was one of the world's most popular mystery writers. His specialty was tight-fisted, sadistic revenge stories, often featuring his alcoholic gumshoe Mike Hammer and a cast of evildoers.
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
ISBN: 0375406778
Publication Date: 2005-07-19
A harrowing story of a war that society is waging on itself, and an enduring meditation on the ties of love and blood and duty that inform lives and shape destinies, No Country for Old Men is a novel of extraordinary resonance and power.
Perchance to Dream by Robert B. Parker
ISBN: 0425131319
Publication Date: 1993-12-01
Today, The Big Sleep is considered the all-time masterpiece of hard-boiled suspense. Now detective Philip Marlowe has returned--in this electrifying sequel by Chandler's acclaimed successor, Robert B. Parker, author of the bestselling Spenser mysteries.
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
ISBN: 0679723250
Publication Date: 1989-05-14
An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one grisly solution--a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve. First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir.
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Selected Stories by James M. Cain
ISBN: 037541438X
Publication Date: 2003-07-22
These three classics from the master of the noir novel, along with five otherwise unavailable short stories, are electric with the taut narrative voice, the suspense, and the explosive violence and eroticism that were James M. Cain's indelible hallmarks. The Postman Always Rings Twice , Cain's first novel-the subject of an obscenity trial in Boston, the inspiration for Camus's The Stranger -is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an erotic obsession, and into a murder. Double Indemnity -which followed Postman so quickly, Cain's readers hardly had a chance to catch their breath-is a tersely narrated story of blind passion, duplicity, and, of course, murder. Mildred Pierce , a work of acute psychological observation and devastating emotional violence, is the tale of a woman with a taste for shiftless men and an unreasoned devotion to her monstrous daughter. All three novels were immortalized in classic Hollywood films.
Sinister Shorts by Perri O'Shaughnessy
ISBN: 9780385337977
Publication Date: 2006-01-31
The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Nina Reilly thrillers brings her prodigious storytelling gifts to this first-ever collection of short crime fiction. From desperate housewives to hard-boiled PIs to an appearance by Nina Reilly herself, these chilling short mysteries-many appearing in print for the very first time-set the mood and ratchet up the suspense as only Perri O'Shaughnessy can.
Step to the Graveyard Easy by Bill Pronzini
ISBN: 0802733751
Publication Date: 2002-06-01
Desperate to change his life and make a fresh start, Matthew Cape is enjoying the new Corvette, skydiving, and gambling, until he comes face to face with grifters Boone and Tanya Judson, who try to cheat him in a crooked San Francisco poker game.
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
ISBN: 0140037969
Publication Date: 1979-06-28
The world of Patricia Highsmith has always been filled with ordinary people, all of whom are capable of very ordinary crimes.The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith on a prolific career of noir fiction, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
ISBN: 0679742298
Publication Date: 1992-09-01
In a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel he is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him--exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil.
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
ISBN: 0679722637
Publication Date: 1989-07-17
Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
ISBN: 0684818981
Publication Date: 1996-03-20
Hemingway's classic novel about smuggling, intrigue, and love To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair. Harshly realistic, yet with one of the most subtle and moving relationships in the Hemingway oeuvre, To Have and Have Not is literary high adventure at its finest.
Train by Pete Dexter
ISBN: 0385505914
Publication Date: 2003-10-07
Navigating his way between hostile patrons and brutal fellow workers, African American caddy Train finds an ally in a police detective who encourages Train's ambitions while overseeing a case involving a boat hijacking and a beautiful widow.

Introduction

Literary Noir

July 2006

Recommended Reads

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