The Noir Thriller --Page--10
Pasts and Futures
In
Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984), the protagonist, Case, exiled from
cyberspace, sleeps in ‘the cheapest coffins’ and roams the streets of
Night City, a place that is ‘like a deranged experiment in social Dar-
winism’: ‘Stop hustling and you sink without a trace.’ Isolated and
self-destructive, worn down until ‘the street itself [has come] to seem
an externalisation of some death wish’ (13-15), Case is hired to go on
a virtual reality quest, ‘the Straylight run’. His goal, Villa Straylight,
belongs to a family that controls the world’s two most powerful artifi-
cial intelligences; it is also, however, the highly wrought product of
minds that in many ways seem remote from the era of hypertech
and cyberspace. ‘“The Villa Straylight,” said a jewelled thing on the
pedestal, in a voice like music, “is a body grown in upon itself, a Gothic
folly.”’ Its proliferating structures rise towards ‘a solid core of microcir-
cuitry’, but are at the same time the emblems of an old family that has
grown rich by exploiting others, ‘growing inward’ into a ‘ragged tangle
of fears’ (242). As Ratz, the Chatsubo bartender, says, ‘what grotesque
props . . . castles hermetically sealed, the rarest rots of old Europe . . .’
(278).
cyberspace, sleeps in ‘the cheapest coffins’ and roams the streets of
Night City, a place that is ‘like a deranged experiment in social Dar-
winism’: ‘Stop hustling and you sink without a trace.’ Isolated and
self-destructive, worn down until ‘the street itself [has come] to seem
an externalisation of some death wish’ (13-15), Case is hired to go on
a virtual reality quest, ‘the Straylight run’. His goal, Villa Straylight,
belongs to a family that controls the world’s two most powerful artifi-
cial intelligences; it is also, however, the highly wrought product of
minds that in many ways seem remote from the era of hypertech
and cyberspace. ‘“The Villa Straylight,” said a jewelled thing on the
pedestal, in a voice like music, “is a body grown in upon itself, a Gothic
folly.”’ Its proliferating structures rise towards ‘a solid core of microcir-
cuitry’, but are at the same time the emblems of an old family that has
grown rich by exploiting others, ‘growing inward’ into a ‘ragged tangle
of fears’ (242). As Ratz, the Chatsubo bartender, says, ‘what grotesque
props . . . castles hermetically sealed, the rarest rots of old Europe . . .’
(278).
Gibson’s novel, ‘the quintessential cyberpunk
novel’,1 is a fusion of
the noir thriller, science fiction and the Gothic. Its computerised data
matrix, Gothic castle and crazed aristocratic family merge entertainingly
with its hard-boiled protagonist living precariously and immorally on
the seedy margins of a corrupt world. A debt to Chandler is often sug-
gested, though Case is in fact closer to Kells, the protagonist of Paul
Cain’s Fast One, an utterly cynical convicted criminal with a history of
rash behaviour and drug addiction. In recent decades, particularly in
the eighties and nineties, the label ‘noir’ has been applied to texts and
films that combine elements of the noir thriller with future world and
the noir thriller, science fiction and the Gothic. Its computerised data
matrix, Gothic castle and crazed aristocratic family merge entertainingly
with its hard-boiled protagonist living precariously and immorally on
the seedy margins of a corrupt world. A debt to Chandler is often sug-
gested, though Case is in fact closer to Kells, the protagonist of Paul
Cain’s Fast One, an utterly cynical convicted criminal with a history of
rash behaviour and drug addiction. In recent decades, particularly in
the eighties and nineties, the label ‘noir’ has been applied to texts and
films that combine elements of the noir thriller with future world and
Gothic
fantasies. Arguably this development is a return to origins. The
hard-boiled tradition so inextricably bound up with noir is in part
defined by the gritty realism of its style, its faithful representation of
contemporary life and its hard-bitten response to socio-political cor-
ruption. In many respects, however, both literary and cinematic noir
also have strong affinities with the literature of fantasy and romance,
blending realistic representation with non-realistic and expressionist
elements that are heightened, distorted, stylised and excessive - the
knight of romance in Chandler, the mythic dimensions of Hammett’s
Poisonville, the supernatural suggestiveness of Woolrich’s prose,2 the
monstrous satiric grotesques of Thompson’s psychopath-narrator
novels.3 Indeed, it is often this pull towards excess which gives noir
its unsettling power, its savage intensity and its haunting sense of
irreversible fate, and, in novels that centre on a protagonist like Chan-
dler’s knight of the mean streets, it is the essentially romantic figure of
the tarnished hero who is the ‘last man standing’ against this mood of
fatality.
hard-boiled tradition so inextricably bound up with noir is in part
defined by the gritty realism of its style, its faithful representation of
contemporary life and its hard-bitten response to socio-political cor-
ruption. In many respects, however, both literary and cinematic noir
also have strong affinities with the literature of fantasy and romance,
blending realistic representation with non-realistic and expressionist
elements that are heightened, distorted, stylised and excessive - the
knight of romance in Chandler, the mythic dimensions of Hammett’s
Poisonville, the supernatural suggestiveness of Woolrich’s prose,2 the
monstrous satiric grotesques of Thompson’s psychopath-narrator
novels.3 Indeed, it is often this pull towards excess which gives noir
its unsettling power, its savage intensity and its haunting sense of
irreversible fate, and, in novels that centre on a protagonist like Chan-
dler’s knight of the mean streets, it is the essentially romantic figure of
the tarnished hero who is the ‘last man standing’ against this mood of
fatality.
‘One can imagine’, James Naremore says, ‘a
large video store where
examples of [film noir] would be shelved somewhere between gothic
horror and dystopian science fiction: in the center would be Double
Indemnity, and at either extreme Cat People and Invasion of the Body
Snatchers.’4 The family resemblances to be found amongst noir, Gothic
and science fiction are rooted in their shared history. The origins of
science fiction are often seen to lie in later romance genres such as the
Gothic novel.5 Old terrors are newly imagined, and, in cyberpunk, an
old vocabulary (castles, romancers, ghosts, gods, voodoo) is coupled
with a vocabulary of AIs (artificial intelligences), cranial jacks, the deck
and the matrix. Gibson’s fiction, especially Count Zero (1986) and Mona
Lisa Overdrive (1988), repeatedly moves between technological ‘magic’
and the supernatural.6 The questing cyberpunk hacker is routinely
haunted by past evils, by age-old forms of exploitation, superstitious
horrors and decadent aristocratic cruelty. The cyberpunk text is as likely
to be analysed in a critical study called Gothic as it is in one called
Cyberia,7 and the same is true for such recent films as Terminator, Alien
and Blade Runner. It is not only recent texts, of course, that can be
located and discussed within both genres: Frankenstein (1818) can be
credited with creating one of the most powerful and enduring Gothic
‘terror-symbols’ but is also widely accepted as ‘the first real science
fiction novel’; Jekyll and Hyde (1886) occupies a central place in the
Gothic tradition and is at the same time one of the most important early
examples of ‘science fantasy’.8
examples of [film noir] would be shelved somewhere between gothic
horror and dystopian science fiction: in the center would be Double
Indemnity, and at either extreme Cat People and Invasion of the Body
Snatchers.’4 The family resemblances to be found amongst noir, Gothic
and science fiction are rooted in their shared history. The origins of
science fiction are often seen to lie in later romance genres such as the
Gothic novel.5 Old terrors are newly imagined, and, in cyberpunk, an
old vocabulary (castles, romancers, ghosts, gods, voodoo) is coupled
with a vocabulary of AIs (artificial intelligences), cranial jacks, the deck
and the matrix. Gibson’s fiction, especially Count Zero (1986) and Mona
Lisa Overdrive (1988), repeatedly moves between technological ‘magic’
and the supernatural.6 The questing cyberpunk hacker is routinely
haunted by past evils, by age-old forms of exploitation, superstitious
horrors and decadent aristocratic cruelty. The cyberpunk text is as likely
to be analysed in a critical study called Gothic as it is in one called
Cyberia,7 and the same is true for such recent films as Terminator, Alien
and Blade Runner. It is not only recent texts, of course, that can be
located and discussed within both genres: Frankenstein (1818) can be
credited with creating one of the most powerful and enduring Gothic
‘terror-symbols’ but is also widely accepted as ‘the first real science
fiction novel’; Jekyll and Hyde (1886) occupies a central place in the
Gothic tradition and is at the same time one of the most important early
examples of ‘science fantasy’.8
The noir thriller is very often, like both Frankenstein and Jekyll
and
Hyde, a fantasy of duality, and Jekyll and Hyde, in particular, is a form of
doppelgänger narrative rewritten countless times in the literary noir of
the twentieth century. An apparently respectable protagonist’s dark side
surfaces, cannot be controlled, commits murder and brings ruin and
destruction. Other elements in Jekyll and Hyde - sinister locations, dark-
ness and decay, the fragmentary narrative, the suggestions of psycho-
logical monstrosity and regression to barbarity - are also familiar
Hyde, a fantasy of duality, and Jekyll and Hyde, in particular, is a form of
doppelgänger narrative rewritten countless times in the literary noir of
the twentieth century. An apparently respectable protagonist’s dark side
surfaces, cannot be controlled, commits murder and brings ruin and
destruction. Other elements in Jekyll and Hyde - sinister locations, dark-
ness and decay, the fragmentary narrative, the suggestions of psycho-
logical monstrosity and regression to barbarity - are also familiar
ingredients
of the noir thriller. What sets Stevenson’s novel apart from
traditional noir, of course, is the admixture of fantasy. In recent decades,
however, the stylistic and iconic aspects of non-fantastic literary noir
(the tough style, the hard-boiled investigator, the gangster and the
small-time crook, the femme fatale) have been reunited with literary
forms in which there is a higher level of permissible fantasy, whether
that fantasy is given a plausible scientific basis or involves blurring
the distinctions between natural and supernatural. This kind of cross-
breeding is to be seen in cyberpunk from Gibson’s Neuromancer trilogy
in the eighties to such recent novels as K. W. Jeter’s Noir (1998), as well
as in other near-future narratives, such as the Ballard and Womack
novels analysed at the end of this chapter. It is also seen in modern
Gothic novels like those of Hjortsberg, Ackroyd and O’Connell.
traditional noir, of course, is the admixture of fantasy. In recent decades,
however, the stylistic and iconic aspects of non-fantastic literary noir
(the tough style, the hard-boiled investigator, the gangster and the
small-time crook, the femme fatale) have been reunited with literary
forms in which there is a higher level of permissible fantasy, whether
that fantasy is given a plausible scientific basis or involves blurring
the distinctions between natural and supernatural. This kind of cross-
breeding is to be seen in cyberpunk from Gibson’s Neuromancer trilogy
in the eighties to such recent novels as K. W. Jeter’s Noir (1998), as well
as in other near-future narratives, such as the Ballard and Womack
novels analysed at the end of this chapter. It is also seen in modern
Gothic novels like those of Hjortsberg, Ackroyd and O’Connell.
If we think in terms of the defining features
of literary noir, what we
see in ‘fantastic noir’ is the intensification of two centrally important
noir themes, the destabilising of identity and the inescapable presence
of the past. As the comparison with Jekyll and Hyde suggests, divided
identity is one of the shared preoccupations of the noir thriller and the
Gothic novel. It is also frequently one of the underlying themes in the
strand of science fiction which explores the interrelationship between
the human and the technological. In non-fantastic noir, alienation from
self can be evident in the fragmented narrative of a psychotic mind and
in the confused or fearful responses of characters who encounter symp-
toms of this psychosis. In Gothic noir self-division can be literalised. So,
for example, in Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel (1978), Johnny Faithful has
actually devoured the heart of Harry Angel. In Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor
(1985), the twentieth-century detective figure is haunted by his ghostly
double, a late seventeenth- early eighteenth-century murderer.
see in ‘fantastic noir’ is the intensification of two centrally important
noir themes, the destabilising of identity and the inescapable presence
of the past. As the comparison with Jekyll and Hyde suggests, divided
identity is one of the shared preoccupations of the noir thriller and the
Gothic novel. It is also frequently one of the underlying themes in the
strand of science fiction which explores the interrelationship between
the human and the technological. In non-fantastic noir, alienation from
self can be evident in the fragmented narrative of a psychotic mind and
in the confused or fearful responses of characters who encounter symp-
toms of this psychosis. In Gothic noir self-division can be literalised. So,
for example, in Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel (1978), Johnny Faithful has
actually devoured the heart of Harry Angel. In Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor
(1985), the twentieth-century detective figure is haunted by his ghostly
double, a late seventeenth- early eighteenth-century murderer.
Science fiction, too, has its dark doubles
from Frankenstein on, but the
distinctive science fictional means of destabilising our sense of unified
character and human identity is by combining man with machine,
or by challenging our perception of a human-mechanical divide.
Man-machine symbiosis or brain-computer interfaces, the creation of
distinctive science fictional means of destabilising our sense of unified
character and human identity is by combining man with machine,
or by challenging our perception of a human-mechanical divide.
Man-machine symbiosis or brain-computer interfaces, the creation of
artificial
intelligences and biological engineering all disrupt our sense of
the unity and integrity of individual bodies and minds. Bruce Sterling,
for example in Schismatrix (1985), populates his future world with diver-
gent species, the ‘Mechs’, enhanced by such things as brain-computer
interfaces, and the ‘Shapers’, produced by the methods of bioengineer-
ing. In Rudy Rucker’s Software (1982), giant artificial intelligences,
the unity and integrity of individual bodies and minds. Bruce Sterling,
for example in Schismatrix (1985), populates his future world with diver-
gent species, the ‘Mechs’, enhanced by such things as brain-computer
interfaces, and the ‘Shapers’, produced by the methods of bioengineer-
ing. In Rudy Rucker’s Software (1982), giant artificial intelligences,
‘boppers’,
extract the protagonist’s ‘software’ (the information in his
brain) and put it into a robot body. The sources of anxiety in fantasies
of this kind are most often to do with external control (socio-political
fatality) rather than inescapable inner demons (psychological fatality).
The boundaries between inner and outer worlds are breached, produc-
ing fragmentation and the dissolution of a coherent self and raising
radical questions about the nature of being (what is the essence of the
human?). The intersection with the noir thriller, however, is more
evident in the way this metamorphosis into the ‘posthuman’ fore-
grounds the issue of agency, bringing protagonists to wonder, not
without cause, whether they retain free will and individual autonomy.
For Gibson’s Case, when he is trapped in the matrix by Neuromancer,
the question is whether he has simply become a second-order electronic
construct manipulated as an image by more powerful entities. Cobb
Anderson, in Rucker’s Software, asks himself what built-in programs are
now a part of him: ‘Were the boppers in a position to control him on
a real-time basis? Would he notice the difference?’ (120).
brain) and put it into a robot body. The sources of anxiety in fantasies
of this kind are most often to do with external control (socio-political
fatality) rather than inescapable inner demons (psychological fatality).
The boundaries between inner and outer worlds are breached, produc-
ing fragmentation and the dissolution of a coherent self and raising
radical questions about the nature of being (what is the essence of the
human?). The intersection with the noir thriller, however, is more
evident in the way this metamorphosis into the ‘posthuman’ fore-
grounds the issue of agency, bringing protagonists to wonder, not
without cause, whether they retain free will and individual autonomy.
For Gibson’s Case, when he is trapped in the matrix by Neuromancer,
the question is whether he has simply become a second-order electronic
construct manipulated as an image by more powerful entities. Cobb
Anderson, in Rucker’s Software, asks himself what built-in programs are
now a part of him: ‘Were the boppers in a position to control him on
a real-time basis? Would he notice the difference?’ (120).
This apprehension about loss of control is
closely analogous to
the noir sense of fatality found in those novels which associate fate
with the machinations of determinedly corrupt, possibly conspiratorial
political and economic powers. A familiar figure in traditional noir
is the man who does not realise that his actions are being externally
controlled. In Hammett’s Glass Key, for example, Ned Beaumont is
unwittingly used by Paul Madvig, who is in turn under the sway
of Senator Henry and his daughter, to whom Paul is a lower form
of life, ‘fair game for any kind of treatment’ (780). The manipulating
forces in the world of cyberpunk are generally less modest in their
ambitions than the local if representative power brokers of traditional
noir. Cyberspace transcends all local and national boundaries, and
paranoia is on a correspondingly large scale, involving gigantic
multinationals and omniscient intelligence organisations. This future-
world projection, however, is not perceived as a fundamental departure
from the more local forms of political and socio-economic control.
Rather, it is the continuation of an old struggle by other means. Cyber-
punk fiction moves away from the speculative dominant of 1960s
the noir sense of fatality found in those novels which associate fate
with the machinations of determinedly corrupt, possibly conspiratorial
political and economic powers. A familiar figure in traditional noir
is the man who does not realise that his actions are being externally
controlled. In Hammett’s Glass Key, for example, Ned Beaumont is
unwittingly used by Paul Madvig, who is in turn under the sway
of Senator Henry and his daughter, to whom Paul is a lower form
of life, ‘fair game for any kind of treatment’ (780). The manipulating
forces in the world of cyberpunk are generally less modest in their
ambitions than the local if representative power brokers of traditional
noir. Cyberspace transcends all local and national boundaries, and
paranoia is on a correspondingly large scale, involving gigantic
multinationals and omniscient intelligence organisations. This future-
world projection, however, is not perceived as a fundamental departure
from the more local forms of political and socio-economic control.
Rather, it is the continuation of an old struggle by other means. Cyber-
punk fiction moves away from the speculative dominant of 1960s
science
fiction, with its dramatic temporal and spatial dislocations, and
turns instead to extrapolative world-building.9 Its ‘near-future’ narra-
tives imply inextricable connections between the past (our present) and
a future in which both the streets and cyberspace replicate and satiri-
cally distort the structures and corruptions of contemporary corporate
capitalism.
turns instead to extrapolative world-building.9 Its ‘near-future’ narra-
tives imply inextricable connections between the past (our present) and
a future in which both the streets and cyberspace replicate and satiri-
cally distort the structures and corruptions of contemporary corporate
capitalism.
This diminution of temporal distance is also a
characteristic of the
Gothic noir narratives of Hjortsberg, Ackroyd and O’Connell. One of
the distinguishing features of the Gothic is a ‘fearful sense of inheri-
tance in time’, combining with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in
space to produce ‘an impression of sickening descent into disintegra-
tion’.10 The infernal cities of these writers are New York, London and
the imaginary New England factory town of Quinsigasmond. They are
all repositories of shadowy, ancient forces, but these dark powers
are symbolically linked to the mechanisms, the buildings and the
inescapable boundaries of the modern city. In the almost present futures
of Ballard and Womack, the past is equally determinate, leaving the
characters of the narrative with buried fears, hatreds and desires, beget-
ters of a future that is in essence a reversion to the past - an encounter
with the Conradian ‘heart of darkness’ that no noir protagonist ever
manages to leave wholly behind.
Gothic noir narratives of Hjortsberg, Ackroyd and O’Connell. One of
the distinguishing features of the Gothic is a ‘fearful sense of inheri-
tance in time’, combining with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in
space to produce ‘an impression of sickening descent into disintegra-
tion’.10 The infernal cities of these writers are New York, London and
the imaginary New England factory town of Quinsigasmond. They are
all repositories of shadowy, ancient forces, but these dark powers
are symbolically linked to the mechanisms, the buildings and the
inescapable boundaries of the modern city. In the almost present futures
of Ballard and Womack, the past is equally determinate, leaving the
characters of the narrative with buried fears, hatreds and desires, beget-
ters of a future that is in essence a reversion to the past - an encounter
with the Conradian ‘heart of darkness’ that no noir protagonist ever
manages to leave wholly behind.
A hell of a city
The
themes of self-division and the inescapable past dominate William
Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel, which was filmed by Alan Parker as Angel Heart
in 1987. The Faustian story of a satanic pact is grafted on to what at
first appears to be a hard-boiled detective story, beginning with a phone
call to the Crossroads Detective Agency, ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ at rea-
sonable rates. It is possible to see the surprises of the narrative as the
result of a generic switch from crime fiction to the Gothic novel. In a
sense, however, the Gothic is heavily present from the opening sen-
tence: ‘It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday’s snowstorm lingered
in the streets like a leftover curse’ (1). Hjortsberg’s skill lies in using
throughout the language of superstition, curses, diabolic forces and evil
incarnate to intensify and give horrifying substance to a noir narrative
that centres on the investigation of dark secrets. It is a potent combi-
nation because we know that at bottom these narratives are the same.
The hunter is indistinguishable from the hunted, and damnation is
never negotiable.
Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel, which was filmed by Alan Parker as Angel Heart
in 1987. The Faustian story of a satanic pact is grafted on to what at
first appears to be a hard-boiled detective story, beginning with a phone
call to the Crossroads Detective Agency, ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ at rea-
sonable rates. It is possible to see the surprises of the narrative as the
result of a generic switch from crime fiction to the Gothic novel. In a
sense, however, the Gothic is heavily present from the opening sen-
tence: ‘It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday’s snowstorm lingered
in the streets like a leftover curse’ (1). Hjortsberg’s skill lies in using
throughout the language of superstition, curses, diabolic forces and evil
incarnate to intensify and give horrifying substance to a noir narrative
that centres on the investigation of dark secrets. It is a potent combi-
nation because we know that at bottom these narratives are the same.
The hunter is indistinguishable from the hunted, and damnation is
never negotiable.
‘Harry Angel the famous
shaman’ (45) falls into a city in which there
seems
to be no way to evade the omnipresent Louis Cyphre. Ranging
the city from its heights to its depths, Angel sees diabolical happenings
at every level, though the real movement of the narrative is towards a
recognition that evil is inescapable because it belongs to Harry’s inner
as well as his outer world. This is not just a matter of ‘another bunch
of crooks’ in both high and demonic places (253). Harry’s deficient self-
knowledge is, of course, traditionally noir. Many a noir protagonist feels
himself, like the amnesiac protagonist of John D. MacDonald’s Man-
Trap, to be plunging through a long tunnel in which lights whip by
‘illuminating fragments I could not understand’ (152). When he finally
recognises his true self he sees how deeply implicated he is and under-
stands his fate. Like Angel, the noir investigator often finds that he has
been somewhat careless in his choice of employer and fails to grasp why
people keep dying around him. The noir amnesiac may all too effec-
tively repress the memories that surface to give him nightmares - in
Angel’s case, of pursuer and pursued changing places and an evil twin
embracing him with a savage kiss. What Angel adds to the noir thriller’s
scepticism about the possibility of goodness and innocence is a literal-
isation of devouring ambition (‘Poor old Harry Angel . . . I killed him
and ate his heart’) and of the hidden self, Johnny Favourite, who has
already earned damnation. The detective narrative’s ‘de-ciphering’ has
ironically revealed only a different sort of cipher, the true inner empti-
ness of Johnny Favourite. ‘Where do you search for a guy who was never
there to begin with?’ (51). And alongside the satirically edged repre-
sentation of the hollowness of the ambitious man is the final stress on
the inevitability of death itself, the cipher as the ‘zero’ point that Louis
Cyphre says is ‘“a portal through which every man must eventually
pass”’ (212).
the city from its heights to its depths, Angel sees diabolical happenings
at every level, though the real movement of the narrative is towards a
recognition that evil is inescapable because it belongs to Harry’s inner
as well as his outer world. This is not just a matter of ‘another bunch
of crooks’ in both high and demonic places (253). Harry’s deficient self-
knowledge is, of course, traditionally noir. Many a noir protagonist feels
himself, like the amnesiac protagonist of John D. MacDonald’s Man-
Trap, to be plunging through a long tunnel in which lights whip by
‘illuminating fragments I could not understand’ (152). When he finally
recognises his true self he sees how deeply implicated he is and under-
stands his fate. Like Angel, the noir investigator often finds that he has
been somewhat careless in his choice of employer and fails to grasp why
people keep dying around him. The noir amnesiac may all too effec-
tively repress the memories that surface to give him nightmares - in
Angel’s case, of pursuer and pursued changing places and an evil twin
embracing him with a savage kiss. What Angel adds to the noir thriller’s
scepticism about the possibility of goodness and innocence is a literal-
isation of devouring ambition (‘Poor old Harry Angel . . . I killed him
and ate his heart’) and of the hidden self, Johnny Favourite, who has
already earned damnation. The detective narrative’s ‘de-ciphering’ has
ironically revealed only a different sort of cipher, the true inner empti-
ness of Johnny Favourite. ‘Where do you search for a guy who was never
there to begin with?’ (51). And alongside the satirically edged repre-
sentation of the hollowness of the ambitious man is the final stress on
the inevitability of death itself, the cipher as the ‘zero’ point that Louis
Cyphre says is ‘“a portal through which every man must eventually
pass”’ (212).
Like Hjortsberg’s novel, Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor subverts the ratio-
nal confidence of classic Holmesian detection by imagining a connec-
tion that is only supernaturally explicable between pursuer and pursued,
detective and murderer. However, where Hjortsberg provides a neatly
dark resolution (the terrible truth of self-recognition), Ackroyd is more
concerned with retaining a sense of ultimate, irresolvable mysteries, and
thus moves towards a conclusion that is much more ambiguous than
Johnny Favourite’s incontrovertible failure to cheat the devil of his due.
In Ackroyd’s novel, this carefully preserved ambiguity serves the main-
stream ambitiousness of metaphysical themes that are not fused with
the kind of satirical observation to be found in Falling Angel. What
Ackroyd presents in Hawksmoor are two mysteriously connected series
of murders separated, in historical time, by about 250 years, the modern
nal confidence of classic Holmesian detection by imagining a connec-
tion that is only supernaturally explicable between pursuer and pursued,
detective and murderer. However, where Hjortsberg provides a neatly
dark resolution (the terrible truth of self-recognition), Ackroyd is more
concerned with retaining a sense of ultimate, irresolvable mysteries, and
thus moves towards a conclusion that is much more ambiguous than
Johnny Favourite’s incontrovertible failure to cheat the devil of his due.
In Ackroyd’s novel, this carefully preserved ambiguity serves the main-
stream ambitiousness of metaphysical themes that are not fused with
the kind of satirical observation to be found in Falling Angel. What
Ackroyd presents in Hawksmoor are two mysteriously connected series
of murders separated, in historical time, by about 250 years, the modern
murders
coinciding in almost every detail with the sacrificial murders
long ago committed or ‘willed’ by Nicholas Dyer, who has been given
the approximate historical niche of the architect, Nicholas Hawksmoor.
The twentieth-century investigator has only baffling, haunting glimpses
of the past that has created his present. His name, Nicholas Hawksmoor,
suggests something of the doppelgänger relationship between investi-
gator and murderer: as characters move through the novel, they repeat-
edly encounter their own inexplicable union with other human beings
and experience the loss or dissolution of their own identities. The whole
novel is structured in such a way that we as readers experience the view-
points of several different characters - the minds of the murderer, the
victims and the detective. The main murderer in Hawksmoor has been
given a name which suggests a victim (a ‘dyer’) rather than a murderer;
he begins life during the years of Plague and Fire as an orphaned child,
outcast, terrified, drawn in amongst others who live on the margins of
society. The detective is denied his traditional role of explaining a com-
prehensible crime and achieving neat closure. Ackroyd plays with the
idea of the detective story that as a form moves towards an end which
is really a discovery of the beginning (that is, of the origin of the crime),
driving home the point that as metaphysical questions our speculations
about origins and ends are unending and ‘unbeginning’, leading us back
into an infinite regress of questions about where we came from and
towards the equally unresolvable question of where we are going. We
would like to think of ourselves as progressing, but instead only repeat
the patterns of past ages. The crimes in Hawksmoor are part of a cycle,
not specific acts pertaining to and resolvable at a particular time, but
part of an endless repetition, and the investigator is himself constituted
by the past, not detached from it.
long ago committed or ‘willed’ by Nicholas Dyer, who has been given
the approximate historical niche of the architect, Nicholas Hawksmoor.
The twentieth-century investigator has only baffling, haunting glimpses
of the past that has created his present. His name, Nicholas Hawksmoor,
suggests something of the doppelgänger relationship between investi-
gator and murderer: as characters move through the novel, they repeat-
edly encounter their own inexplicable union with other human beings
and experience the loss or dissolution of their own identities. The whole
novel is structured in such a way that we as readers experience the view-
points of several different characters - the minds of the murderer, the
victims and the detective. The main murderer in Hawksmoor has been
given a name which suggests a victim (a ‘dyer’) rather than a murderer;
he begins life during the years of Plague and Fire as an orphaned child,
outcast, terrified, drawn in amongst others who live on the margins of
society. The detective is denied his traditional role of explaining a com-
prehensible crime and achieving neat closure. Ackroyd plays with the
idea of the detective story that as a form moves towards an end which
is really a discovery of the beginning (that is, of the origin of the crime),
driving home the point that as metaphysical questions our speculations
about origins and ends are unending and ‘unbeginning’, leading us back
into an infinite regress of questions about where we came from and
towards the equally unresolvable question of where we are going. We
would like to think of ourselves as progressing, but instead only repeat
the patterns of past ages. The crimes in Hawksmoor are part of a cycle,
not specific acts pertaining to and resolvable at a particular time, but
part of an endless repetition, and the investigator is himself constituted
by the past, not detached from it.
Hawksmoor uses what seem to be
supernatural events to undermine
confidence that the evidence will be susceptible to empirical enquiry.
Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994) develops a similar
theme, the power of the irrational within the human mind, by creat-
ing a narrative in which superstition, prejudice and terror lead people
to identify the Gothic monster, the golem, as the perpetrator of horrific
crimes, but in which the actual source is something equally dark,
mysterious and unknowable within the mind of a murderess (who is
herself a victim). As in Hawksmoor, there is a ‘gothic’ rapport between
characters and the places they inhabit, with London providing a topog-
raphy of dark spaces and fear-laden enclosures. Both books echo De
Quincey’s ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, with its
account of the Ratcliffe Highway slaughter.11 In Dan Leno, these murders
confidence that the evidence will be susceptible to empirical enquiry.
Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994) develops a similar
theme, the power of the irrational within the human mind, by creat-
ing a narrative in which superstition, prejudice and terror lead people
to identify the Gothic monster, the golem, as the perpetrator of horrific
crimes, but in which the actual source is something equally dark,
mysterious and unknowable within the mind of a murderess (who is
herself a victim). As in Hawksmoor, there is a ‘gothic’ rapport between
characters and the places they inhabit, with London providing a topog-
raphy of dark spaces and fear-laden enclosures. Both books echo De
Quincey’s ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, with its
account of the Ratcliffe Highway slaughter.11 In Dan Leno, these murders
are
central to a plot which involves both performance and repetition of
past crimes - the ‘fine art’ of re-enacting ‘the immortal Ratcliffe
past crimes - the ‘fine art’ of re-enacting ‘the immortal Ratcliffe
Highway
murders of 1812 . . . silently dispatched into eternity by an artist whose exploits will
be preserved for ever in the pages of Thomas De Quincey’ (25).
Like O’Connell’s novels, Dan Leno is dominated by the themes of per-
formance and spectatorship which are central to many noir thrillers of
the period. The Gothic, associated as it is with excess, the violation of
taboos and the expression of violent emotion, lends itself to an explo-
ration of the acting out and witnessing of transgressive performances in
which players and spectators alike exceed the boundaries of the per-
missible. What Ackroyd builds on in Dan Leno is the association between
Gothic heightening and our equivocal enjoyment, as audience, of the
gruesome spectacle of murder. Like the post-seventies noir thriller gen-
erally, this is written to appeal to our appetite for sensational crime and
then to make us reflect on the nature of that appetite, on our uncer-
tainty about the relationship of fantasy to act and on violence which is
‘inseparable from its reproduction as spectacle’.12 Dan Leno is closer than
Hawksmoor to the structure of the generic thriller. Much of the frag-
mented and deceptive narrative is seen through the eyes of a murderer
whose identity we do not know until the very end. The combination of
concealment and spectacle leads us to focus on the tension between
secret deeds and a compulsion to display, to assert oneself publicly
through dramatically violent acts.
formance and spectatorship which are central to many noir thrillers of
the period. The Gothic, associated as it is with excess, the violation of
taboos and the expression of violent emotion, lends itself to an explo-
ration of the acting out and witnessing of transgressive performances in
which players and spectators alike exceed the boundaries of the per-
missible. What Ackroyd builds on in Dan Leno is the association between
Gothic heightening and our equivocal enjoyment, as audience, of the
gruesome spectacle of murder. Like the post-seventies noir thriller gen-
erally, this is written to appeal to our appetite for sensational crime and
then to make us reflect on the nature of that appetite, on our uncer-
tainty about the relationship of fantasy to act and on violence which is
‘inseparable from its reproduction as spectacle’.12 Dan Leno is closer than
Hawksmoor to the structure of the generic thriller. Much of the frag-
mented and deceptive narrative is seen through the eyes of a murderer
whose identity we do not know until the very end. The combination of
concealment and spectacle leads us to focus on the tension between
secret deeds and a compulsion to display, to assert oneself publicly
through dramatically violent acts.
The final revelation of the murderer’s
identity adds to Dan Leno a pre-
occupation that is more commonly present in the work of contempo-
rary female crime writers. That is, Ackroyd emphasises the need felt by
a woman both to author her own story and to be able to act and perform
as a man can. For Elizabeth Cree, who is on stage with Dan Leno, the
theatre offers the means of transforming herself from a repressed and
powerless girl: ‘My old self was dead and the new Lizzie . . . had been
born at last’ (106). Lizzie feels that she attains the status of the Roman-
tic male outlaw hero made famous by De Quincey, ‘an outcast who
enjoys a secret power . . . transformed into an avenger whose bright
yellow hair and chalk-white countenance afforded him the significance
of some primeval deity’ (37). Although her genius for performance, her
imaginative and mimetic powers, are perverted into the ‘fine art’ of
murder, she is nevertheless remarkable for her inventiveness. She
escapes herself by triumphantly taking on other roles, cross-dressing,
developing a male ‘slanguage’ and writing an incriminating diary for
her husband John Cree, on his ‘tyro’ aspirations to the artistry of the
occupation that is more commonly present in the work of contempo-
rary female crime writers. That is, Ackroyd emphasises the need felt by
a woman both to author her own story and to be able to act and perform
as a man can. For Elizabeth Cree, who is on stage with Dan Leno, the
theatre offers the means of transforming herself from a repressed and
powerless girl: ‘My old self was dead and the new Lizzie . . . had been
born at last’ (106). Lizzie feels that she attains the status of the Roman-
tic male outlaw hero made famous by De Quincey, ‘an outcast who
enjoys a secret power . . . transformed into an avenger whose bright
yellow hair and chalk-white countenance afforded him the significance
of some primeval deity’ (37). Although her genius for performance, her
imaginative and mimetic powers, are perverted into the ‘fine art’ of
murder, she is nevertheless remarkable for her inventiveness. She
escapes herself by triumphantly taking on other roles, cross-dressing,
developing a male ‘slanguage’ and writing an incriminating diary for
her husband John Cree, on his ‘tyro’ aspirations to the artistry of the
Ratcliffe
Highway murders: ‘I must admit that I applauded my own work’ (24-30, 62).
The popular invention of the Limehouse Golem,
widely supposed to
be the perpetrator of Lizzie’s crimes, raises other questions about the
way the human imagination works. Rather than structuring the novel
around the supernatural connections established in Hawksmoor,
Ackroyd uses Dan Leno to explore people’s need for supernatural expla-
nations. The golem is a Gothic conceptualising of the persistence of evil,
‘as if some primeval force had erupted in Limehouse . . . Some dark
spirit’ for which London itself is responsible (83, 162). By incorporat-
ing George Gissing and Babbage’s Analytical Engine in his narrative,
Ackroyd suggests, as he does in Hawksmoor, that basic fears and needs
will inevitably connect the human future with the past. Technology will
not eradicate evil and indeed, ironically, will itself be blamed for ancient
forces within man himself. The golem, like the computer, invokes ‘the
horror of an artificial life and a form without spirit’, an ‘automaton’ (88,
269).
be the perpetrator of Lizzie’s crimes, raises other questions about the
way the human imagination works. Rather than structuring the novel
around the supernatural connections established in Hawksmoor,
Ackroyd uses Dan Leno to explore people’s need for supernatural expla-
nations. The golem is a Gothic conceptualising of the persistence of evil,
‘as if some primeval force had erupted in Limehouse . . . Some dark
spirit’ for which London itself is responsible (83, 162). By incorporat-
ing George Gissing and Babbage’s Analytical Engine in his narrative,
Ackroyd suggests, as he does in Hawksmoor, that basic fears and needs
will inevitably connect the human future with the past. Technology will
not eradicate evil and indeed, ironically, will itself be blamed for ancient
forces within man himself. The golem, like the computer, invokes ‘the
horror of an artificial life and a form without spirit’, an ‘automaton’ (88,
269).
In exploring the need for explanatory myths,
Ackroyd captures the
atmosphere of avid bloodthirstiness and voyeurism that prevails as the
public gossip about the murders. He is not, however, equally concerned
with analysing the nature of such spectatorship or the implications of
being the audience of violence. Jack O’Connell, on the other hand,
responding in an oblique fashion to a society in which there is growing
pressure for censorship, is much more intent on understanding the act
of viewing transgressive behaviour than he is with the performance of
the acts themselves. Novels like The Skin Palace (1996) and Word Made
Flesh (1999) are an idiosyncratic mixture of thriller plots, Gothic at-
mosphere and the science fiction topos of the alternative or parallel
world. Within Quinsigamond many of the more disturbing aspects of
twentieth-century life are replicated in heightened, grotesque, often
surreal ways and reflected in the fun-house mirror of satire. The inven-
tion of Quinsigamond removes recent history to a fantasy world.
O’Connell is also, however, the most directly satirical of all the writers
discussed in this chapter and he brings his novels very close to the
climate of contemporary debate about the representation of sex and vio-
lence (pornography is a central issue in The Skin Palace, violence in Word
Made Flesh). The Gothic scene-setting functions to make strange a very
familiar set of conflicting views on the justification of such representa-
tion and on ‘the Preservation of Dangerous Art’ (286). Quinsigamond
itself is like a stage. The streets, O’Connell says, ‘seem to exist to be pure
spectacle’. Sex and violence alike are filmed and fictionalised by the
atmosphere of avid bloodthirstiness and voyeurism that prevails as the
public gossip about the murders. He is not, however, equally concerned
with analysing the nature of such spectatorship or the implications of
being the audience of violence. Jack O’Connell, on the other hand,
responding in an oblique fashion to a society in which there is growing
pressure for censorship, is much more intent on understanding the act
of viewing transgressive behaviour than he is with the performance of
the acts themselves. Novels like The Skin Palace (1996) and Word Made
Flesh (1999) are an idiosyncratic mixture of thriller plots, Gothic at-
mosphere and the science fiction topos of the alternative or parallel
world. Within Quinsigamond many of the more disturbing aspects of
twentieth-century life are replicated in heightened, grotesque, often
surreal ways and reflected in the fun-house mirror of satire. The inven-
tion of Quinsigamond removes recent history to a fantasy world.
O’Connell is also, however, the most directly satirical of all the writers
discussed in this chapter and he brings his novels very close to the
climate of contemporary debate about the representation of sex and vio-
lence (pornography is a central issue in The Skin Palace, violence in Word
Made Flesh). The Gothic scene-setting functions to make strange a very
familiar set of conflicting views on the justification of such representa-
tion and on ‘the Preservation of Dangerous Art’ (286). Quinsigamond
itself is like a stage. The streets, O’Connell says, ‘seem to exist to be pure
spectacle’. Sex and violence alike are filmed and fictionalised by the
inhabitants, the images
stored in subway tunnels and labyrinthine
underground libraries and killed for by powerful individuals.
The Skin Palace centres on the clash between different myths of
America. It is a land of criminal opportunity on the one hand, a land
of free artistic expression on the other. Jakob Kinsky, the son of a pow-
erful gangster, nurses his ambition to become a director of ‘hyperreal’
films noirs: ‘“Give me some crime, cynicism, claustrophobia. . . . City
underground libraries and killed for by powerful individuals.
The Skin Palace centres on the clash between different myths of
America. It is a land of criminal opportunity on the one hand, a land
of free artistic expression on the other. Jakob Kinsky, the son of a pow-
erful gangster, nurses his ambition to become a director of ‘hyperreal’
films noirs: ‘“Give me some crime, cynicism, claustrophobia. . . . City
grime.
As much shadow as you can manage . . .”’ (196-7). The novel is
dominated by images of screens - from drive-in cinema screens and
gigantic projections of multiple images to the television next to the
couch. Characters define themselves in relation to the roles of creator,
actor or spectator. Both of the main characters (Jakob and an aspiring
photographer, Sylvia Krafft) are obsessed by the cinematic image,
and, through their experiences, O’Connell poses the questions of
risks and benefits. O’Connell suggests the excessiveness of the porno-
graphic and voyeuristic compulsion, especially in his descriptions of
Herzog’s Erotic Palace, which is like a ‘textbook example’ authored by
‘a visionary egomaniac living on hallucinogens and gothic novels . . .
theatrical to the point of self-parody . . .’ (67-8). Nevertheless he insists
on the relationship between this compulsion and an appetite for under-
standing which is denied only by the dense (Sylvia’s unsatisfactory mate
Perry), the criminal (the gangster Kinsky) or the mindlessly censorious
crusader (the Women’s American Resistance and Families United for
Decency).
dominated by images of screens - from drive-in cinema screens and
gigantic projections of multiple images to the television next to the
couch. Characters define themselves in relation to the roles of creator,
actor or spectator. Both of the main characters (Jakob and an aspiring
photographer, Sylvia Krafft) are obsessed by the cinematic image,
and, through their experiences, O’Connell poses the questions of
risks and benefits. O’Connell suggests the excessiveness of the porno-
graphic and voyeuristic compulsion, especially in his descriptions of
Herzog’s Erotic Palace, which is like a ‘textbook example’ authored by
‘a visionary egomaniac living on hallucinogens and gothic novels . . .
theatrical to the point of self-parody . . .’ (67-8). Nevertheless he insists
on the relationship between this compulsion and an appetite for under-
standing which is denied only by the dense (Sylvia’s unsatisfactory mate
Perry), the criminal (the gangster Kinsky) or the mindlessly censorious
crusader (the Women’s American Resistance and Families United for
Decency).
The most recent of the Quinsigamond novels, Word Made Flesh, is
another extended meditation on the themes of voyeurism, violence and
bearing witness. Here, it is violence rather than eroticism that is mainly
at issue. The novel confronts readers with the question of what it means
to be spectators of violent acts, and how you differentiate voyeurism
from ‘witnessing’ in a fully human and responsible way. The first hor-
rifying spectacle, a man being flayed alive, draws us in as audience, but-
tonholed by the conspiratorial, queasy patter of a narrator who only
wishes that we could hold the blades ourselves; he sees us flinch, but
we do not close our eyes, ‘and that will make all the difference’; he
encourages us to view the victim ‘as more object than person. This has
worked for others in the past’ (11-17). The narrative contains both spec-
tators and players, and the most pressing issue is whether you can try
to understand the world of the players without yourself being corrupted,
and without anaesthetising your sensibilities.
another extended meditation on the themes of voyeurism, violence and
bearing witness. Here, it is violence rather than eroticism that is mainly
at issue. The novel confronts readers with the question of what it means
to be spectators of violent acts, and how you differentiate voyeurism
from ‘witnessing’ in a fully human and responsible way. The first hor-
rifying spectacle, a man being flayed alive, draws us in as audience, but-
tonholed by the conspiratorial, queasy patter of a narrator who only
wishes that we could hold the blades ourselves; he sees us flinch, but
we do not close our eyes, ‘and that will make all the difference’; he
encourages us to view the victim ‘as more object than person. This has
worked for others in the past’ (11-17). The narrative contains both spec-
tators and players, and the most pressing issue is whether you can try
to understand the world of the players without yourself being corrupted,
and without anaesthetising your sensibilities.
As in The
Skin Palace,
O’Connell’s narrative sustains the idea that
image and story have transforming power. The object on which the plot
image and story have transforming power. The object on which the plot
turns
is a book that contains the story written by a teenage girl who has
made ‘a weapon of her epiphany’ after witnessing the July Sweep, a
pogrom in which her whole world ‘was summarily destroyed and, lit-
erally, shredded into pulp’ (179f.). The power of her words in evoking
a horrifying spectacle can be read as a demonstration of the sinister fas-
cination of violence: the man responsible for the July Sweep wants to
possess the book because in it he finds his deeds elevated to a legend.
But the book is also a testament, a proof that words can transmute
events into something that could convey the meaning of the ‘Erasure’
across ‘space and time and culture’ (310). Word Made Flesh, like The
Maltese Falcon or Gibson’s Virtual Light, is a quest narrative, but the
object sought is more important than the falcon (an empty signifier of
commodity fetishism) or the glasses of Virtual Light (offering a template
of a future world that corrupt commercial forces aim to create). The
fabulous manuscript of O’Connell’s novel embodies the power of fiction
itself to represent the past and shape the future.
made ‘a weapon of her epiphany’ after witnessing the July Sweep, a
pogrom in which her whole world ‘was summarily destroyed and, lit-
erally, shredded into pulp’ (179f.). The power of her words in evoking
a horrifying spectacle can be read as a demonstration of the sinister fas-
cination of violence: the man responsible for the July Sweep wants to
possess the book because in it he finds his deeds elevated to a legend.
But the book is also a testament, a proof that words can transmute
events into something that could convey the meaning of the ‘Erasure’
across ‘space and time and culture’ (310). Word Made Flesh, like The
Maltese Falcon or Gibson’s Virtual Light, is a quest narrative, but the
object sought is more important than the falcon (an empty signifier of
commodity fetishism) or the glasses of Virtual Light (offering a template
of a future world that corrupt commercial forces aim to create). The
fabulous manuscript of O’Connell’s novel embodies the power of fiction
itself to represent the past and shape the future.
The mean streets of the
Metaverse
As
the aspiring noir director in O’Connell’s Skin
Palace
scouts for loca-
tions ‘that agree with the images already screened in the skull-camera’,
he points an actual camera at scenes very like those in Ridley Scott’s
Blade Runner (1982), looking down on Gompers Station, with its ‘indis-
criminate tangles’ of ‘recombinant junk’ (367). For O’Connell this sort
of scene signifies a European past of pogroms and dictators, the violence
of which continues to haunt the New World. In Blade Runner the urban
decay and detritus of the late twentieth century, dominating the look
of the film’s cityscape, are a visual reminder of the determining force of
present corruptions (the evolving present-as-past) in a dystopian future
world. Although neither Blade Runner nor the novel on which it was
based - Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) -
open into a parallel world of cyberspace, Scott’s visual reminders of the
mean streets of the classic noir cycle have become an identifying feature
of the aesthetic of cyberpunk. The inner-city spaces of Blade Runner
merge past and future. Images of urban alienation and corporate power
structures in a sleazy, threatening metropolis are combined with
modern ‘add-ons’. In the making of the film, a 1920s set used for gang-
ster films and films noirs was ‘retrofitted’ with ‘a variety of mechanical
stuff’; ducts, rewirings, video monitors; matte-paintings were used to
incorporate looming towers, so that the city resembled ‘a vast, bound-
less refinery’. The remorseless pressures of consumerism were embodied
in flying billboards and loudspeakers blaring commercials.13
tions ‘that agree with the images already screened in the skull-camera’,
he points an actual camera at scenes very like those in Ridley Scott’s
Blade Runner (1982), looking down on Gompers Station, with its ‘indis-
criminate tangles’ of ‘recombinant junk’ (367). For O’Connell this sort
of scene signifies a European past of pogroms and dictators, the violence
of which continues to haunt the New World. In Blade Runner the urban
decay and detritus of the late twentieth century, dominating the look
of the film’s cityscape, are a visual reminder of the determining force of
present corruptions (the evolving present-as-past) in a dystopian future
world. Although neither Blade Runner nor the novel on which it was
based - Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) -
open into a parallel world of cyberspace, Scott’s visual reminders of the
mean streets of the classic noir cycle have become an identifying feature
of the aesthetic of cyberpunk. The inner-city spaces of Blade Runner
merge past and future. Images of urban alienation and corporate power
structures in a sleazy, threatening metropolis are combined with
modern ‘add-ons’. In the making of the film, a 1920s set used for gang-
ster films and films noirs was ‘retrofitted’ with ‘a variety of mechanical
stuff’; ducts, rewirings, video monitors; matte-paintings were used to
incorporate looming towers, so that the city resembled ‘a vast, bound-
less refinery’. The remorseless pressures of consumerism were embodied
in flying billboards and loudspeakers blaring commercials.13
In Philip K. Dick’s novel, dust and ‘kipple’
(junk) rather than vertigin-
ous darkness characterise the future-world cityscape, suggesting ghost
towns more than films noirs. But the sense of estrangement and dislo-
cation, of loss of bearings, is equally strong. This is reinforced in the
novel by the creation of a parallel world (not dissimilar to cyberspace
in its disorienting effects), when Deckard is taken by a patrolman to a
complicated modern building that he has never seen before. He is
accused of being an android himself and told that he comes from a
phantom police department. In fact, he has been arrested by an android-
dominated police department which inhabits a ‘closed loop’ cut off
from the rest of San Francisco - an alter-world interlude that, like cyber-
space, acts to bring different levels of reality together in disquieting ways
and to loosen the protagonist’s belief in his ability to distinguish real
worlds from false ones. Deckard’s crisis of confidence deepens when Phil
Resch, whom he associates with android ‘inhumanity’, passes the Voigt-
Kampff test: ‘“Do you have your ideology formed,”’ Resch asks, ‘“that
would explain me as part of the human race?”’ (108). This is at bottom
a very traditional moral question, and one that has repeatedly been
raised in the noir thriller: that is, at what point does one cross the line
that separates humanity from inhumanity? Deckard admits to himself
at the end, having killed the androids, that what he has done has
‘become alien to me’ (172).
ous darkness characterise the future-world cityscape, suggesting ghost
towns more than films noirs. But the sense of estrangement and dislo-
cation, of loss of bearings, is equally strong. This is reinforced in the
novel by the creation of a parallel world (not dissimilar to cyberspace
in its disorienting effects), when Deckard is taken by a patrolman to a
complicated modern building that he has never seen before. He is
accused of being an android himself and told that he comes from a
phantom police department. In fact, he has been arrested by an android-
dominated police department which inhabits a ‘closed loop’ cut off
from the rest of San Francisco - an alter-world interlude that, like cyber-
space, acts to bring different levels of reality together in disquieting ways
and to loosen the protagonist’s belief in his ability to distinguish real
worlds from false ones. Deckard’s crisis of confidence deepens when Phil
Resch, whom he associates with android ‘inhumanity’, passes the Voigt-
Kampff test: ‘“Do you have your ideology formed,”’ Resch asks, ‘“that
would explain me as part of the human race?”’ (108). This is at bottom
a very traditional moral question, and one that has repeatedly been
raised in the noir thriller: that is, at what point does one cross the line
that separates humanity from inhumanity? Deckard admits to himself
at the end, having killed the androids, that what he has done has
‘become alien to me’ (172).
As cyberpunk develops the ideas of
manufactured or augmented
selves and invasive technology, the more pessimistic implications are
readily apparent. The protagonist, by coming into a closer relationship
with the non-human, sacrifices a coherent sense of self, of human values
and confident agency; or, in other plot patterns, humans themselves are
programmable and thus susceptible to the control of external powers.
It is not necessarily characteristic of cyberpunk, however, to give expres-
sion to such doubts. Writers like Mark Laidlaw and Rudy Rucker, for
example, celebrate the competence of the surfers and hackers who
adventure through cyberspace, like Rucker’s Jerzy Rugby, who walks
away from The Hackers and the Ants (1994) as ‘a free man with a dyna-
mite story’ (305). Many recent films that share something of the ‘future
noir’ look of Blade Runner are similarly upbeat, in the sense that indi-
vidual action defeats those who abuse technological powers. So, for
example, in Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990), which is also based on
a Philip K. Dick story (‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’), there
are many noir features, not just visually but in the theme of split
identity and ‘a really sophisticated mind-fuck’. In noir, however, the
crucial discovery that Quaid is the ‘bad’ Hauser would be of decisive
importance, and Quaid would exist only, as Cohaagen says, as ‘just a
selves and invasive technology, the more pessimistic implications are
readily apparent. The protagonist, by coming into a closer relationship
with the non-human, sacrifices a coherent sense of self, of human values
and confident agency; or, in other plot patterns, humans themselves are
programmable and thus susceptible to the control of external powers.
It is not necessarily characteristic of cyberpunk, however, to give expres-
sion to such doubts. Writers like Mark Laidlaw and Rudy Rucker, for
example, celebrate the competence of the surfers and hackers who
adventure through cyberspace, like Rucker’s Jerzy Rugby, who walks
away from The Hackers and the Ants (1994) as ‘a free man with a dyna-
mite story’ (305). Many recent films that share something of the ‘future
noir’ look of Blade Runner are similarly upbeat, in the sense that indi-
vidual action defeats those who abuse technological powers. So, for
example, in Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990), which is also based on
a Philip K. Dick story (‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’), there
are many noir features, not just visually but in the theme of split
identity and ‘a really sophisticated mind-fuck’. In noir, however, the
crucial discovery that Quaid is the ‘bad’ Hauser would be of decisive
importance, and Quaid would exist only, as Cohaagen says, as ‘just a
stupid
dream’. In fact, however, by the exertion of the sheer physical
strength generally associated with Schwarzenegger action-hero roles,
the protagonist is able to break away to become Quaid. The noir possi-
bility hovers behind the ‘open’ end (‘Kiss me before we wake up’), but
it is the kiss and the ‘dream’ Quaid that carry conviction, and the end
of the film functions to confirm the romantic possibility of action and
of a clean break with an old, bad self. This pressure towards achieving
mastery, whether by traditional heroic resolve (analogous to the mas-
culine competence of action-oriented hard-boiled fiction) or by tech-
nological virtuosity, is strongly present in much cyberpunk, modifying
the ‘future noir’ mood, bringing it closer to ‘cyberian’ optimism than
to dystopian pessimism.14
strength generally associated with Schwarzenegger action-hero roles,
the protagonist is able to break away to become Quaid. The noir possi-
bility hovers behind the ‘open’ end (‘Kiss me before we wake up’), but
it is the kiss and the ‘dream’ Quaid that carry conviction, and the end
of the film functions to confirm the romantic possibility of action and
of a clean break with an old, bad self. This pressure towards achieving
mastery, whether by traditional heroic resolve (analogous to the mas-
culine competence of action-oriented hard-boiled fiction) or by tech-
nological virtuosity, is strongly present in much cyberpunk, modifying
the ‘future noir’ mood, bringing it closer to ‘cyberian’ optimism than
to dystopian pessimism.14
The filming of Blade
Runner
itself might be taken to demonstrate the
tension within future noir between optimistic and pessimistic forms of
closure. Dogged as it was by production and post-production disagree-
ments, Blade Runner emerged in its well-known variant forms. The
version that was first screened in 1982, though characterised neither by
technophilia nor by the romantic sweep of, say, the Star Wars trilogy,
did move towards reasonably positive closure, with the voice-over and
the last scene, moving out of the grimy city towards togetherness
without a termination date, bringing the film nearer to the upbeat
ending of Total Recall. The Director’s Cut, on the other hand, released
in 1992, approaches the ambivalence of the more disturbing noir
visions, not only resisting romantic closure but implying that Deckard
himself may, after all, be a replicant. To open the film to the possibil-
ity of such a reading is to suggest comparison with those bleakly ironic
noir narratives in which a protagonist finds that he is hunting himself
or (here) his own kind. Although Dick’s Electric Sheep does not reinforce
its moral ambiguities with this kind of doubling, some of his other
fiction shares this destabilising ambiguity, particularly A Scanner Darkly
(1977). This is a novel that develops in an uncompromising way a nar-
rative pattern that implies the existence of a dark, unrecognised inner
self. The consequent disabling of the individual’s capacity for indepen-
dent action creates a closed loop from which there is no escape.
tension within future noir between optimistic and pessimistic forms of
closure. Dogged as it was by production and post-production disagree-
ments, Blade Runner emerged in its well-known variant forms. The
version that was first screened in 1982, though characterised neither by
technophilia nor by the romantic sweep of, say, the Star Wars trilogy,
did move towards reasonably positive closure, with the voice-over and
the last scene, moving out of the grimy city towards togetherness
without a termination date, bringing the film nearer to the upbeat
ending of Total Recall. The Director’s Cut, on the other hand, released
in 1992, approaches the ambivalence of the more disturbing noir
visions, not only resisting romantic closure but implying that Deckard
himself may, after all, be a replicant. To open the film to the possibil-
ity of such a reading is to suggest comparison with those bleakly ironic
noir narratives in which a protagonist finds that he is hunting himself
or (here) his own kind. Although Dick’s Electric Sheep does not reinforce
its moral ambiguities with this kind of doubling, some of his other
fiction shares this destabilising ambiguity, particularly A Scanner Darkly
(1977). This is a novel that develops in an uncompromising way a nar-
rative pattern that implies the existence of a dark, unrecognised inner
self. The consequent disabling of the individual’s capacity for indepen-
dent action creates a closed loop from which there is no escape.
One of Dick’s most compelling near-future
novels, A Scanner Darkly is
also the most despairingly personal. His painful experience of drug
abuse in the sixties becomes the basis for a science fiction world in
which other forms of control combine with addiction to produce a
nightmare of noir entrapment. In his ‘Author’s Note’ at the end, Dick
argues that he is representing nemesis rather than fate, since any poten-
tial addict has the power to choose, but the punishment is conceived
also the most despairingly personal. His painful experience of drug
abuse in the sixties becomes the basis for a science fiction world in
which other forms of control combine with addiction to produce a
nightmare of noir entrapment. In his ‘Author’s Note’ at the end, Dick
argues that he is representing nemesis rather than fate, since any poten-
tial addict has the power to choose, but the punishment is conceived
in
terms of deterministic cause and effect: that is, once addiction has
taken place, fatality takes over. Within the narrative choice is only really
present in a Flitcraft-like episode in which Dick’s protagonist, Bob
Arctor, suffers a blow to the head that jars him into a rejection of bour-
geois stability and tedium. Ironically, like many protagonists in the
traditional noir thriller, Arctor finds not freedom but a worse-
than-bourgeois entrapment. Within the context of a high-surveillance
science fiction world, forms of entrapment are, of course, sufficiently
thoroughgoing to make ordinary paranoia pale into insignificance. Like
Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly creates a hunter character reminiscent of
the private eye, but here with a much stronger sense that he is a victim.
He ‘didn’t volunteer’ and ‘never did know’ (234). Those in control of
the splitting of personality are entirely willing to sacrifice Arctor to get
the information they need about the illegal growing of the plants that
produce Substance D, ‘the flower of the future’, the substance that
affects users by bringing ‘death of the spirit, the identity’ (250-1, 233).
A Scanner Darkly is the narrative of an assault on the protagonist’s sense
of self, with name changes (he is Bob and Fred and Bruce), his trans-
formation by a hi-tech scramble suit into a ‘blur’, his splitting into
hunter and hunted (when Fred is assigned the job of observing Bob
Arctor), and his final loss of all grasp of who he is. Arctor is ‘repeating
doomed patterns’, going through the same thing over and over like ‘a
closed loop of tape’ (62-3). There is a stage in the narrative at which
Arctor, giving a speech, deviates from his script, and he seems at this
point capable both of ironising his role as ‘the vague blur’ and of a
coherent critique of life in southern California - a commercial for itself,
endlessly replayed, as if ‘the automatic factory’ cranks out indistin-
guishable objects (31-2). This lucidity, however, is short-lived. The
anxiety underlying Blade Runner is the humanistic fear of dehumanisa-
tion through violence. In A Scanner Darkly, the anxiety is centred on
becoming another sort of replicant, simply a manufactured object inca-
pable of breaking away from the master script of his society - ‘Actor,
Arctor . . . Bob the Actor who is being hunted . . .’ (125).
taken place, fatality takes over. Within the narrative choice is only really
present in a Flitcraft-like episode in which Dick’s protagonist, Bob
Arctor, suffers a blow to the head that jars him into a rejection of bour-
geois stability and tedium. Ironically, like many protagonists in the
traditional noir thriller, Arctor finds not freedom but a worse-
than-bourgeois entrapment. Within the context of a high-surveillance
science fiction world, forms of entrapment are, of course, sufficiently
thoroughgoing to make ordinary paranoia pale into insignificance. Like
Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly creates a hunter character reminiscent of
the private eye, but here with a much stronger sense that he is a victim.
He ‘didn’t volunteer’ and ‘never did know’ (234). Those in control of
the splitting of personality are entirely willing to sacrifice Arctor to get
the information they need about the illegal growing of the plants that
produce Substance D, ‘the flower of the future’, the substance that
affects users by bringing ‘death of the spirit, the identity’ (250-1, 233).
A Scanner Darkly is the narrative of an assault on the protagonist’s sense
of self, with name changes (he is Bob and Fred and Bruce), his trans-
formation by a hi-tech scramble suit into a ‘blur’, his splitting into
hunter and hunted (when Fred is assigned the job of observing Bob
Arctor), and his final loss of all grasp of who he is. Arctor is ‘repeating
doomed patterns’, going through the same thing over and over like ‘a
closed loop of tape’ (62-3). There is a stage in the narrative at which
Arctor, giving a speech, deviates from his script, and he seems at this
point capable both of ironising his role as ‘the vague blur’ and of a
coherent critique of life in southern California - a commercial for itself,
endlessly replayed, as if ‘the automatic factory’ cranks out indistin-
guishable objects (31-2). This lucidity, however, is short-lived. The
anxiety underlying Blade Runner is the humanistic fear of dehumanisa-
tion through violence. In A Scanner Darkly, the anxiety is centred on
becoming another sort of replicant, simply a manufactured object inca-
pable of breaking away from the master script of his society - ‘Actor,
Arctor . . . Bob the Actor who is being hunted . . .’ (125).
The cyberpunk writers influenced by Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick
are seldom so enclosed within doomed patterns, even when the pro-
tagonist (as in Jeter’s Noir) is named ‘McNihil’. The technology which
can close the circle of fatality - mechanisms of total control and omni-
scient surveillance - can also be pressed into the service of the action
hero, and in so far as it envisages effective action cyberpunk moves
closer to the traditions of male romance. Given its strong links with
tough-guy fiction, traditional noir has, of course, often crossed over into
are seldom so enclosed within doomed patterns, even when the pro-
tagonist (as in Jeter’s Noir) is named ‘McNihil’. The technology which
can close the circle of fatality - mechanisms of total control and omni-
scient surveillance - can also be pressed into the service of the action
hero, and in so far as it envisages effective action cyberpunk moves
closer to the traditions of male romance. Given its strong links with
tough-guy fiction, traditional noir has, of course, often crossed over into
action
heroics, retaining a distinctly noir character only if the action
hero is ultimately unsuccessful or if, in victory, he is thoroughly tainted
by the world of violence and corruption with which he is involved (Paul
Cain’s Gerry Kells rather than Daly’s Race Williams; Hammett’s Conti-
nental Op rather than Chandler’s Marlowe). However noir the future
world he traverses, the cyberpunk ‘cowboy’ tends to have something
in common with the two-fisted (anti-)hero. High technology, like the
Colt .45, can serve any ends, whether repressive or rebellious. William
Gibson and Bruce Sterling are regarded as amongst the more pessimistic
of cyberpunk writers. Their ‘doomed vision’ is characterised as a ‘dark
and hopeless’ refusal to see ‘technology as inherently liberating’; they
harbour a belief in human programmability and create protagonists
who allow themselves to be exploited by higher powers.15 Even Gibson’s
Case, however, shows himself capable of appropriating effective tech-
nologies and stepping outside of the closed loop of the addict’s depen-
dency, the consumer’s passivity or the subservience of the player who
is confined to one game board.
hero is ultimately unsuccessful or if, in victory, he is thoroughly tainted
by the world of violence and corruption with which he is involved (Paul
Cain’s Gerry Kells rather than Daly’s Race Williams; Hammett’s Conti-
nental Op rather than Chandler’s Marlowe). However noir the future
world he traverses, the cyberpunk ‘cowboy’ tends to have something
in common with the two-fisted (anti-)hero. High technology, like the
Colt .45, can serve any ends, whether repressive or rebellious. William
Gibson and Bruce Sterling are regarded as amongst the more pessimistic
of cyberpunk writers. Their ‘doomed vision’ is characterised as a ‘dark
and hopeless’ refusal to see ‘technology as inherently liberating’; they
harbour a belief in human programmability and create protagonists
who allow themselves to be exploited by higher powers.15 Even Gibson’s
Case, however, shows himself capable of appropriating effective tech-
nologies and stepping outside of the closed loop of the addict’s depen-
dency, the consumer’s passivity or the subservience of the player who
is confined to one game board.
At the end of A
Scanner Darkly,
the corpse-like protagonist can no
longer act. He can ‘react’ (233), but his reflex programmed reaction in
secreting one of the ‘flowers of the future’ leaves us with only a glimmer
of hope in the final paragraph. Gibson’s anti-heroes, on the other hand,
are not totally in the power of the anachronistic rich or of the interdi-
mensional corporations, or even of the giant artificial intelligences.
They are tinged with the rebellious glamour of Burroughs’ wild boys,
‘. . . glider boys with bows and laser guns, roller-skate boys, . . . slingshot
boys, knife throwers, . . . bare-hand fighters, shaman boys who ride the
wind . . .’ (The Wild Boys, 147). Case, at the end of Neuromancer, fuelled
by suicidal impulse and self-loathing, has no clear knowledge of what
he is trying to achieve and no way of guessing the outcome. He is,
however, capable of choice: ‘“Give us the fucking code. . . . If you don’t,
longer act. He can ‘react’ (233), but his reflex programmed reaction in
secreting one of the ‘flowers of the future’ leaves us with only a glimmer
of hope in the final paragraph. Gibson’s anti-heroes, on the other hand,
are not totally in the power of the anachronistic rich or of the interdi-
mensional corporations, or even of the giant artificial intelligences.
They are tinged with the rebellious glamour of Burroughs’ wild boys,
‘. . . glider boys with bows and laser guns, roller-skate boys, . . . slingshot
boys, knife throwers, . . . bare-hand fighters, shaman boys who ride the
wind . . .’ (The Wild Boys, 147). Case, at the end of Neuromancer, fuelled
by suicidal impulse and self-loathing, has no clear knowledge of what
he is trying to achieve and no way of guessing the outcome. He is,
however, capable of choice: ‘“Give us the fucking code. . . . If you don’t,
what’ll
change?”’ (307). Exhilarating action is still a possibility, as it
often is in the hard-boiled strand of the noir thriller, even if the change
effected in Neuromancer is left open to question and the ‘posthumanist’
bias of cyberpunk is evident in the fact that the main result of Case’s
endeavours takes place on a wholly non-human level, with Wintermute
having ‘meshed somehow’ with Neuromancer, thus freeing itself to talk
to its own kind. In Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, however, there
are elements of a more traditionally humanistic closure, with nature
playing a redemptive role (Turner and the squirrel wood) and some posi-
tive human, or at least modified human, connections. Gibson’s move
often is in the hard-boiled strand of the noir thriller, even if the change
effected in Neuromancer is left open to question and the ‘posthumanist’
bias of cyberpunk is evident in the fact that the main result of Case’s
endeavours takes place on a wholly non-human level, with Wintermute
having ‘meshed somehow’ with Neuromancer, thus freeing itself to talk
to its own kind. In Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, however, there
are elements of a more traditionally humanistic closure, with nature
playing a redemptive role (Turner and the squirrel wood) and some posi-
tive human, or at least modified human, connections. Gibson’s move
away
from the ‘posthuman’ perspectives of Neuromancer can also be seen in Virtual Light (1993), in which the central contrast is
between an attempt
to achieve a closed, coercive system and the opposing force of ‘play’ and unpredictable
desire.
Michael Hutchinson, speaking of the dependence
of authoritarian
systems on citizens who can be counted on to act predictably, quotes
George Bush’s dictum, ‘The only enemy we have is unpredictability.’16
It is precisely this unpredictability in the exploitation of high tech that
typifies the key players in Virtual Light. The computer becomes less of
a character in its own right and more an instrument which can be used
either to oppress (‘fate’ in the hands of the mega-corps) or to liberate,
the means to realise desire. One of Gibson’s most prominent themes
here is an immobilising, paranoid sense of fatality. The presence of the
Death Star, an all-seeing techno-equivalent to fate, and the intercon-
nected mega-corporation leave no question about the sheer size of what
the individual is up against: ‘“You don’t know shit about shit. . . . It’s
systems on citizens who can be counted on to act predictably, quotes
George Bush’s dictum, ‘The only enemy we have is unpredictability.’16
It is precisely this unpredictability in the exploitation of high tech that
typifies the key players in Virtual Light. The computer becomes less of
a character in its own right and more an instrument which can be used
either to oppress (‘fate’ in the hands of the mega-corps) or to liberate,
the means to realise desire. One of Gibson’s most prominent themes
here is an immobilising, paranoid sense of fatality. The presence of the
Death Star, an all-seeing techno-equivalent to fate, and the intercon-
nected mega-corporation leave no question about the sheer size of what
the individual is up against: ‘“You don’t know shit about shit. . . . It’s
just
too big for someone like you to understand”’ (229).
But there is also
the possibility of tricking fate. Help comes from the Republic of Desire,
an organisation (or disorganisation) demonstrating that the intercon-
nectedness of computers may facilitate mega-corporational control, but
that it can also be empowering, preserving space for anarchic desires.
The plot turns on the revelation of the fact that the corporate powers
intend to ‘do’ San Francisco ‘like they’re doing Tokyo’ (270), with the
Republic of Desire aiding the protagonist, Rydell, because they hate
the idea of a rebuilt San Francisco and a controlled, designed future.
The existing San Francisco, full of hidden depths, forbidden zones and
hard-to-grasp interactions, stands for the mystery, randomness and
unknowability that act as some kind of guarantee of old-fashioned
human warmth and connection. The bridge, central to this world, is an
emblem of the carnivalised city. Gibson’s hard-boiled protagonist is
appropriately disorderly and unpredictable. Rydell fits the noir pattern
of the wandering adventurer, questing across boundaries in pursuit
of the woman carrying a fabulous object (the virtual light glasses,
containing the plans for the new San Francisco) that signifies greed and
the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth. Gibson has a nicely ironic way
of achieving closure, with Rydell in such deep trouble that he is ideally
suited to a programme called Cops in Trouble (‘in deep, spectacular,
and . . . clearly heroic shit’ [290]). But the emphasis on ‘heroic’ is real as
well as comically incongruous. The values that Rydell has helped to pre-
serve are as positive as those defended by Marlowe, but, as in much
the possibility of tricking fate. Help comes from the Republic of Desire,
an organisation (or disorganisation) demonstrating that the intercon-
nectedness of computers may facilitate mega-corporational control, but
that it can also be empowering, preserving space for anarchic desires.
The plot turns on the revelation of the fact that the corporate powers
intend to ‘do’ San Francisco ‘like they’re doing Tokyo’ (270), with the
Republic of Desire aiding the protagonist, Rydell, because they hate
the idea of a rebuilt San Francisco and a controlled, designed future.
The existing San Francisco, full of hidden depths, forbidden zones and
hard-to-grasp interactions, stands for the mystery, randomness and
unknowability that act as some kind of guarantee of old-fashioned
human warmth and connection. The bridge, central to this world, is an
emblem of the carnivalised city. Gibson’s hard-boiled protagonist is
appropriately disorderly and unpredictable. Rydell fits the noir pattern
of the wandering adventurer, questing across boundaries in pursuit
of the woman carrying a fabulous object (the virtual light glasses,
containing the plans for the new San Francisco) that signifies greed and
the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth. Gibson has a nicely ironic way
of achieving closure, with Rydell in such deep trouble that he is ideally
suited to a programme called Cops in Trouble (‘in deep, spectacular,
and . . . clearly heroic shit’ [290]). But the emphasis on ‘heroic’ is real as
well as comically incongruous. The values that Rydell has helped to pre-
serve are as positive as those defended by Marlowe, but, as in much
other
noir, his strength is less a matter of lonely integrity in mean
streets than of energy sustained by spontaneous communal street
life.
streets than of energy sustained by spontaneous communal street
life.
A ‘Gibson for the 1990s’,17 Neal Stephenson, in Snow Crash (1992),
invented the word ‘Metaverse’, and, like Gibson, he uses proliferating
realities to satirise consumerism and the addiction to spectacle as well
as to celebrate possibilities for the anarchic expression of desire. The
‘heroic shit’ model of the player-narrative is immediately established in
Snow Crash by the naming of the central figure: Hiro Protagonist. In a
contemporary version of the noir ethic, Hiro uses the weapons of cor-
ruption against the corrupt - advertising (when he defeats the scrolls),
programming, violence. He shares with the hard-boiled detective an
alienated, counter-culture persona, being someone who ‘needs to work
harder on his co-operation skills’ (3). He is half-black and half-Asian and
lacks a firm class orientation; intelligent and tough, a resourceful out-
sider, he is his own man, willing and able to kill if necessary. As his
name suggests, however, he is less developed, less vulnerable and less
beaten down than the true noir protagonist. When we learn of his spec-
tacular competence as the last of the freelance hackers and the greatest
swordfighter, we begin to suspect him of having more of an action-hero
lineage. He is a resourceful player who is ultimately successful, defeat-
ing with a hacker’s ingenuity a plot for world domination.
invented the word ‘Metaverse’, and, like Gibson, he uses proliferating
realities to satirise consumerism and the addiction to spectacle as well
as to celebrate possibilities for the anarchic expression of desire. The
‘heroic shit’ model of the player-narrative is immediately established in
Snow Crash by the naming of the central figure: Hiro Protagonist. In a
contemporary version of the noir ethic, Hiro uses the weapons of cor-
ruption against the corrupt - advertising (when he defeats the scrolls),
programming, violence. He shares with the hard-boiled detective an
alienated, counter-culture persona, being someone who ‘needs to work
harder on his co-operation skills’ (3). He is half-black and half-Asian and
lacks a firm class orientation; intelligent and tough, a resourceful out-
sider, he is his own man, willing and able to kill if necessary. As his
name suggests, however, he is less developed, less vulnerable and less
beaten down than the true noir protagonist. When we learn of his spec-
tacular competence as the last of the freelance hackers and the greatest
swordfighter, we begin to suspect him of having more of an action-hero
lineage. He is a resourceful player who is ultimately successful, defeat-
ing with a hacker’s ingenuity a plot for world domination.
‘Snow crash’ is a drug/computer virus premised
on the mind/machine
interface: ‘“Does it fuck up your brain? . . . Or your computer?” “Both.
Neither. What’s the difference?”’ (41). Like other standard cyberpunk
dangers, it evokes such dystopian fears as totalitarian control, loss of
identity and loss of personal autonomy. The virus is metaphorically
linked with the franchise. That is, what thrives in one place will thrive
in another, and both are associated with an ethos of ‘no surprises’, com-
forting uniformity and an end to adventure. As in Virtual Light, the
central theme hinges on the traditional humanistic opposition between
individual randomness and the metaphysical and ideological certainties
of religion and politics; also as in Virtual Light, without deploying any
techniques that are strikingly Gothic, the narrative suggests the inter-
penetration of past and future, confronting Hiro Protagonist with a
threat that is at once very ancient and very up-to-the-minute. Snow
crash produces a culture-wide version of the kind of assault on indi-
vidual identity that, in traditional noir, destabilises an effective indi-
vidual sense of self. An underlying myth of language formation carries
the argument that the tendency of languages to diverge (post-
interface: ‘“Does it fuck up your brain? . . . Or your computer?” “Both.
Neither. What’s the difference?”’ (41). Like other standard cyberpunk
dangers, it evokes such dystopian fears as totalitarian control, loss of
identity and loss of personal autonomy. The virus is metaphorically
linked with the franchise. That is, what thrives in one place will thrive
in another, and both are associated with an ethos of ‘no surprises’, com-
forting uniformity and an end to adventure. As in Virtual Light, the
central theme hinges on the traditional humanistic opposition between
individual randomness and the metaphysical and ideological certainties
of religion and politics; also as in Virtual Light, without deploying any
techniques that are strikingly Gothic, the narrative suggests the inter-
penetration of past and future, confronting Hiro Protagonist with a
threat that is at once very ancient and very up-to-the-minute. Snow
crash produces a culture-wide version of the kind of assault on indi-
vidual identity that, in traditional noir, destabilises an effective indi-
vidual sense of self. An underlying myth of language formation carries
the argument that the tendency of languages to diverge (post-
’Infocalypse’) acts as a
kind of guarantee of independence, conferring
immunity
to ‘viral infections’ that bypass ‘higher language functions’
and tie into ‘the deep structures’, thus enabling ‘viral ideas’, from
Nazism to ‘crackpot religions’, to establish themselves (369-76). The
generally sympathetic criminality of the various factions in the novel
(including the Mafia and a mutant member of the Aleuts) is set against
the apparent normality and virtue of tele-evangelists, consumerist
society and mass culture.
and tie into ‘the deep structures’, thus enabling ‘viral ideas’, from
Nazism to ‘crackpot religions’, to establish themselves (369-76). The
generally sympathetic criminality of the various factions in the novel
(including the Mafia and a mutant member of the Aleuts) is set against
the apparent normality and virtue of tele-evangelists, consumerist
society and mass culture.
Again, then, this is the characteristic
cyberpunk mix of the archaic
with the hi-tech, blending pasts (ancient forces, age-old iniquities,
buried evils) with futures (whether of technological empowerment or
dystopian repression). This mixture has become a staple element of
youth culture, whether in manga (the legendary Akira kept long
with the hi-tech, blending pasts (ancient forces, age-old iniquities,
buried evils) with futures (whether of technological empowerment or
dystopian repression). This mixture has become a staple element of
youth culture, whether in manga (the legendary Akira kept long
dormant
under Neo-Tokyo, ‘a city in the wild grip of technology gone
mad’), video games, virtual nightclubs and virtual reality (VR) theme
parks.18 Recent future noir includes the ‘cyber noir’ or ‘cybershock’
novels, neoAddix (1997) and Lucifer’s Dragon (1998), by the British writer
Jon Courtenay Grimwood, a freelance journalist who writes regularly,
amongst other things, for the Japanese film magazine Manga Mania. As
in the cyberpunk of Gibson and Stephenson, dark forces are met by
technological efforts to defy fatality. In neoAddix, for example, biotech
resurrection is one answer to an old order that seemed to have a monop-
oly of special powers: their trope is vampirism, that of the protagonists
is technological enhancement. Grimwood’s plot brings together the
world of ancient aristocratic degeneracy (a sinister vampiric 800-year-
old Prince) with the modern world of corporate corruption. The heir to
the psychopathic Prince will be drawn from competing and thoroughly
corrupt tycoons, and battle is waged by means both supernatural and
technological. ‘Tek’, magic, the subconscious, the ghost world, dream
time and astral travel are all just a difference of perspective on powers
of the mind that have evolved only in terms of the way in which infor-
mation is accessed. Grimwood’s protagonists, Alex and the cyber-jockey,
Johnnie T., appear to die and are resurrected by techno-wizardry: ‘“Do
you remember who you are? . . . Doesn’t matter. You’ll be someone else
when you wake up anyway”’ (220). More than anything, it is this desta-
bilisation of identity that justifies the label ‘cyber noir’, along with
Grimwood’s creation of dark doubles. Alex becomes that which he
fights. Darker than Gibson or Stephenson, Grimwood ends neoAddix
with an ultimate contest in which Alex must call on and accept ‘the
help of the Prince, and every other Grand Master who howled and gib-
bered in the wasteland of his brain’, after which he recognises that he
is ‘no longer remotely human’, and in the aftermath is more damaged
mad’), video games, virtual nightclubs and virtual reality (VR) theme
parks.18 Recent future noir includes the ‘cyber noir’ or ‘cybershock’
novels, neoAddix (1997) and Lucifer’s Dragon (1998), by the British writer
Jon Courtenay Grimwood, a freelance journalist who writes regularly,
amongst other things, for the Japanese film magazine Manga Mania. As
in the cyberpunk of Gibson and Stephenson, dark forces are met by
technological efforts to defy fatality. In neoAddix, for example, biotech
resurrection is one answer to an old order that seemed to have a monop-
oly of special powers: their trope is vampirism, that of the protagonists
is technological enhancement. Grimwood’s plot brings together the
world of ancient aristocratic degeneracy (a sinister vampiric 800-year-
old Prince) with the modern world of corporate corruption. The heir to
the psychopathic Prince will be drawn from competing and thoroughly
corrupt tycoons, and battle is waged by means both supernatural and
technological. ‘Tek’, magic, the subconscious, the ghost world, dream
time and astral travel are all just a difference of perspective on powers
of the mind that have evolved only in terms of the way in which infor-
mation is accessed. Grimwood’s protagonists, Alex and the cyber-jockey,
Johnnie T., appear to die and are resurrected by techno-wizardry: ‘“Do
you remember who you are? . . . Doesn’t matter. You’ll be someone else
when you wake up anyway”’ (220). More than anything, it is this desta-
bilisation of identity that justifies the label ‘cyber noir’, along with
Grimwood’s creation of dark doubles. Alex becomes that which he
fights. Darker than Gibson or Stephenson, Grimwood ends neoAddix
with an ultimate contest in which Alex must call on and accept ‘the
help of the Prince, and every other Grand Master who howled and gib-
bered in the wasteland of his brain’, after which he recognises that he
is ‘no longer remotely human’, and in the aftermath is more damaged
and
isolated than are most cyberpunk protagonists. Believing himself hideously scarred, with
scars no one else can see, he lives in almost total isolation, ‘the anchorite
of San Lorenzo’ (357).
The science fiction/Gothic/noir combination is
by no means confined
to novels that use cyberspace as the parallel dimension in which alter-
native identities can be created. The balance easily shifts towards the
Gothic/supernatural, with the more dreamlike and grotesque elements
coming to the fore. Michael Marshall Smith, whose subsequent novels,
Spares (1996) and One of Us (1998) also involve cloning and memory
implantation, published his first novel, entitled Only Forward, in 1994
to novels that use cyberspace as the parallel dimension in which alter-
native identities can be created. The balance easily shifts towards the
Gothic/supernatural, with the more dreamlike and grotesque elements
coming to the fore. Michael Marshall Smith, whose subsequent novels,
Spares (1996) and One of Us (1998) also involve cloning and memory
implantation, published his first novel, entitled Only Forward, in 1994
- a
whimsical, funny and often macabre form of future noir in which
the fantastic dimension is located in dream time, or dream accessed
waking. The narrator, Stark, is a ‘strong dreamer’ who, like the hacker
or cyberspace jockey, is a guide to a future world, a troubleshooter, a
fixer and finder, and the epitome of hard-boiled cool. He is able to go
into a tough neighbourhood, for example, because ‘I look like the kind
of guy who pimps for his sister not just for the money, but because he
hates her. I can look like a guy who belongs’ (18). At the same time, he
always feels he has to play the hero and works less for the money than
for what interests him or what is right. This private-eye-like integrity,
however, is broken down by the exposure of his own dark side: he is
himself the source of the evil he is tracking, and must confess both his
unreliability as a narrator and his current sense of disorientation (‘I’m
not myself. Or maybe I am. It’s been so long I can’t remember’ [254]).
The nightmare that initiates the troubles of the narrative turns out to
have been his own, and at the macabre, horror-novel climax, Stark
recognises his guilt. The truth, finally, is not just ‘more stark’ but ‘more
Stark’ (289). As this punning revelation suggests, Smith’s tone mixes the
blackly comic with the lightly jokey, and his playfulness extends as well
to the noir sense of fatality: ‘If there’s anything I really hate, it’s things
going better than I expected. . . . Things turning out well fills me with
the fantastic dimension is located in dream time, or dream accessed
waking. The narrator, Stark, is a ‘strong dreamer’ who, like the hacker
or cyberspace jockey, is a guide to a future world, a troubleshooter, a
fixer and finder, and the epitome of hard-boiled cool. He is able to go
into a tough neighbourhood, for example, because ‘I look like the kind
of guy who pimps for his sister not just for the money, but because he
hates her. I can look like a guy who belongs’ (18). At the same time, he
always feels he has to play the hero and works less for the money than
for what interests him or what is right. This private-eye-like integrity,
however, is broken down by the exposure of his own dark side: he is
himself the source of the evil he is tracking, and must confess both his
unreliability as a narrator and his current sense of disorientation (‘I’m
not myself. Or maybe I am. It’s been so long I can’t remember’ [254]).
The nightmare that initiates the troubles of the narrative turns out to
have been his own, and at the macabre, horror-novel climax, Stark
recognises his guilt. The truth, finally, is not just ‘more stark’ but ‘more
Stark’ (289). As this punning revelation suggests, Smith’s tone mixes the
blackly comic with the lightly jokey, and his playfulness extends as well
to the noir sense of fatality: ‘If there’s anything I really hate, it’s things
going better than I expected. . . . Things turning out well fills me with
nameless
dread . . .’ (62). Only Forward is throughout a tongue-in-cheek narrative of a postmodern
tough guy brooding on the persistence of his modernist anxieties: ‘The rough beast doesn’t
just visit me occasionally: there’s a regular fucking bus route’ (67).
Invitations to the
underworld
Future
noir has also developed in directions quite different from the
elaborately fantastic world of cyberpunk. Two of the most genuinely
and disturbingly noir near-future visions, both published in the mid-
nineties, are Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence (1993) and
elaborately fantastic world of cyberpunk. Two of the most genuinely
and disturbingly noir near-future visions, both published in the mid-
nineties, are Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence (1993) and
J.
G. Ballard’s Cocaine Nights (1996), the first American, the second
British. These are novels that have a clear place in mainstream fiction,
though bookstores also shelve them with genre fiction, either with
science fiction (Ballard on the strength of his niche as a science fiction
writer) or with crime fiction. Both are first-person narratives of guilt and
violence, patterned in ways very familiar from the noir thrillers we have
examined. Ballard’s is a story of the narrator’s investigation of a horrific
crime in an effort to clear his brother. It is an investigation that ends
not only with a recognition that there is a sense in which his brother
is guilty, but with him taking guilt upon himself (the investigator
thereby being transformed into a man seen at the end as a malefactor).
The Womack novel is in the tradition of narratives that involve an inno-
cent narrator drawn into a world of deprivation and violence and cross-
ing the line by committing an act of murder which leads irrevocably to
utter isolation in savage surroundings. But the use of a young girl in the
narrator’s role makes Random Acts a striking departure from the tradi-
tion. Ballard and Womack are both imagining a semi-contemporary
future, with the present sliding almost imperceptibly into near future.
Ballard sets his novel in a leisured, privileged retirement community,
Womack sets his in a desperately poor urban environment, but both
use traditional elements of the thriller to explore the movement of a
society towards violence. Womack’s explanations have more in com-
mon with those of much earlier noir thrillers. Deprivation and casual
injustice are shown to be irrevocably shaping the life of a girl who is
not dissimilar to Ellson’s Tomboy - young, tough and doomed to take
her place in a disintegrating urban environment. Ballard’s novel, on the
other hand, imagines a world without economic deprivation, sheltered
from all of the destructive forces abroad in Womack’s New York, and
asks whether under such conditions violence would in fact disappear.
Each is in a way an Edenic fable. In Random Acts, the former life of the
nuclear family is the innocent, sheltered childhood world of an intelli-
gent middle-class family living apart from the encroaching darkness.
Cocaine Nights presents us with a Johnsonian Happy Valley in which all
is supplied, but in which the spectacle of violence is required (though
this, too, might be said to have an element of social determinism, with
changes caused by economic satiation rather than economic need).
What the deprivation and the boredom release is, in each case, some-
thing within - Conradian hearts of darkness revealed at the end of
symbolic journeys.
British. These are novels that have a clear place in mainstream fiction,
though bookstores also shelve them with genre fiction, either with
science fiction (Ballard on the strength of his niche as a science fiction
writer) or with crime fiction. Both are first-person narratives of guilt and
violence, patterned in ways very familiar from the noir thrillers we have
examined. Ballard’s is a story of the narrator’s investigation of a horrific
crime in an effort to clear his brother. It is an investigation that ends
not only with a recognition that there is a sense in which his brother
is guilty, but with him taking guilt upon himself (the investigator
thereby being transformed into a man seen at the end as a malefactor).
The Womack novel is in the tradition of narratives that involve an inno-
cent narrator drawn into a world of deprivation and violence and cross-
ing the line by committing an act of murder which leads irrevocably to
utter isolation in savage surroundings. But the use of a young girl in the
narrator’s role makes Random Acts a striking departure from the tradi-
tion. Ballard and Womack are both imagining a semi-contemporary
future, with the present sliding almost imperceptibly into near future.
Ballard sets his novel in a leisured, privileged retirement community,
Womack sets his in a desperately poor urban environment, but both
use traditional elements of the thriller to explore the movement of a
society towards violence. Womack’s explanations have more in com-
mon with those of much earlier noir thrillers. Deprivation and casual
injustice are shown to be irrevocably shaping the life of a girl who is
not dissimilar to Ellson’s Tomboy - young, tough and doomed to take
her place in a disintegrating urban environment. Ballard’s novel, on the
other hand, imagines a world without economic deprivation, sheltered
from all of the destructive forces abroad in Womack’s New York, and
asks whether under such conditions violence would in fact disappear.
Each is in a way an Edenic fable. In Random Acts, the former life of the
nuclear family is the innocent, sheltered childhood world of an intelli-
gent middle-class family living apart from the encroaching darkness.
Cocaine Nights presents us with a Johnsonian Happy Valley in which all
is supplied, but in which the spectacle of violence is required (though
this, too, might be said to have an element of social determinism, with
changes caused by economic satiation rather than economic need).
What the deprivation and the boredom release is, in each case, some-
thing within - Conradian hearts of darkness revealed at the end of
symbolic journeys.
Ballard’s science fiction novels, from The Drowned World (1961) on,
made him the ‘idolised role model’ for cyberpunk writers, admired for
pushing to the limits ‘the bizarre, the surreal, the formerly unthinkable
made him the ‘idolised role model’ for cyberpunk writers, admired for
pushing to the limits ‘the bizarre, the surreal, the formerly unthinkable
...’19 Cocaine Nights, which seems at first glance to be a
realistic novel
of Mediterranean retirement, is in fact very closely related to the bizarre
and surreal body of his science fiction, its deceptive surface so strongly
reinforcing our sense of the conventional and mundane that the emerg-
ing ‘future’ is all the more disturbing in its coupling of banality and
violence. As in much contemporary noir, crime is conceived as a com-
bination of spectacle and game, fascinating, addictive and more dan-
gerous than the participants realise. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an
unmistakable presence behind Ballard’s evocations of savage joy and
frenzy that are, like the ‘certain midnight dances’, inextricably bound
up with a savage violence not that far removed from the cannibalism,
heads on stakes and ‘unspeakable rites’ with which Kurtz’s midnight
dances end. In his earlier novels (The Drowned World, The Crystal World)
Ballard often created narrative patterns that led critics to think, in spite
of his denials, in terms of Conradian journeys into the interior, though
with the Conradian theme modified (for example in The Crystal World)
by imagining a journey towards the inner self, the core of the uncon-
scious that contains brightness as well as darkness, a zone of transfor-
mation in which imaginative free play flourishes in opposition to the
symbolic order, the world outside where the return of unconscious
desire is suppressed.
of Mediterranean retirement, is in fact very closely related to the bizarre
and surreal body of his science fiction, its deceptive surface so strongly
reinforcing our sense of the conventional and mundane that the emerg-
ing ‘future’ is all the more disturbing in its coupling of banality and
violence. As in much contemporary noir, crime is conceived as a com-
bination of spectacle and game, fascinating, addictive and more dan-
gerous than the participants realise. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an
unmistakable presence behind Ballard’s evocations of savage joy and
frenzy that are, like the ‘certain midnight dances’, inextricably bound
up with a savage violence not that far removed from the cannibalism,
heads on stakes and ‘unspeakable rites’ with which Kurtz’s midnight
dances end. In his earlier novels (The Drowned World, The Crystal World)
Ballard often created narrative patterns that led critics to think, in spite
of his denials, in terms of Conradian journeys into the interior, though
with the Conradian theme modified (for example in The Crystal World)
by imagining a journey towards the inner self, the core of the uncon-
scious that contains brightness as well as darkness, a zone of transfor-
mation in which imaginative free play flourishes in opposition to the
symbolic order, the world outside where the return of unconscious
desire is suppressed.
In Cocaine
Nights,
Ballard uses a different structure: Dionysus on tour,
rather than a journey to a forbidden zone, contained within an inves-
tigative framework that ends by revealing shared guilt. Ballard’s Bobby
Crawford parallels the ‘mysterious stranger’ in The Bacchae - ‘the god
himself’, the spirit of the instinctive group-personality and ‘the ambigu-
ous master-magician of pleasure and pain, beauty and cruelty’.20 When
the protagonist, Charles, comes to the Costa del Sol it is because his
brother Frank is accused of the murder of five people. He begins by
thinking that Frank must be pleading guilty as ‘part of some bizarre
game he was playing against himself’, but the ‘game’ is quite other than
he imagines, and he is drawn into staying by an attempt on his life,
which is not so much a warning as an attempt to integrate him into
the inner life of Estrella de Mar, ‘“a kind of invitation. Almost an invi-
tation to . . .” “The underworld? The real Estrella de Mar?”’ (174). It is
for Charles, as it clearly also was for his brother, a liminal experience.
On the face of it, all he does is fly to the present-day Costa del Sol, but
even in the opening paragraph there is a sly insinuation of his affini-
ties with Ballard’s future-world protagonists, an implication both that
he is crossing into an alien zone and that he is carrying with him his
own repressed, forbidden repository of guilts and desires:
rather than a journey to a forbidden zone, contained within an inves-
tigative framework that ends by revealing shared guilt. Ballard’s Bobby
Crawford parallels the ‘mysterious stranger’ in The Bacchae - ‘the god
himself’, the spirit of the instinctive group-personality and ‘the ambigu-
ous master-magician of pleasure and pain, beauty and cruelty’.20 When
the protagonist, Charles, comes to the Costa del Sol it is because his
brother Frank is accused of the murder of five people. He begins by
thinking that Frank must be pleading guilty as ‘part of some bizarre
game he was playing against himself’, but the ‘game’ is quite other than
he imagines, and he is drawn into staying by an attempt on his life,
which is not so much a warning as an attempt to integrate him into
the inner life of Estrella de Mar, ‘“a kind of invitation. Almost an invi-
tation to . . .” “The underworld? The real Estrella de Mar?”’ (174). It is
for Charles, as it clearly also was for his brother, a liminal experience.
On the face of it, all he does is fly to the present-day Costa del Sol, but
even in the opening paragraph there is a sly insinuation of his affini-
ties with Ballard’s future-world protagonists, an implication both that
he is crossing into an alien zone and that he is carrying with him his
own repressed, forbidden repository of guilts and desires:
Crossing
frontiers is my profession. Those strips of no-man’s land
between the checkpoints always seem such zones of promise. . . . At
between the checkpoints always seem such zones of promise. . . . At
the
same time they set off a reflex of unease that I have never been able to repress. As the
customs officials rummage through my suitcases I sense them trying to unpack my mind
and reveal a contraband of forbidden dreams and memories. And even then there
are the
special pleasures of being exposed. . . . (9)
The
phrases here establish the most important terms of the following
narrative: crossing frontiers, zones of promise, able to repress, forbid-
den dreams and guilty memories. The Costa del Sol, like other strange
zones of Ballard’s science fiction, is both a realm of the imagination (a
place that ‘doesn’t really exist. That’s why I like the coast . . .’ [17]) and
a preview of the future: ‘It’s Europe’s future. Everywhere will be like this
soon’; ‘. . . It’s the fourth world. . . . The one waiting to take over every-
narrative: crossing frontiers, zones of promise, able to repress, forbid-
den dreams and guilty memories. The Costa del Sol, like other strange
zones of Ballard’s science fiction, is both a realm of the imagination (a
place that ‘doesn’t really exist. That’s why I like the coast . . .’ [17]) and
a preview of the future: ‘It’s Europe’s future. Everywhere will be like this
soon’; ‘. . . It’s the fourth world. . . . The one waiting to take over every-
thing . . .’ (23, 215-16).
Until it is touched by the Dionysiac spirit of
Bobby Crawford, the
Costa del Sol is completely null. This is more than just a picture of a
world of moneyed leisure. Ballard heightens the descriptions enough so
that they become surreal and dystopian: the ‘memory-erasing’ cubist
architecture of the houses and apartments with white facades ‘like
blocks of time that had crystallised beside the road’; the residents,
preternaturally still, holding unread books and watching television with
the sound off (34-5, 75, 215-16). Into this ‘walled limbo’ (34), Bobby
Crawford brings his youthful good looks (looking like ‘a handsome and
affable gangster’ [68]) and, above all, his extraordinary fluidity and
energy. He is capable of changing everyone’s lives but also full of ‘dark,
lurking violence’ (205). Having stumbled on to the truth that crime and
creativity go together, Crawford puts people in touch with ‘dormant
areas’ of their minds, making them fascinated by the ‘other world’ of
crime ‘where everything is possible’, where they can break the rules and
sidestep the taboos (245), ‘leaving behind a treasure of incitement and
desire’ (263). Fires, speedboat chases, explosions, rapes all become com-
munal spectacles: ‘Crime at Estrella de Mar had become one of the per-
formance arts. . . . Brutal, but great fun’ (146). This, then, becomes an
Costa del Sol is completely null. This is more than just a picture of a
world of moneyed leisure. Ballard heightens the descriptions enough so
that they become surreal and dystopian: the ‘memory-erasing’ cubist
architecture of the houses and apartments with white facades ‘like
blocks of time that had crystallised beside the road’; the residents,
preternaturally still, holding unread books and watching television with
the sound off (34-5, 75, 215-16). Into this ‘walled limbo’ (34), Bobby
Crawford brings his youthful good looks (looking like ‘a handsome and
affable gangster’ [68]) and, above all, his extraordinary fluidity and
energy. He is capable of changing everyone’s lives but also full of ‘dark,
lurking violence’ (205). Having stumbled on to the truth that crime and
creativity go together, Crawford puts people in touch with ‘dormant
areas’ of their minds, making them fascinated by the ‘other world’ of
crime ‘where everything is possible’, where they can break the rules and
sidestep the taboos (245), ‘leaving behind a treasure of incitement and
desire’ (263). Fires, speedboat chases, explosions, rapes all become com-
munal spectacles: ‘Crime at Estrella de Mar had become one of the per-
formance arts. . . . Brutal, but great fun’ (146). This, then, becomes an
alternative
vision of the future. Communal life is energised by trans-
gressive behaviour: ‘One of the modern world’s pagan rites was taking
place, the torching of the automobile, witnessed by the young women
from the disco, their sequinned dresses trembling in the flames . . . a pre-
monition of the carnival blaze that would one day consume Estrella de
Mar’ (158-60).
gressive behaviour: ‘One of the modern world’s pagan rites was taking
place, the torching of the automobile, witnessed by the young women
from the disco, their sequinned dresses trembling in the flames . . . a pre-
monition of the carnival blaze that would one day consume Estrella de
Mar’ (158-60).
Estrella de Mar is first seen as ‘a place
without shadow’, secure on its
handsome peninsula, the ‘private paradise’ of ‘a happier twentieth
century’ (65-6). Jack Womack’s New York, on the other hand, is a place
close to the world of urban noir. Random Acts21 depicts a savage
handsome peninsula, the ‘private paradise’ of ‘a happier twentieth
century’ (65-6). Jack Womack’s New York, on the other hand, is a place
close to the world of urban noir. Random Acts21 depicts a savage
cityscape,
the future of an America in which all urban centres are dis-
integrating into rioting, destitution and gang warfare. As their circum-
stances decline, the family of Womack’s young narrator, Lola, is forced
to move to the more marginal and dangerous parts of the city, jour-
neying away from civilised security to live on the margins of West
Harlem. Lola endures a Conradian journey not just to the ‘worst’ that
the city contains but to a forced reassessment of her own identity, a
reduction to a primitive level of being: ‘I can’t remember what I used
to be like . . . it fears me’ (231). She, is, like Marlow, shocked by how
rapidly one accommodates oneself to appalling things: ‘It was weird
though that you could adjust to something so quick’ (125). Feeling that
all that is left to her is her ‘rack and rage’ (241), she at last beats to death
her father’s cruel employer, in what seems to her ‘dreamtime’: ‘There’s
no denying I was mindlost’ (251-2). Her capacity for murder is only one
of the horrors discovered by Lola, who in the end commits herself to
the world beyond all that is familiar, ‘with the DCons’ (256), the
emblem of everything savage.
integrating into rioting, destitution and gang warfare. As their circum-
stances decline, the family of Womack’s young narrator, Lola, is forced
to move to the more marginal and dangerous parts of the city, jour-
neying away from civilised security to live on the margins of West
Harlem. Lola endures a Conradian journey not just to the ‘worst’ that
the city contains but to a forced reassessment of her own identity, a
reduction to a primitive level of being: ‘I can’t remember what I used
to be like . . . it fears me’ (231). She, is, like Marlow, shocked by how
rapidly one accommodates oneself to appalling things: ‘It was weird
though that you could adjust to something so quick’ (125). Feeling that
all that is left to her is her ‘rack and rage’ (241), she at last beats to death
her father’s cruel employer, in what seems to her ‘dreamtime’: ‘There’s
no denying I was mindlost’ (251-2). Her capacity for murder is only one
of the horrors discovered by Lola, who in the end commits herself to
the world beyond all that is familiar, ‘with the DCons’ (256), the
emblem of everything savage.
Random
Acts is
science fiction as extrapolation. The element of fantasy
consists entirely of an extension of all the worst possibilities of urban
American life. The jacket claims ‘cyberpunk intensity’ for the style, and
the novel has in common with cyberpunk a strong sense of counter-
cultural aggression. It is, however, far more genuinely noir than most
cyberpunk, in part because it does not open up the possible alter-worlds
of virtual space and imagined cityscapes, but instead presents the
remorseless pressure of events which seem all too real, and which Lola
increasingly finds herself unequipped to express: ‘There’s no wording
proper what downed last night. The world brutalises however you live
it whatever you do’ (221). As everything, including her own language,
breaks down, Lola’s questions about the future echo the anxiety, fear
and overwhelming sense of fatality that have recurrently been at the
core of the noir narrative: ‘“How’ll we endtime Iz?” I asked. “What’s
meant?” “Unknown” Iz said. “Spilling tomorrow into today’s suited
sometime but not once it darkens. Nada’s changeable come nightside
...”’ (233).
consists entirely of an extension of all the worst possibilities of urban
American life. The jacket claims ‘cyberpunk intensity’ for the style, and
the novel has in common with cyberpunk a strong sense of counter-
cultural aggression. It is, however, far more genuinely noir than most
cyberpunk, in part because it does not open up the possible alter-worlds
of virtual space and imagined cityscapes, but instead presents the
remorseless pressure of events which seem all too real, and which Lola
increasingly finds herself unequipped to express: ‘There’s no wording
proper what downed last night. The world brutalises however you live
it whatever you do’ (221). As everything, including her own language,
breaks down, Lola’s questions about the future echo the anxiety, fear
and overwhelming sense of fatality that have recurrently been at the
core of the noir narrative: ‘“How’ll we endtime Iz?” I asked. “What’s
meant?” “Unknown” Iz said. “Spilling tomorrow into today’s suited
sometime but not once it darkens. Nada’s changeable come nightside
...”’ (233).
9
Literary
Noir in the Twenty-First Century
Then
[Hard Case Crime] came around . . . with a calculated
attempt to return noir to its roots - to the gutter from which
it sprang. Noir is not polished and shouldn’t be displayed under
glass as some sort of art object. It’s furious and raw and fright-
ening; it’s cheap and filthy and squalid; it’s sexy and hungry
and desperate. It belongs in cheap mass-market editions, it
deserves fleshy, steamy covers . . . it deserves to be done right.
attempt to return noir to its roots - to the gutter from which
it sprang. Noir is not polished and shouldn’t be displayed under
glass as some sort of art object. It’s furious and raw and fright-
ening; it’s cheap and filthy and squalid; it’s sexy and hungry
and desperate. It belongs in cheap mass-market editions, it
deserves fleshy, steamy covers . . . it deserves to be done right.
Charles Ardai, Editor, Hard
Case Crime1
Hard
Case Crime, launched in 2004, was created by Charles Ardai and
Max Phillips with the aim of recapturing some of the energy and excite-
ment of the mid-century paperback revolution, in mass-market editions
complete with vivid cover art in the style of the great days of pulp pub-
lishing. The contemporary paperback marketing of noir as noir first took
firm hold in the mid-1980s. In the UK, Maxim Jakubowski, who started
reissuing vintage American noir in his Black Box Thrillers of the 1970s,
launched Blue Murder (a trade paperback series for Simon and Schus-
ter), aiming to bring out the best of noir and hard-boiled; Barry Gifford
and Donald S. Ellis created the Black Lizard imprint, which republished
(as Blue Murder did) the work of writers like Jim Thompson, David
Goodis and Charles Williams. Random House bought Black Lizard in
1990, forming the Vintage/Black Lizard label, which combined publi-
cation of earlier crime fiction with the work of such writers as Andrew
Vachss and Jason Starr. If a major company like Random House was
taking noir seriously as a literary label, others were likely to see it as a
respectable precedent, and both long-established publishers and new
imprints have followed their example. Hard Case Crime itself, like
Vintage/Black Lizard, combines reissues of vintage noir titles with the
Max Phillips with the aim of recapturing some of the energy and excite-
ment of the mid-century paperback revolution, in mass-market editions
complete with vivid cover art in the style of the great days of pulp pub-
lishing. The contemporary paperback marketing of noir as noir first took
firm hold in the mid-1980s. In the UK, Maxim Jakubowski, who started
reissuing vintage American noir in his Black Box Thrillers of the 1970s,
launched Blue Murder (a trade paperback series for Simon and Schus-
ter), aiming to bring out the best of noir and hard-boiled; Barry Gifford
and Donald S. Ellis created the Black Lizard imprint, which republished
(as Blue Murder did) the work of writers like Jim Thompson, David
Goodis and Charles Williams. Random House bought Black Lizard in
1990, forming the Vintage/Black Lizard label, which combined publi-
cation of earlier crime fiction with the work of such writers as Andrew
Vachss and Jason Starr. If a major company like Random House was
taking noir seriously as a literary label, others were likely to see it as a
respectable precedent, and both long-established publishers and new
imprints have followed their example. Hard Case Crime itself, like
Vintage/Black Lizard, combines reissues of vintage noir titles with the
251
publication
of the work of new authors - Ken Bruen, Christa Faust, Jason
Starr, Allan Guthrie, as well as Ardai himself. The enthusiastic reviews,
awards and other publicity Hard Case has received have in turn encour-
aged more mainstream publishers to experiment with marketing crime
novels with pulp covers and jacket blurbs advertising their noir
credentials.
Starr, Allan Guthrie, as well as Ardai himself. The enthusiastic reviews,
awards and other publicity Hard Case has received have in turn encour-
aged more mainstream publishers to experiment with marketing crime
novels with pulp covers and jacket blurbs advertising their noir
credentials.
A quick sampling of current paperback covers
gives some idea of the
range of publishers involved in this kind of marketing. Vicki Hendricks
is ‘the Queen of Florida noir erotica’ (Cruel Poetry, Serpent’s Tail, 2007)
and Megan Abbott is ‘the new Queen of Noir’ (Queenpin, Simon and
Schuster, 2007); Duane Swierczynski’s The Wheelman (St Martin’s Mino-
taur, 2005) is ‘a bittersweet slice of noir’; Tom Piccirilli’s The Fever Kill
(Creeping Hemlock Press, 2007) ‘a rattlesnake-mean noir’; James Sallis’
Drive (No Exit Press, 2007) ‘a perfect piece of noir fiction’; and Anthony
Neil Smith’s Psychosomatic (PointBlank Press, 2005) ‘a noir nightmare’.
This widespread use of noir labelling to market crime fiction has gone
hand in hand with a much stronger commercial sense of the qualities
that constitute noir. Ardai, for example, offers a concise definition that
captures, from a publisher’s perspective, some of the major elements
in contemporary literary noir: ‘For me . . . it’s typically a matter of a
small man or woman being ground down by forces bigger than him- or
herself . . . It’s about people who make bad choices knowing they’re bad
choices, but they make them anyway because they can’t help them-
selves. It’s about people who fight against their fate and fall prey to it
nonetheless.’ Ardai emphasises the personal, intimate nature of noir
(‘it’s about one man or one woman’s inner crisis of the soul’),2 and it’s
clear that the revival of vintage noir has not, on the whole, been expli-
citly political. Narratives dealing with contemporary political content
can, in fact, struggle to find a publisher, since such content (Islamic ter-
rorists, for example) can be viewed as dating more quickly and as iden-
tified more closely with the generic ‘international thriller’ than with
literary noir. But if not about their time in the way that they often were
during the Thatcher-Reagan era, noir crime novels are, as in previous
decades, very much of their time, perhaps most of all in their anxious
awareness of the way the past keeps coming back, even at the dawn of
a new millennium.
range of publishers involved in this kind of marketing. Vicki Hendricks
is ‘the Queen of Florida noir erotica’ (Cruel Poetry, Serpent’s Tail, 2007)
and Megan Abbott is ‘the new Queen of Noir’ (Queenpin, Simon and
Schuster, 2007); Duane Swierczynski’s The Wheelman (St Martin’s Mino-
taur, 2005) is ‘a bittersweet slice of noir’; Tom Piccirilli’s The Fever Kill
(Creeping Hemlock Press, 2007) ‘a rattlesnake-mean noir’; James Sallis’
Drive (No Exit Press, 2007) ‘a perfect piece of noir fiction’; and Anthony
Neil Smith’s Psychosomatic (PointBlank Press, 2005) ‘a noir nightmare’.
This widespread use of noir labelling to market crime fiction has gone
hand in hand with a much stronger commercial sense of the qualities
that constitute noir. Ardai, for example, offers a concise definition that
captures, from a publisher’s perspective, some of the major elements
in contemporary literary noir: ‘For me . . . it’s typically a matter of a
small man or woman being ground down by forces bigger than him- or
herself . . . It’s about people who make bad choices knowing they’re bad
choices, but they make them anyway because they can’t help them-
selves. It’s about people who fight against their fate and fall prey to it
nonetheless.’ Ardai emphasises the personal, intimate nature of noir
(‘it’s about one man or one woman’s inner crisis of the soul’),2 and it’s
clear that the revival of vintage noir has not, on the whole, been expli-
citly political. Narratives dealing with contemporary political content
can, in fact, struggle to find a publisher, since such content (Islamic ter-
rorists, for example) can be viewed as dating more quickly and as iden-
tified more closely with the generic ‘international thriller’ than with
literary noir. But if not about their time in the way that they often were
during the Thatcher-Reagan era, noir crime novels are, as in previous
decades, very much of their time, perhaps most of all in their anxious
awareness of the way the past keeps coming back, even at the dawn of
a new millennium.
‘History is this cycle of
arrogance and fall . . .’
Many
of the phrases that have served to define contemporary experi-
ence and ideology - ‘as we usher in the new Millennium’, ‘living in a
ence and ideology - ‘as we usher in the new Millennium’, ‘living in a
post-9/11
world’, ‘the new war on terrorism’, ‘the Project for the New
American Century’ - suggest disjunction, a historically new set of cir-
cumstances. This sense of being disconnected from history is itself, of
course, deeply embedded in American ways of thinking. It is a thor-
oughly traditional rhetoric of ‘newness’, and one never likely to strike
a persuasive chord in a form of literature centred on suppressed, con-
flicted relationships to the past. Noir, by its very nature, figures current
anxieties as replaying or springing from the traumas and political sins
of earlier decades, as originating in ways of thinking and abuses of
power that are anything but new. It is not surprising, then, that the con-
temporary revival of post-World War Two narrative modes and con-
ventions, of a very traditional kind of literary noir, should coincide with
a period of crisis marked by this sense of historical disconnection. Per-
ceiving a rift comparable to that created by earlier twentieth-century
wars, men of power have invoked the political agendas of half a century
ago: ‘This campaign,’ Rumsfeld announced, ‘will be waged much like
the Cold War . . .’3 And it is obvious that the attendant anxieties are in
many respects not dissimilar. One legacy of 9/11 has been a climate of
fear and paranoia, a crisis of masculine agency, feelings of impotence,
impulses towards retaliation and revenge, and at the same time growing
unease about the atmosphere of suspicion created by the war on terror.
Chomsky’s description of a familiar contemporary mindset in ‘The New
War Against Terror’ often finds echoes in the twenty-first-century crime
novel: ‘We don’t care about negotiation . . . We are the strongest guy
around; the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want . . . You
have to establish credibility . . . You want to know what credibility
means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He’ll explain to you what credi-
bility means . . .’4
American Century’ - suggest disjunction, a historically new set of cir-
cumstances. This sense of being disconnected from history is itself, of
course, deeply embedded in American ways of thinking. It is a thor-
oughly traditional rhetoric of ‘newness’, and one never likely to strike
a persuasive chord in a form of literature centred on suppressed, con-
flicted relationships to the past. Noir, by its very nature, figures current
anxieties as replaying or springing from the traumas and political sins
of earlier decades, as originating in ways of thinking and abuses of
power that are anything but new. It is not surprising, then, that the con-
temporary revival of post-World War Two narrative modes and con-
ventions, of a very traditional kind of literary noir, should coincide with
a period of crisis marked by this sense of historical disconnection. Per-
ceiving a rift comparable to that created by earlier twentieth-century
wars, men of power have invoked the political agendas of half a century
ago: ‘This campaign,’ Rumsfeld announced, ‘will be waged much like
the Cold War . . .’3 And it is obvious that the attendant anxieties are in
many respects not dissimilar. One legacy of 9/11 has been a climate of
fear and paranoia, a crisis of masculine agency, feelings of impotence,
impulses towards retaliation and revenge, and at the same time growing
unease about the atmosphere of suspicion created by the war on terror.
Chomsky’s description of a familiar contemporary mindset in ‘The New
War Against Terror’ often finds echoes in the twenty-first-century crime
novel: ‘We don’t care about negotiation . . . We are the strongest guy
around; the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want . . . You
have to establish credibility . . . You want to know what credibility
means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He’ll explain to you what credi-
bility means . . .’4
Recent noir crime novels, like their
mid-century predecessors, recur-
rently represent situations in which ‘the toughest thug on the block’ is
trying to establish his credibility. In doing so, they implicitly reflect
on the crises and duplicities of national self-assertion, reaching back into
the past to trace the sources of current delusions in the tangled events,
the greed and violence of American history. There is a recurrent motif
of men in pursuit of a lost, treacherously illusive notion of masculinity.
As Craig McDonald (author of Head Games, 2007) says, ‘I wanted to write
a novel that took a hard look at a certain kind of masculinity that has,
for better or worse, kind of passed from the scene. I wanted to look at
the cost of acquiring, maintaining, and ultimately, losing a grip on that
kind of masculinity. To find the last of those kinds of men, I really had
to cast back to that time period.’5 Contemporary fictional characters
rently represent situations in which ‘the toughest thug on the block’ is
trying to establish his credibility. In doing so, they implicitly reflect
on the crises and duplicities of national self-assertion, reaching back into
the past to trace the sources of current delusions in the tangled events,
the greed and violence of American history. There is a recurrent motif
of men in pursuit of a lost, treacherously illusive notion of masculinity.
As Craig McDonald (author of Head Games, 2007) says, ‘I wanted to write
a novel that took a hard look at a certain kind of masculinity that has,
for better or worse, kind of passed from the scene. I wanted to look at
the cost of acquiring, maintaining, and ultimately, losing a grip on that
kind of masculinity. To find the last of those kinds of men, I really had
to cast back to that time period.’5 Contemporary fictional characters
fantasise
about self-images modelled on the hard-boiled heroes of earlier
decades; narratives are shaped to expose the costs of pretending to a
toughness one doesn’t possess, a charade in which actual insecurities
demand a polarised worldview and the construction of enemies.
decades; narratives are shaped to expose the costs of pretending to a
toughness one doesn’t possess, a charade in which actual insecurities
demand a polarised worldview and the construction of enemies.
‘A great nation is like a great man . . . He
thinks of his ENEMY as the
shadow that he himself casts’ (Tao Te Ching): the epigraph to Jess
Walter’s Citizen Vince (2004) captures one of the essential elements in
the construction of a hard-boiled identity. Walters’ novel is a medita-
tion on history’s cycle of ‘arrogance and fall’ (293) that runs a fairly tra-
ditional noir narrative alongside a slightly surreal take on American
politics of the early 1980s. The election of Reagan is taken as a histori-
cal moment in which one can see crystallised the self-definition of a
masculine power structure preoccupied with the battle against an
enemy that is the shadow of one’s own violence. Though it ends with
the Carter-Reagan election of 1980, the novel looks forward to the issue
of dealing with terrorists: people ally themselves with a president who
seems to promise to free them ‘of their fears and insecurities, to make
them stop feeling puny and vulnerable, boldly promising to lead them
into the past’ (35). Carter loses because he reminds people of their weak-
nesses and because they ‘mistake bluster for bravery’ (200). One of the
novel’s key speeches about political aggression is put into the mouth of
a gangster who identifies Carter’s mistake as forgetting ‘not to be a
pussy’: people will follow drunks, retards, psychopaths, criminals,
lunatics, ‘But if they think you ain’t got balls . . . you’re fuckin’ done’
(160). The main narrative of Citizen Vince juxtaposes a small-time crim-
inal’s very American hopes and struggles to get by and to find his iden-
tity with the kind of credibility that counts with a Mafia Don. Ray Sticks
is a hitman who only knows how to ‘do that one thing’, and the ques-
tion ultimately posed by the novel is how the small securities craved by
the ordinary citizen can be sustained during those periods in political
life dominated by the psychology of the hitman, instrument of the ‘sea-
sonal’ urge to take out one’s enemies - when ‘everybody wants every-
body done’ (262).
shadow that he himself casts’ (Tao Te Ching): the epigraph to Jess
Walter’s Citizen Vince (2004) captures one of the essential elements in
the construction of a hard-boiled identity. Walters’ novel is a medita-
tion on history’s cycle of ‘arrogance and fall’ (293) that runs a fairly tra-
ditional noir narrative alongside a slightly surreal take on American
politics of the early 1980s. The election of Reagan is taken as a histori-
cal moment in which one can see crystallised the self-definition of a
masculine power structure preoccupied with the battle against an
enemy that is the shadow of one’s own violence. Though it ends with
the Carter-Reagan election of 1980, the novel looks forward to the issue
of dealing with terrorists: people ally themselves with a president who
seems to promise to free them ‘of their fears and insecurities, to make
them stop feeling puny and vulnerable, boldly promising to lead them
into the past’ (35). Carter loses because he reminds people of their weak-
nesses and because they ‘mistake bluster for bravery’ (200). One of the
novel’s key speeches about political aggression is put into the mouth of
a gangster who identifies Carter’s mistake as forgetting ‘not to be a
pussy’: people will follow drunks, retards, psychopaths, criminals,
lunatics, ‘But if they think you ain’t got balls . . . you’re fuckin’ done’
(160). The main narrative of Citizen Vince juxtaposes a small-time crim-
inal’s very American hopes and struggles to get by and to find his iden-
tity with the kind of credibility that counts with a Mafia Don. Ray Sticks
is a hitman who only knows how to ‘do that one thing’, and the ques-
tion ultimately posed by the novel is how the small securities craved by
the ordinary citizen can be sustained during those periods in political
life dominated by the psychology of the hitman, instrument of the ‘sea-
sonal’ urge to take out one’s enemies - when ‘everybody wants every-
body done’ (262).
The pivotal importance of the 1980s is clear
in other novels as well
(for example, in one of the few contemporary noir thrillers to deal very
directly with the macho posturings of international politics, Steve
Alten’s The Shell Game (2007)), but the cycle of arrogance and fall is
always to be observed. Mid-century American political life, as we have
seen, has particular contemporary resonance. This is evident especially
in the work of James Ellroy and Walter Mosley, whose ambitious crime
series bridge the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Both writers locate
(for example, in one of the few contemporary noir thrillers to deal very
directly with the macho posturings of international politics, Steve
Alten’s The Shell Game (2007)), but the cycle of arrogance and fall is
always to be observed. Mid-century American political life, as we have
seen, has particular contemporary resonance. This is evident especially
in the work of James Ellroy and Walter Mosley, whose ambitious crime
series bridge the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Both writers locate
sources
for and parallels to the woes of contemporary history by creat-
ing narratives structured around the crimes of earlier decades. Ellroy is
near to completing his second mammoth series of novels exploring the
intersection between crime and American history. From the L.A. Quartet
on (beginning with The Black Dahlia in 1987), he has aimed to convey
the realities of American power during a brutal, expansionist century:
‘politics as crime, the private nightmare of public policy’. The violence
of recent decades, he argues, cannot be seen as a ‘fall from grace’ because
‘You can’t lose what you lacked at conception’: ‘America was never inno-
cent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no
regrets’ (AT 5). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, The Cold
Six Thousand (2001), the second of his Underworld USA Trilogy (which
began with American Tabloid in 1995), continues his fictional exposure
of the contradictory impulses - idealism existing alongside greed, vio-
lence, fear and corruption - that characterise American culture and pol-
itics in the years following the assassination of JFK. His next novel,
Blood’s a Rover, due out in 2009, will be, in Ellroy’s words, ‘the epic third
volume’ of the Underworld Trilogy, carrying the saga up to the Nixon era
ing narratives structured around the crimes of earlier decades. Ellroy is
near to completing his second mammoth series of novels exploring the
intersection between crime and American history. From the L.A. Quartet
on (beginning with The Black Dahlia in 1987), he has aimed to convey
the realities of American power during a brutal, expansionist century:
‘politics as crime, the private nightmare of public policy’. The violence
of recent decades, he argues, cannot be seen as a ‘fall from grace’ because
‘You can’t lose what you lacked at conception’: ‘America was never inno-
cent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no
regrets’ (AT 5). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, The Cold
Six Thousand (2001), the second of his Underworld USA Trilogy (which
began with American Tabloid in 1995), continues his fictional exposure
of the contradictory impulses - idealism existing alongside greed, vio-
lence, fear and corruption - that characterise American culture and pol-
itics in the years following the assassination of JFK. His next novel,
Blood’s a Rover, due out in 2009, will be, in Ellroy’s words, ‘the epic third
volume’ of the Underworld Trilogy, carrying the saga up to the Nixon era
-
‘a ghastly tale of political malfeasance and imperialistic bad juju from 1968
to 1972’.6
Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series doesn’t aim for
anything like Ellroy’s epic
dimensions, but has, during roughly the same period, followed through
the agenda of creating a sequence of novels that visit the dark places of
the American past. Like the LA Quartet, Mosley’s series opens in post-
World War Two LA, creating what he characterises as the forgotten
dimensions of the city’s history from the perspective of a black detec-
tive whose investigations reveal the traumas of racial oppression and
his disempowerment in comparison to the white hard-boiled private
eye. The tenth instalment of the series, which came out in 2007, Blonde
Faith, takes Easy’s involvement with the history of LA up to the post-
riot years of the late 1960s, and the intervening novels have taken him
through, for example, the McCarthy era (Red Death, 1991), the militant
black politics of the 1960s (Bad Boy Brawly Brown, 2002) and the 1965
Watts riots (Little Scarlet, 2004), all of which traced the corrupt, oppres-
sive power relationships involved in creating the ‘other’ LA.
dimensions, but has, during roughly the same period, followed through
the agenda of creating a sequence of novels that visit the dark places of
the American past. Like the LA Quartet, Mosley’s series opens in post-
World War Two LA, creating what he characterises as the forgotten
dimensions of the city’s history from the perspective of a black detec-
tive whose investigations reveal the traumas of racial oppression and
his disempowerment in comparison to the white hard-boiled private
eye. The tenth instalment of the series, which came out in 2007, Blonde
Faith, takes Easy’s involvement with the history of LA up to the post-
riot years of the late 1960s, and the intervening novels have taken him
through, for example, the McCarthy era (Red Death, 1991), the militant
black politics of the 1960s (Bad Boy Brawly Brown, 2002) and the 1965
Watts riots (Little Scarlet, 2004), all of which traced the corrupt, oppres-
sive power relationships involved in creating the ‘other’ LA.
In British crime writing, the closest
equivalent is to be found in the
novels of David Peace, whose Red Riding Quartet - Nineteen Seventy Four
(1999), Nineteen Seventy Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nine-
teen Eighty Three (2002) - is frequently compared to the work of Ellroy.
In their own way, Peace’s novels also recapitulate the dark continuities
of contemporary history. Set during the period when the Yorkshire
novels of David Peace, whose Red Riding Quartet - Nineteen Seventy Four
(1999), Nineteen Seventy Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nine-
teen Eighty Three (2002) - is frequently compared to the work of Ellroy.
In their own way, Peace’s novels also recapitulate the dark continuities
of contemporary history. Set during the period when the Yorkshire
Ripper
was active, the Red Riding books create bleakly violent narratives
of corrupt authority and personal despair. They are police procedurals
in which official irregularity and the abuse of authority almost wholly
supplant any legitimate procedure, with seemingly the entire police
force engaged in cover-ups, beatings and murders. Peace’s uncompro-
mising, often experimental prose forces the reader to connect crimi-
nality with the exercise of power, cumulatively building a picture of an
England that is ‘All a far cry from Dixon of Dock Green’ (112). Like Ellroy
and Mosley, Peace brings to the fore the insecurities of and outrages
committed by dysfunctional males, reaching back into the late twenti-
eth century to locate some of the sources of contemporary anxieties.
The series resembles the L.A. Quartet in its surreal violence, its relent-
lessly noir reflections on betrayal, corruption and the hierarchies of evil.
A series that (in terms of its publication dates) straddles the millennium,
the Red Riding tetralogy self-consciously summons up harbingers of
apocalyptic disorder as opposed to any more positive millennial change:
there might be ‘No future’ (341). Nineteen Seventy-Seven, for example,
uses the year of the Jubilee as a counterpoint to the personal and socio-
political thrust of the narrative, juxtaposing the actual events of the
novel with the question of what Jubilee ought to mean: ‘“Every fifty
years there was a year of emancipation, a time of remission and for-
giveness from sin, an end to penance, so it was a time of celebration”’
(164). But of course there is in reality little to celebrate and no remis-
sion or forgiveness. In the rough world of Chapeltown, male agency
ought to make a difference, but in actuality it is a place so unredeemed
that there is simply no way a man can be bad enough. The protagonists
are ‘hard’ permanently, sexually and metaphorically, but as the end
approaches they are unable to expunge the memories of everything
that’s happened, and the novel moves towards dreams of blood, dark-
ness, desperation, terrors, with ‘cuts won’t stop bleeding, the bruises not
healing . . .’ (208). They are ultimately unable to cope, defeated in their
efforts to function as tough and credible men, ‘just plain lost’ (208),
their identities breaking down in frantic, doomed quests: ‘she’s gone:
I’m gone in a hell. Battering down doors, battering down people,
kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me’
(139).
of corrupt authority and personal despair. They are police procedurals
in which official irregularity and the abuse of authority almost wholly
supplant any legitimate procedure, with seemingly the entire police
force engaged in cover-ups, beatings and murders. Peace’s uncompro-
mising, often experimental prose forces the reader to connect crimi-
nality with the exercise of power, cumulatively building a picture of an
England that is ‘All a far cry from Dixon of Dock Green’ (112). Like Ellroy
and Mosley, Peace brings to the fore the insecurities of and outrages
committed by dysfunctional males, reaching back into the late twenti-
eth century to locate some of the sources of contemporary anxieties.
The series resembles the L.A. Quartet in its surreal violence, its relent-
lessly noir reflections on betrayal, corruption and the hierarchies of evil.
A series that (in terms of its publication dates) straddles the millennium,
the Red Riding tetralogy self-consciously summons up harbingers of
apocalyptic disorder as opposed to any more positive millennial change:
there might be ‘No future’ (341). Nineteen Seventy-Seven, for example,
uses the year of the Jubilee as a counterpoint to the personal and socio-
political thrust of the narrative, juxtaposing the actual events of the
novel with the question of what Jubilee ought to mean: ‘“Every fifty
years there was a year of emancipation, a time of remission and for-
giveness from sin, an end to penance, so it was a time of celebration”’
(164). But of course there is in reality little to celebrate and no remis-
sion or forgiveness. In the rough world of Chapeltown, male agency
ought to make a difference, but in actuality it is a place so unredeemed
that there is simply no way a man can be bad enough. The protagonists
are ‘hard’ permanently, sexually and metaphorically, but as the end
approaches they are unable to expunge the memories of everything
that’s happened, and the novel moves towards dreams of blood, dark-
ness, desperation, terrors, with ‘cuts won’t stop bleeding, the bruises not
healing . . .’ (208). They are ultimately unable to cope, defeated in their
efforts to function as tough and credible men, ‘just plain lost’ (208),
their identities breaking down in frantic, doomed quests: ‘she’s gone:
I’m gone in a hell. Battering down doors, battering down people,
kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me’
(139).
‘A little Eastwood going on
in there . . .’
The
mood of the Red Riding books and the remorselessly downward tra-
jectory of an ever more helpless protagonist are not uncharacteristic of
jectory of an ever more helpless protagonist are not uncharacteristic of
contemporary
British noir. Peace’s novels are distinctive in their highly
wrought style, their complexity and the intensity of their anguish, but
a number of other writers - most notably, Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks and
Charlie Williams - explore a closely adjacent noir world of lost mas-
culinity, creating milieus characterised by violence, lies, suspicions and
absurd expectations about what male posturing might be expected to
accomplish. Guthrie and Williams in particular lighten the tone con-
siderably, aiming for darkly comic versions of noir narrative patterns
and iconography. The central themes, however, are much the same:
impaired masculinity, treacherous weaknesses, the deceptiveness of the
tough guy pose, the pain of male failure and the cost of that failure, in
personal terms but also, in Ray Banks’ most recent novel, the political
ramifications of an obsession with projecting a heroic image.
wrought style, their complexity and the intensity of their anguish, but
a number of other writers - most notably, Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks and
Charlie Williams - explore a closely adjacent noir world of lost mas-
culinity, creating milieus characterised by violence, lies, suspicions and
absurd expectations about what male posturing might be expected to
accomplish. Guthrie and Williams in particular lighten the tone con-
siderably, aiming for darkly comic versions of noir narrative patterns
and iconography. The central themes, however, are much the same:
impaired masculinity, treacherous weaknesses, the deceptiveness of the
tough guy pose, the pain of male failure and the cost of that failure, in
personal terms but also, in Ray Banks’ most recent novel, the political
ramifications of an obsession with projecting a heroic image.
Amongst current British crime writers, it is
probably Allan Guthrie
who is most deliberately building on the traditions of literary noir.
When his work was first beginning to come to notice, he was running
a very influential website, Noir Originals,7 ‘An irregular ezine and author
showcase . . . dedicated to noir and hardboiled fiction’, to which both
Ray Banks and Charlie Williams contributed. During the same period
he was commissioning editor for Pulp Originals (a website launched to
make available in e-book form some of the best mid-twentieth-century
American crime novels) and also for the Wildside Press PointBlank
imprint. Like many of the earlier ‘noir original’ writers he has champi-
oned, Guthrie tends to frame his narratives very tightly within family-
centred plots dominated by psychologically damaged men. From
Greaves, who ‘stopped taking his medication’ on the first page of Two-
Way Split (2004), to the prison guard Glass who unreliably narrates
Guthrie’s Slammer (2009), conflicted, traumatised male identity is at the
core of all his novels. In Kiss Her Goodbye (2005), we share the emotions
and inner struggles of a protagonist whose job is to hurt people. An
enforcer for an Edinburgh loan shark, Joe Hope can muster the requi-
site toughness, but nothing has prepared him for the guilt, suspicion,
grief, pain and violence that come his way as the narrative unfolds.
More recently, Guthrie’s Hard Man (2007) creates a world in which causa
belli that don’t really exist (a pregnancy that is imagined, a dog that’s
not really dead, a wrongly identified assailant) set off a chain reaction
in which everyone is compelled to prove his ‘hardness’. Those who
have a reputation to sustain (Wallace and Pearce) are pitted against
one another by a dysfunctional family of ‘crazy fuckers’ (24). At the
end of the day, there is no victory but a complex denouement in
which every character is severely damaged - even the notorious hard
who is most deliberately building on the traditions of literary noir.
When his work was first beginning to come to notice, he was running
a very influential website, Noir Originals,7 ‘An irregular ezine and author
showcase . . . dedicated to noir and hardboiled fiction’, to which both
Ray Banks and Charlie Williams contributed. During the same period
he was commissioning editor for Pulp Originals (a website launched to
make available in e-book form some of the best mid-twentieth-century
American crime novels) and also for the Wildside Press PointBlank
imprint. Like many of the earlier ‘noir original’ writers he has champi-
oned, Guthrie tends to frame his narratives very tightly within family-
centred plots dominated by psychologically damaged men. From
Greaves, who ‘stopped taking his medication’ on the first page of Two-
Way Split (2004), to the prison guard Glass who unreliably narrates
Guthrie’s Slammer (2009), conflicted, traumatised male identity is at the
core of all his novels. In Kiss Her Goodbye (2005), we share the emotions
and inner struggles of a protagonist whose job is to hurt people. An
enforcer for an Edinburgh loan shark, Joe Hope can muster the requi-
site toughness, but nothing has prepared him for the guilt, suspicion,
grief, pain and violence that come his way as the narrative unfolds.
More recently, Guthrie’s Hard Man (2007) creates a world in which causa
belli that don’t really exist (a pregnancy that is imagined, a dog that’s
not really dead, a wrongly identified assailant) set off a chain reaction
in which everyone is compelled to prove his ‘hardness’. Those who
have a reputation to sustain (Wallace and Pearce) are pitted against
one another by a dysfunctional family of ‘crazy fuckers’ (24). At the
end of the day, there is no victory but a complex denouement in
which every character is severely damaged - even the notorious hard
man
Wallace, trying to finish his revenge with his hands and feet feeling no more use than feathers.
As the toll of death and serious injury mounts, though all of the characters could lay
some claim to hard man credentials,
male toughness is decidedly outclassed by the strength of the 16-year-old girl and
the three-legged dog: ‘“There’s the wee fella,” the vet said. “Proper little
hard man”’ (266).
Ray Banks, interviewed about his first novel, The Big Blind (2004, com-
missioned by Guthrie), said that he wanted ‘to read about the sick at
heart, the dispossessed and those normal people who do something hor-
ribly wrong and have to pay the price for it’. In The Big Blind, which
represents a protagonist who is trying to be ‘the good guy’, babysitting
for a hopeless friend, the struggle against despair is a private one. As
he embarked on the investigative series he has written for Polygon,
however, Banks moved towards more engagement with the public role
that is to some extent inescapable for the private eye. Particularly in the
most recent novel in his Cal Innes series, No More Heroes (2008), Banks
projects male dysfunctionality on to a more public stage. Though he
generally regards the social and political content of his novels as ‘back-
ground’, No More Heroes was intended as an ‘issue book’, if one which
‘presented that issue without bias’ - a ‘political novel’ in the sense that
it is ‘apolitical’.8 The novel’s ‘heroism’ is part of the journalistic repre-
sentation of contemporary events, but neither the man nor the context
is what it seems: ‘The good stuff engulfed by the bad. Hero news doesn’t
survive when there’s tub-thumping and hand-wringing to do’ (66). In
an atmosphere of racial tension, Cal Innes ends up as a ‘local fuckin’
hero’ (60) when, having gone to evict some Pakistani tenants, he saves
a little boy whose house is torched. The narrative arc carries him away
from a reputation so tough that the role of a PI seems inevitable (people
will think, ‘“That boy’s got balls and he’s got integrity. You can’t fake
that, y’know”’ (62-3)) to an ending in which the hero is reduced to
crippling injuries with no access to his longed-for medication, able to
do nothing but ‘sit there, staring at the blank television. And hope the
pain goes away’ (260).
missioned by Guthrie), said that he wanted ‘to read about the sick at
heart, the dispossessed and those normal people who do something hor-
ribly wrong and have to pay the price for it’. In The Big Blind, which
represents a protagonist who is trying to be ‘the good guy’, babysitting
for a hopeless friend, the struggle against despair is a private one. As
he embarked on the investigative series he has written for Polygon,
however, Banks moved towards more engagement with the public role
that is to some extent inescapable for the private eye. Particularly in the
most recent novel in his Cal Innes series, No More Heroes (2008), Banks
projects male dysfunctionality on to a more public stage. Though he
generally regards the social and political content of his novels as ‘back-
ground’, No More Heroes was intended as an ‘issue book’, if one which
‘presented that issue without bias’ - a ‘political novel’ in the sense that
it is ‘apolitical’.8 The novel’s ‘heroism’ is part of the journalistic repre-
sentation of contemporary events, but neither the man nor the context
is what it seems: ‘The good stuff engulfed by the bad. Hero news doesn’t
survive when there’s tub-thumping and hand-wringing to do’ (66). In
an atmosphere of racial tension, Cal Innes ends up as a ‘local fuckin’
hero’ (60) when, having gone to evict some Pakistani tenants, he saves
a little boy whose house is torched. The narrative arc carries him away
from a reputation so tough that the role of a PI seems inevitable (people
will think, ‘“That boy’s got balls and he’s got integrity. You can’t fake
that, y’know”’ (62-3)) to an ending in which the hero is reduced to
crippling injuries with no access to his longed-for medication, able to
do nothing but ‘sit there, staring at the blank television. And hope the
pain goes away’ (260).
In Deadfolk (2004), the first novel in
Charlie Williams’ ‘backwater
noir’ Mangel Trilogy (the other two are Fags and Lager (2005) and King of
the Road (2006)), the crises of male identity are no less painful, but are
contained in a place that sidesteps historical specificity. Mangel is a
more fantastic version of the mid-century small towns of American noir,
a microcosm of social pressures, pointless hatreds and futile violence.
Under the black comedy and the escalating, hyperbolic violence, this
is a reworking of some of the most traditional of noir themes -
noir’ Mangel Trilogy (the other two are Fags and Lager (2005) and King of
the Road (2006)), the crises of male identity are no less painful, but are
contained in a place that sidesteps historical specificity. Mangel is a
more fantastic version of the mid-century small towns of American noir,
a microcosm of social pressures, pointless hatreds and futile violence.
Under the black comedy and the escalating, hyperbolic violence, this
is a reworking of some of the most traditional of noir themes -
entrapment
in a town you can’t leave, the impossibility of choosing
freely (set against the illusion that a ‘real man’ can ‘choose his own path
...’ (259)), performance versus reputation, isolation versus community.
Royston Blake is a ‘Man o’ reputation’ (55), now sustained only by his
memories of past glories, when he ‘used to pick fellers up and lob em
out on the street . . .’ (156). His life is circumscribed not just by the no
hope town that no one can leave but by his own patterns of thought,
‘The thoughts never went nowhere besides round in circles and up my
own arse’ (23). He fancies himself as Clint Eastwood, winds himself up
to action by watching Rocky III and listens to his mate’s speeches about
the good old days of Mangel. The entire narrative is a dialogue between
fading reputation and ill-fated action: ‘It don’t matter how much of a
hardman you looks . . . Looking hard amounts to jack shite. You want
folks’ respect, you got to show em what you can do’ (86). It’s a convic-
tion that sets off a succession of absurd episodes of ill-fated aggression,
in which Blakey, armed with a monkey wrench, tries to ‘keep atop the
steaming dung heap that my life were getting to be’ (111).
freely (set against the illusion that a ‘real man’ can ‘choose his own path
...’ (259)), performance versus reputation, isolation versus community.
Royston Blake is a ‘Man o’ reputation’ (55), now sustained only by his
memories of past glories, when he ‘used to pick fellers up and lob em
out on the street . . .’ (156). His life is circumscribed not just by the no
hope town that no one can leave but by his own patterns of thought,
‘The thoughts never went nowhere besides round in circles and up my
own arse’ (23). He fancies himself as Clint Eastwood, winds himself up
to action by watching Rocky III and listens to his mate’s speeches about
the good old days of Mangel. The entire narrative is a dialogue between
fading reputation and ill-fated action: ‘It don’t matter how much of a
hardman you looks . . . Looking hard amounts to jack shite. You want
folks’ respect, you got to show em what you can do’ (86). It’s a convic-
tion that sets off a succession of absurd episodes of ill-fated aggression,
in which Blakey, armed with a monkey wrench, tries to ‘keep atop the
steaming dung heap that my life were getting to be’ (111).
Whereas most British writers only gesture in
passing to tough guy
action models like Eastwood and Stallone, American-set noir can draw
on a much fuller range of stereotypical scenes and behaviours. The
American milieu can simply, of course, be the context for an interior
drama, as it is in Kevin Wignall’s People Die (2001), an intensely focused
study of a thoughtful, articulate hitman harbouring his dark secrets in
the apparently open, guileless world of suburban Vermont. Shifting to
an American setting can also, however, signal the broadening out of a
novel’s socio-political agenda, throwing questions about national char-
acter into sharp relief. This is particularly noticeable in a recent novel
by the Irish writer Ken Bruen. Perhaps best known for his Jack Taylor
and Inspector Brant novels, Bruen also writes stand-alone noir novels
and has been one of the strongest influences on writers like Guthrie,
Williams and Banks. American Skin (2008) crosses the Atlantic, linking
an Irish backstory (including a murderous ex-IRA man and a disastrous
bank heist) to a flight towards Arizona, in the course of which the Irish
protagonist, Stephen Blake, tries to reinvent himself by donning ‘an
American skin’. Enthusiasm for the concept of America is most alarm-
ingly associated with the utterly psychotic Dade (‘Above all, Dade loved
America. You didn’t need to tell him it was God’s own country. Man,
he was out there proving it . . . Rock ‘n’ roll’ (22)), who embodies from
the outset the random, nihilistic nature of home-grown American vio-
lence. However horrifying his exposure to Irish violence, Blake is a long
way from taking the measure of what he’s up against on his journey
action models like Eastwood and Stallone, American-set noir can draw
on a much fuller range of stereotypical scenes and behaviours. The
American milieu can simply, of course, be the context for an interior
drama, as it is in Kevin Wignall’s People Die (2001), an intensely focused
study of a thoughtful, articulate hitman harbouring his dark secrets in
the apparently open, guileless world of suburban Vermont. Shifting to
an American setting can also, however, signal the broadening out of a
novel’s socio-political agenda, throwing questions about national char-
acter into sharp relief. This is particularly noticeable in a recent novel
by the Irish writer Ken Bruen. Perhaps best known for his Jack Taylor
and Inspector Brant novels, Bruen also writes stand-alone noir novels
and has been one of the strongest influences on writers like Guthrie,
Williams and Banks. American Skin (2008) crosses the Atlantic, linking
an Irish backstory (including a murderous ex-IRA man and a disastrous
bank heist) to a flight towards Arizona, in the course of which the Irish
protagonist, Stephen Blake, tries to reinvent himself by donning ‘an
American skin’. Enthusiasm for the concept of America is most alarm-
ingly associated with the utterly psychotic Dade (‘Above all, Dade loved
America. You didn’t need to tell him it was God’s own country. Man,
he was out there proving it . . . Rock ‘n’ roll’ (22)), who embodies from
the outset the random, nihilistic nature of home-grown American vio-
lence. However horrifying his exposure to Irish violence, Blake is a long
way from taking the measure of what he’s up against on his journey
towards
Tucson, hoping to blend in by ‘talking American’ (139), trying
to sound knowledgeable about American sports, dreaming of wearing a
Yankees jacket and baseball cap, maybe someday of settling into a sub-
urban house, pitching slow balls to his kids and driving a beat-up Chevy
with the logo ‘Knicks Kick Ass’ (250-1). It’s an impossible idyll, and, on
the psychotic side of the block, the sports are stripped of all gentle nos-
talgia. Blake stumbles his way towards survival on a road trip where
characters like Dade stop off to enjoy ‘a sporting spectacle of real
violence’: ‘Toughman’ was spreading through America, with ‘poor
schmucks’ incited to ‘climb into a ring and go for it’ in displays of point-
less and self-destructive bravado (205).
to sound knowledgeable about American sports, dreaming of wearing a
Yankees jacket and baseball cap, maybe someday of settling into a sub-
urban house, pitching slow balls to his kids and driving a beat-up Chevy
with the logo ‘Knicks Kick Ass’ (250-1). It’s an impossible idyll, and, on
the psychotic side of the block, the sports are stripped of all gentle nos-
talgia. Blake stumbles his way towards survival on a road trip where
characters like Dade stop off to enjoy ‘a sporting spectacle of real
violence’: ‘Toughman’ was spreading through America, with ‘poor
schmucks’ incited to ‘climb into a ring and go for it’ in displays of point-
less and self-destructive bravado (205).
The collision in American Skin between Irish and American modes of
violence has its own distinctive and explosive force, but Bruen’s use of
the American setting has a lot in common with contemporary Ameri-
can noir. The connexions of writers like Jason Starr, James Sallis and
Charlie Huston with British noir are strong: Starr in particular, who
secured his reputation publishing in the UK, is closely allied with
Guthrie, Banks and Williams, one of their ‘fellow travellers into dark-
ness’ on a Bristol Left Coast Crime conference panel, a contributor to
Guthrie’s Noir Originals, which had a special issue on Starr’s work
(August 2003), and, like them, someone who has helped to create a
shared sense of what characterises contemporary literary noir. In com-
parison to their British counterparts, however, the American writers
tend to establish a much stronger counterpoint with the tough mas-
culinity embedded in national stereotypes and hard-boiled traditions,
and to contrast both uncontrolled aggression and failures of masculine
agency with, for example, archetypally American forms of physical
performance - playing baseball in the Starr and Huston novels, driving
fast cars in Sallis.
violence has its own distinctive and explosive force, but Bruen’s use of
the American setting has a lot in common with contemporary Ameri-
can noir. The connexions of writers like Jason Starr, James Sallis and
Charlie Huston with British noir are strong: Starr in particular, who
secured his reputation publishing in the UK, is closely allied with
Guthrie, Banks and Williams, one of their ‘fellow travellers into dark-
ness’ on a Bristol Left Coast Crime conference panel, a contributor to
Guthrie’s Noir Originals, which had a special issue on Starr’s work
(August 2003), and, like them, someone who has helped to create a
shared sense of what characterises contemporary literary noir. In com-
parison to their British counterparts, however, the American writers
tend to establish a much stronger counterpoint with the tough mas-
culinity embedded in national stereotypes and hard-boiled traditions,
and to contrast both uncontrolled aggression and failures of masculine
agency with, for example, archetypally American forms of physical
performance - playing baseball in the Starr and Huston novels, driving
fast cars in Sallis.
Described by George Pelecanos as ‘a leader in
the new noir move-
ment’, Starr specialises in ‘loners, losers and psychopaths’9 of a distinc-
tively American kind. He began publishing noir crime fiction in 1997,
with Cold Caller, in which the protagonist turns to murder rather than
giving up his dreams of a more lucrative career and a move to the
suburbs - a sharply satiric look at the kind of upwardly mobile capital-
ist commodity culture themes that dominated much noir crime fiction
of the 1990s. This nexus of fantasised upward mobility, criminality
and delusional self-assertion is also central to Starr’s subsequent novels,
whether with amoral, opportunistic characters like Tommy Russo in
Fake I.D. (2000) or with an all-too-innocent character like Mickey Prada,
falling into debt, robbery and a downward spiral in Tough Luck (2003).
ment’, Starr specialises in ‘loners, losers and psychopaths’9 of a distinc-
tively American kind. He began publishing noir crime fiction in 1997,
with Cold Caller, in which the protagonist turns to murder rather than
giving up his dreams of a more lucrative career and a move to the
suburbs - a sharply satiric look at the kind of upwardly mobile capital-
ist commodity culture themes that dominated much noir crime fiction
of the 1990s. This nexus of fantasised upward mobility, criminality
and delusional self-assertion is also central to Starr’s subsequent novels,
whether with amoral, opportunistic characters like Tommy Russo in
Fake I.D. (2000) or with an all-too-innocent character like Mickey Prada,
falling into debt, robbery and a downward spiral in Tough Luck (2003).
His
dissection of opposing male character types is particularly effective
in his recent Lights Out (2006), in which old team mates blunder
through an entire plot that hinges on male inadequacy of one sort or
another. Jake and Ryan are a schematised pairing of ‘the big winner’
and ‘the big loser’ (125) - the former, the apparently macho and suc-
cessful baseball player who’s ‘got that whatchamacallit . . . Star quality’
(112). In terms of the public performance of his role, Jake fulfils all
aspects of the strong, admired male, seemingly able to offer a woman
all she would want in material terms - money, houses, cars, fancy
clothes, jewellery. But the myth of the tough sporting hero is entirely
a publicity con, covering a lifetime’s habit of idleness and selfishness.
Scenes of Jake’s self-exposure hinge on his belief that for a superhero
everything can be managed by his agent and his lawyer, and his narra-
tive inevitably ends in self-deception as he rides in his huge Hummer
limo towards the cops who are waiting for him at the airport (284-5,
296). Starr’s plot turns neatly on the rivalry between Jake and Ryan, who
is compounded of an opposing collection of shortcomings - a weak,
likeable guy who, at 5ft 10, falls short of the regulation stature of the
sporting hero, broke, living in his parents’ house, abused by his father
as a quitter and a wimp. He blames his arm for his baseball career falling
apart and his dick for his premature ejaculation problems, and ends
with a broken leg, his only decisive action being to use his crutch in
the disastrous and entirely counter-productive murder of his prospec-
tive father-in-law.
in his recent Lights Out (2006), in which old team mates blunder
through an entire plot that hinges on male inadequacy of one sort or
another. Jake and Ryan are a schematised pairing of ‘the big winner’
and ‘the big loser’ (125) - the former, the apparently macho and suc-
cessful baseball player who’s ‘got that whatchamacallit . . . Star quality’
(112). In terms of the public performance of his role, Jake fulfils all
aspects of the strong, admired male, seemingly able to offer a woman
all she would want in material terms - money, houses, cars, fancy
clothes, jewellery. But the myth of the tough sporting hero is entirely
a publicity con, covering a lifetime’s habit of idleness and selfishness.
Scenes of Jake’s self-exposure hinge on his belief that for a superhero
everything can be managed by his agent and his lawyer, and his narra-
tive inevitably ends in self-deception as he rides in his huge Hummer
limo towards the cops who are waiting for him at the airport (284-5,
296). Starr’s plot turns neatly on the rivalry between Jake and Ryan, who
is compounded of an opposing collection of shortcomings - a weak,
likeable guy who, at 5ft 10, falls short of the regulation stature of the
sporting hero, broke, living in his parents’ house, abused by his father
as a quitter and a wimp. He blames his arm for his baseball career falling
apart and his dick for his premature ejaculation problems, and ends
with a broken leg, his only decisive action being to use his crutch in
the disastrous and entirely counter-productive murder of his prospec-
tive father-in-law.
As Lights
Out
draws to a close, Jake and Ryan both seem destined to
remain immured in Brooklyn. Neither having anything of the hard-
boiled protagonist about him, entrapment seems inevitable. In narra-
tives that do offer their central figures a way out, noir immobility is
countered by a rediscovery of hard-boiled agency, summoning up the
image of heroic American manhood, the frontier legacy of tough,
battered self-sufficiency, resourcefulness and tenacity. The dialogue
between hard-boiled and noir is at the heart of a recent James Sallis
novel, Drive (2005). Sallis, who has been one of the most recognisable
voices in American noir, particularly with his Lew Griffin novels
(1992-2000), has gone in Drive for something altogether more tradi-
tional in its narrative patterning. Like several other recent noir crime
novels (for example, Queenpin, Money Shot and Citizen Vince), the Sallis
novel gives us a protagonist with no real identity - in Sallis, the near-
mythic Driver, a character whose choice of career is emblematic of an
energising forward movement. His single talent takes him away when
he sets off in his foster parents’ car with his duffel bag and makes ‘a
remain immured in Brooklyn. Neither having anything of the hard-
boiled protagonist about him, entrapment seems inevitable. In narra-
tives that do offer their central figures a way out, noir immobility is
countered by a rediscovery of hard-boiled agency, summoning up the
image of heroic American manhood, the frontier legacy of tough,
battered self-sufficiency, resourcefulness and tenacity. The dialogue
between hard-boiled and noir is at the heart of a recent James Sallis
novel, Drive (2005). Sallis, who has been one of the most recognisable
voices in American noir, particularly with his Lew Griffin novels
(1992-2000), has gone in Drive for something altogether more tradi-
tional in its narrative patterning. Like several other recent noir crime
novels (for example, Queenpin, Money Shot and Citizen Vince), the Sallis
novel gives us a protagonist with no real identity - in Sallis, the near-
mythic Driver, a character whose choice of career is emblematic of an
energising forward movement. His single talent takes him away when
he sets off in his foster parents’ car with his duffel bag and makes ‘a
hard left
to California’ (23),
his Westward movement,
of course,
marking
him out as the existential loner in a contemporary fable of the
American frontier. The novel ends with an encounter between two iso-
lated males in a showdown that seems a friendship, the two brooding
over a fine meal on ‘the story of America’ and the frontier that advances,
though now through a country in which the traveller encounters only
ersatz versions of the American dream, its betrayals and disappoint-
ments. Driver does what he was born to do: ‘He drove. That was what
he did. What he’d always do’, moving forward, killing more men, until
‘Manny Gilden turned his life into a movie . . .’ (189). A rootless, anony-
mous figure out of the American past, he exists wholly apart from the
nation that demands men of action to answer the call of ‘concerned cit-
izens of America’ (129), up in arms over illegal immigrants and WMDs,
agitating to go to war for the bogus abstractions that shore up national
self-regard.
American frontier. The novel ends with an encounter between two iso-
lated males in a showdown that seems a friendship, the two brooding
over a fine meal on ‘the story of America’ and the frontier that advances,
though now through a country in which the traveller encounters only
ersatz versions of the American dream, its betrayals and disappoint-
ments. Driver does what he was born to do: ‘He drove. That was what
he did. What he’d always do’, moving forward, killing more men, until
‘Manny Gilden turned his life into a movie . . .’ (189). A rootless, anony-
mous figure out of the American past, he exists wholly apart from the
nation that demands men of action to answer the call of ‘concerned cit-
izens of America’ (129), up in arms over illegal immigrants and WMDs,
agitating to go to war for the bogus abstractions that shore up national
self-regard.
Charlie Huston’s Caught Stealing (2004), like Starr’s Lights Out, uses the
national sport of baseball as the touchstone of its ‘all-American hero’
themes, creating a protagonist, Hank Thompson, who has also been at
the centre of Huston’s Six Bad Things (2005) and A Dangerous Man
(2006). But whereas Starr simply excises all moral fibre from his base-
ball hero, Huston structures the entire narrative to test the protagonist
to destruction - or near destruction, since, in the surreal, violent world
of Caught Stealing, the way out is sheer survival. The hero is the man
who can sustain all of the damage the corrupt, rapacious and indistin-
guishable crooks and law officers can inflict on him. Like Drive, but in
a more nuanced way, Caught Stealing exaggerates iconic noir characters
and plots, using extremity - of sado-masochistic violence and torture in
particular - to leave its own imprint on a story that (with its pursuit of
a ‘fabulous object’) owes an obvious debt to The Maltese Falcon. Huston
ultimately allows money to transform things for Hank, after he’s suf-
fered and lost so much that his basic goodness can be rewarded by an
actual escape to Mexico, a cold beer and a satellite broadcast of the Mets
vs. Giants playoff. The plot structure is not unlike that of the British
1930s thrillers, when ineffectual protagonists, too nice for their own
good, finally learn to fight back: ‘“It’s time to . . . start giving myself a
chance to get out of this alive. Because I’m tired of being everybody’s
stupid fucking patsy’ (186). Hank’s downward trajectory started with the
end of his promising baseball career, and his way of earning an upbeat
ending involves a very steep learning curve in the male agency
department - loss of all phallic potency followed by picking things up
(bat, car, gun) that enable him to recapture, if in criminal form, the
national sport of baseball as the touchstone of its ‘all-American hero’
themes, creating a protagonist, Hank Thompson, who has also been at
the centre of Huston’s Six Bad Things (2005) and A Dangerous Man
(2006). But whereas Starr simply excises all moral fibre from his base-
ball hero, Huston structures the entire narrative to test the protagonist
to destruction - or near destruction, since, in the surreal, violent world
of Caught Stealing, the way out is sheer survival. The hero is the man
who can sustain all of the damage the corrupt, rapacious and indistin-
guishable crooks and law officers can inflict on him. Like Drive, but in
a more nuanced way, Caught Stealing exaggerates iconic noir characters
and plots, using extremity - of sado-masochistic violence and torture in
particular - to leave its own imprint on a story that (with its pursuit of
a ‘fabulous object’) owes an obvious debt to The Maltese Falcon. Huston
ultimately allows money to transform things for Hank, after he’s suf-
fered and lost so much that his basic goodness can be rewarded by an
actual escape to Mexico, a cold beer and a satellite broadcast of the Mets
vs. Giants playoff. The plot structure is not unlike that of the British
1930s thrillers, when ineffectual protagonists, too nice for their own
good, finally learn to fight back: ‘“It’s time to . . . start giving myself a
chance to get out of this alive. Because I’m tired of being everybody’s
stupid fucking patsy’ (186). Hank’s downward trajectory started with the
end of his promising baseball career, and his way of earning an upbeat
ending involves a very steep learning curve in the male agency
department - loss of all phallic potency followed by picking things up
(bat, car, gun) that enable him to recapture, if in criminal form, the
powers
briefly associated with the earlier phases of the life (or lives) he’s
had to leave behind. As Ed and Paris, who detect signs of his beginning
to take control of his life (201), tell Hank, ‘“You definitely got a little
Eastwood going on in there. Without a doubt. Way to go . . . watchin’
you, it’s like watchin’ a egg get all hard-boiled”’ (201, 206).
had to leave behind. As Ed and Paris, who detect signs of his beginning
to take control of his life (201), tell Hank, ‘“You definitely got a little
Eastwood going on in there. Without a doubt. Way to go . . . watchin’
you, it’s like watchin’ a egg get all hard-boiled”’ (201, 206).
‘She’s been around forever’
At
the end of Caught Stealing, Ed and Paris make a pitch to Hank about
the primacy of male bonding: ‘It’s always best not to let a twist get in
the way of friendship’ (227). Whether weak-kneed or hard-boiled, the
noir male has traditionally been troubled by the steamy presence of the
femme fatale. The transformation of the transgressive woman has been,
as we have seen, a central element in the rewriting of late twentieth-
century noir, and the role has continued to evolve in the present
century, its essential eroticism increasingly to the fore. Whereas the
male protagonists in the novels we’ve looked at have frequently suf-
fered a humiliating loss of potency, the contemporary femme fatale is
far more likely to be engaged in perfecting the performance of her role,
ever more confidently putting on display the power of her sexuality.
Community has always been important in female-centred noir, and in
some of the more sexually charged of recent texts this takes the form
of intense, formative mentoring of the twenty-first-century temptress:
‘we’re the same, we’re the same. I made you . . .’ (Queenpin, 89). Hapless
male protagonists tend to flounder on, relying only on much-mediated
images of macho, legendary role models whose prowess seems illusive;
female protagonists, on the other hand, often have very direct contact
with tarts and whores, porn stars and irresistible icons who can teach
them the secrets of a fully sexual female competence. The results, of
course, are unlikely to be harmonious and upbeat, but what temptress-
in-the-making could resist learning the secrets of potency from a
woman who, like Megan Abbott’s Queenpin, has ‘been around forever’
the primacy of male bonding: ‘It’s always best not to let a twist get in
the way of friendship’ (227). Whether weak-kneed or hard-boiled, the
noir male has traditionally been troubled by the steamy presence of the
femme fatale. The transformation of the transgressive woman has been,
as we have seen, a central element in the rewriting of late twentieth-
century noir, and the role has continued to evolve in the present
century, its essential eroticism increasingly to the fore. Whereas the
male protagonists in the novels we’ve looked at have frequently suf-
fered a humiliating loss of potency, the contemporary femme fatale is
far more likely to be engaged in perfecting the performance of her role,
ever more confidently putting on display the power of her sexuality.
Community has always been important in female-centred noir, and in
some of the more sexually charged of recent texts this takes the form
of intense, formative mentoring of the twenty-first-century temptress:
‘we’re the same, we’re the same. I made you . . .’ (Queenpin, 89). Hapless
male protagonists tend to flounder on, relying only on much-mediated
images of macho, legendary role models whose prowess seems illusive;
female protagonists, on the other hand, often have very direct contact
with tarts and whores, porn stars and irresistible icons who can teach
them the secrets of a fully sexual female competence. The results, of
course, are unlikely to be harmonious and upbeat, but what temptress-
in-the-making could resist learning the secrets of potency from a
woman who, like Megan Abbott’s Queenpin, has ‘been around forever’
(5)?
There is considerable vitality in some
contemporary male representa-
tions of the femme fatale, which are often inventively hyperbolic in
their representations of female power as perversely, mysteriously ensnar-
ing and emasculating, undermining male agency and creating depen-
dency in the most unexpected of ways. There is, for example, the
armless, legless femme fatale at the centre of Neil Smith’s Psychosomatic
(2005), overcompensating for her enforced passivity by turning men
who would otherwise be ‘the antithesis of boldness’ (47) into macho
tions of the femme fatale, which are often inventively hyperbolic in
their representations of female power as perversely, mysteriously ensnar-
ing and emasculating, undermining male agency and creating depen-
dency in the most unexpected of ways. There is, for example, the
armless, legless femme fatale at the centre of Neil Smith’s Psychosomatic
(2005), overcompensating for her enforced passivity by turning men
who would otherwise be ‘the antithesis of boldness’ (47) into macho
specimens,
involving them in manic narratives of subordination and
domination. Duane Swierczynski’s The Blonde (2006) plays with the
sexual dynamic by implanting nanomachine tracking devices in the
fluid systems of his eponymous blonde, giving her the unwelcome
power to bind men to her by instilling terror (once infected, your brain
will explode if you are more than ten feet from another person).
The sci-fi spin turns the femme fatale into a fantasy of inescapable co-
dependency - a carrier of self-replicating, miniaturised sexual threat, the
nickname for which suggests deadly, all-pervasive female allure (‘“The
Mary Kates. You know . . . those blonde twins? The Olsens? They’re just
little things. They’re everywhere”’ (49)).
domination. Duane Swierczynski’s The Blonde (2006) plays with the
sexual dynamic by implanting nanomachine tracking devices in the
fluid systems of his eponymous blonde, giving her the unwelcome
power to bind men to her by instilling terror (once infected, your brain
will explode if you are more than ten feet from another person).
The sci-fi spin turns the femme fatale into a fantasy of inescapable co-
dependency - a carrier of self-replicating, miniaturised sexual threat, the
nickname for which suggests deadly, all-pervasive female allure (‘“The
Mary Kates. You know . . . those blonde twins? The Olsens? They’re just
little things. They’re everywhere”’ (49)).
The femmes fatales created by Smith and
Swierczynski, caricatures
of bizarrely empowered female weakness, are fascinating, erotic and
deadly, but they are perceived and (particularly in the case of Smith’s
quad-amputee) punished from a very male perspective. In contempo-
rary female-authored noir, the representation of the dominant woman
has, as one would expect, put the emphasis on female subjectivity and
survival. Vicki Hendricks, in the mid-1990s, established an influential
model with Miami Purity (1996), with its tongue-in-cheek appropriation
of male thriller conventions and its unashamedly sexual, often wayward
female protagonist. Hendricks’ ex-stripper, Sherri Parlay, has been fol-
lowed by an entertaining range of tough, often violent women much
more fully represented and, often, valorized than any of the femmes
fatales created by male authors. Hendricks herself, and new writers like
Christa Faust and Megan Abbott, have broken away from the post-1980s
fashion for hard-boiled female dick novels to create a range of erotically
empowered female protagonists. Their narratives involve high levels of
performance but, in comparison to their male counterparts, these are
characters whose anxieties are generated much less by the fear that
action won’t match reputation than by their recognition of the cost of
asserting effective agency and achieving control, and by the loss of self
involved in mastery of their different roles (‘I wondered how many
more different people I would need to be before I could be me again’
(Faust 108)).
of bizarrely empowered female weakness, are fascinating, erotic and
deadly, but they are perceived and (particularly in the case of Smith’s
quad-amputee) punished from a very male perspective. In contempo-
rary female-authored noir, the representation of the dominant woman
has, as one would expect, put the emphasis on female subjectivity and
survival. Vicki Hendricks, in the mid-1990s, established an influential
model with Miami Purity (1996), with its tongue-in-cheek appropriation
of male thriller conventions and its unashamedly sexual, often wayward
female protagonist. Hendricks’ ex-stripper, Sherri Parlay, has been fol-
lowed by an entertaining range of tough, often violent women much
more fully represented and, often, valorized than any of the femmes
fatales created by male authors. Hendricks herself, and new writers like
Christa Faust and Megan Abbott, have broken away from the post-1980s
fashion for hard-boiled female dick novels to create a range of erotically
empowered female protagonists. Their narratives involve high levels of
performance but, in comparison to their male counterparts, these are
characters whose anxieties are generated much less by the fear that
action won’t match reputation than by their recognition of the cost of
asserting effective agency and achieving control, and by the loss of self
involved in mastery of their different roles (‘I wondered how many
more different people I would need to be before I could be me again’
(Faust 108)).
The availability of a range of somewhat
mischievous variations on the
transgressive woman is nicely illustrated in a 2002 collection of stories
called Tart Noir, which explicitly broke away from the investigative
female protagonist that had dominated feminist detective fiction for
the last decades of the twentieth century. The ‘founding mothers’ of the
comically subversive subgenre of ‘tart noir’ were Lauren Henderson
and Sparkle Hayter, and Henderson, in collaboration with Stella Duffy,
transgressive woman is nicely illustrated in a 2002 collection of stories
called Tart Noir, which explicitly broke away from the investigative
female protagonist that had dominated feminist detective fiction for
the last decades of the twentieth century. The ‘founding mothers’ of the
comically subversive subgenre of ‘tart noir’ were Lauren Henderson
and Sparkle Hayter, and Henderson, in collaboration with Stella Duffy,
edited
the anthology which, like their ‘Tart City’ website,10 offers diverse
expressions of ‘the Tart ethos - the naughtiness, the irreverence, and
the constant attempts to reinvent how women write . . .’ The anthology
is amusingly subversive of gender ideologies, publishing several stories
that explore the fluidity of the female self through the creation of char-
acters who are alienated from culturally permissible (or at least cultur-
ally fashionable) forms of female identity and desire. These are stories
that break down the binaries of transgressor-victim, sexual-domestic,
consuming-nourishing, aggressive-passive, and one of their key strate-
gies for accomplishing this is their amalgamation of the femme fatale
and the nurturing domestic woman. This linking of two traditionally
antithetic character types is often accomplished by the deployment of
culinary motifs, which are central to some of the best stories in this col-
lection (e.g., Sparkle Hayter’s ‘survival of the fittest’ tale, ‘The Diary
of Sue Peaner, Marooned! Contestant’; Karin Slaughter’s macabre tale,
‘Necessary Women’; Jen Banbury’s ‘Take, for Example, Meatpie’ and
Stella Duffy’s ‘Martha Grace’). These and other stories vividly re-imagine
exuberantly unrestrained female appetites - not just the voracious sex-
uality and the hunger for survival that characterise the femme fatale,
but also a prodigious appetite for food and an outrageous, often
grotesque corporeality.
expressions of ‘the Tart ethos - the naughtiness, the irreverence, and
the constant attempts to reinvent how women write . . .’ The anthology
is amusingly subversive of gender ideologies, publishing several stories
that explore the fluidity of the female self through the creation of char-
acters who are alienated from culturally permissible (or at least cultur-
ally fashionable) forms of female identity and desire. These are stories
that break down the binaries of transgressor-victim, sexual-domestic,
consuming-nourishing, aggressive-passive, and one of their key strate-
gies for accomplishing this is their amalgamation of the femme fatale
and the nurturing domestic woman. This linking of two traditionally
antithetic character types is often accomplished by the deployment of
culinary motifs, which are central to some of the best stories in this col-
lection (e.g., Sparkle Hayter’s ‘survival of the fittest’ tale, ‘The Diary
of Sue Peaner, Marooned! Contestant’; Karin Slaughter’s macabre tale,
‘Necessary Women’; Jen Banbury’s ‘Take, for Example, Meatpie’ and
Stella Duffy’s ‘Martha Grace’). These and other stories vividly re-imagine
exuberantly unrestrained female appetites - not just the voracious sex-
uality and the hunger for survival that characterise the femme fatale,
but also a prodigious appetite for food and an outrageous, often
grotesque corporeality.
Splendid corporeality is one of the hallmarks
of the ‘Florida trash noir’
of Vicki Hendricks, whose contribution to the Tart Noir collection is a
tale of a torrid affair with a dolphin (‘Stormy, Mon Amour’). In her recent
novel, Cruel Poetry (2007), as in Miami Purity, Hendricks uses explicitly
erotic scenes to intensify the themes of the noir tradition. The echo here
is of the Out of the Past theme of the would-be rescuer of the femme
fatale helplessly caught in her toils - suggested in Hendricks’ novel by
the Burmese python that Renata wraps around herself. The deadliness
is, of course, wholly traditional, but in contrast to earlier noir, one of
the things that Hendricks has done is to create her femme fatale from
the inside, demystifying her. She compels obsessive love in both men
and women: Hendricks gives her a trio of lovers in thrall to her, each
inadequate in his/her own way, vying with one another to connect with
the essence of the femme fatale, trying to satisfy her (Francisco, the stud)
or to draw renewed energy from her and to express her (Jules, the failed
female novelist; Richard, the poet who can’t write any more). As the
‘supernatural’ (166) femme fatale, she teaches, inspires - and tempts to
destruction. The poet romantically captures the duality of her role and
the way she creates ‘the poetry of her extremes’: ‘The life inside her
glows like neon, yet there’s a dark private corner of fragility and despair’
of Vicki Hendricks, whose contribution to the Tart Noir collection is a
tale of a torrid affair with a dolphin (‘Stormy, Mon Amour’). In her recent
novel, Cruel Poetry (2007), as in Miami Purity, Hendricks uses explicitly
erotic scenes to intensify the themes of the noir tradition. The echo here
is of the Out of the Past theme of the would-be rescuer of the femme
fatale helplessly caught in her toils - suggested in Hendricks’ novel by
the Burmese python that Renata wraps around herself. The deadliness
is, of course, wholly traditional, but in contrast to earlier noir, one of
the things that Hendricks has done is to create her femme fatale from
the inside, demystifying her. She compels obsessive love in both men
and women: Hendricks gives her a trio of lovers in thrall to her, each
inadequate in his/her own way, vying with one another to connect with
the essence of the femme fatale, trying to satisfy her (Francisco, the stud)
or to draw renewed energy from her and to express her (Jules, the failed
female novelist; Richard, the poet who can’t write any more). As the
‘supernatural’ (166) femme fatale, she teaches, inspires - and tempts to
destruction. The poet romantically captures the duality of her role and
the way she creates ‘the poetry of her extremes’: ‘The life inside her
glows like neon, yet there’s a dark private corner of fragility and despair’
(193).
The drama she generates is acted out in a hotel that is a quin-
tessential noir setting: indeed, Jules only gets properly underway as a
novelist when she realises that she is living in ‘a perfect setting of gloom
and despair, dirty dealings, more like a film set than reality’ (311). There
is a theatricality about this choreographing of the intertwined lives and
poses of each, the constructed roles that everyone plays, that goes very
much with the theme of instructive performance, with the femme
fatale mentoring her own writer. Jules listens through the thin walls to
Renata’s love-making, both pupil and storyteller, the intricate relation-
ship (finally the most important in the novel) underscoring the self-
referentiality of contemporary noir, the sense of inhabiting a tradition
that is its own location, a fictional space in which the lessons taught
are ‘cruel poetry’.
tessential noir setting: indeed, Jules only gets properly underway as a
novelist when she realises that she is living in ‘a perfect setting of gloom
and despair, dirty dealings, more like a film set than reality’ (311). There
is a theatricality about this choreographing of the intertwined lives and
poses of each, the constructed roles that everyone plays, that goes very
much with the theme of instructive performance, with the femme
fatale mentoring her own writer. Jules listens through the thin walls to
Renata’s love-making, both pupil and storyteller, the intricate relation-
ship (finally the most important in the novel) underscoring the self-
referentiality of contemporary noir, the sense of inhabiting a tradition
that is its own location, a fictional space in which the lessons taught
are ‘cruel poetry’.
The role of the female protagonist is
frequently acted out as though
on a film set, inviting our voyeuristic enjoyment of the sheer spectacle
of the strong, transgressive woman proudly committing herself to the
appropriation of the moral low ground. In Christa Faust’s Money Shot
(2008), for example, Angel Dare, with her porn star name and fame, is
as tough as any female (or indeed male) private eye, but, from the per-
spective of conventional morality, is beyond redemption. What Faust
does is to use the traditional noir theme of the wrong man (or in this
case, wrong woman) to rehabilitate an identity that has been wrong-
fully represented in every sense, endangered by men who traffic in Euro-
pean sex slaves, who beat and rape women and persecute outsiders (‘the
whole 9/11 business’ (122-3) hovers behind Money Shot).
on a film set, inviting our voyeuristic enjoyment of the sheer spectacle
of the strong, transgressive woman proudly committing herself to the
appropriation of the moral low ground. In Christa Faust’s Money Shot
(2008), for example, Angel Dare, with her porn star name and fame, is
as tough as any female (or indeed male) private eye, but, from the per-
spective of conventional morality, is beyond redemption. What Faust
does is to use the traditional noir theme of the wrong man (or in this
case, wrong woman) to rehabilitate an identity that has been wrong-
fully represented in every sense, endangered by men who traffic in Euro-
pean sex slaves, who beat and rape women and persecute outsiders (‘the
whole 9/11 business’ (122-3) hovers behind Money Shot).
A similar sense of staging the femme fatale
characterises Megan
Abbott’s retro-noir fables of mid-century America, which are amongst
the most potent examples of contemporary female-authored noir. Die a
Little (2005) and Queenpin (2007) both use Hollywood iconography as a
touchstone of successful female self-projection. In Die a Little, Abbott
creates a wonderfully over-the-top evocation of 1950s home-making
that centres on the manic Alice, perfecting all of the elements of sub-
urban success at high speed - indeed, she turns out to have been on
speed, as she whirls about to conjure a domestic ideal, efflorescing next
door to the seedy haunts of the whole corrupt world that cohabits with
suburbia in LA. Both in this novel and in Queenpin, there is a doubling
of the femme fatale and a struggle for power between two women, cir-
cling around the theme of ‘what you will do if you have to’ (237). What
lies behind these competing performances of female power is, of course,
a reversal of the male version of reality exposed. Under the female
performance, which signals compliance with centrally important male
Abbott’s retro-noir fables of mid-century America, which are amongst
the most potent examples of contemporary female-authored noir. Die a
Little (2005) and Queenpin (2007) both use Hollywood iconography as a
touchstone of successful female self-projection. In Die a Little, Abbott
creates a wonderfully over-the-top evocation of 1950s home-making
that centres on the manic Alice, perfecting all of the elements of sub-
urban success at high speed - indeed, she turns out to have been on
speed, as she whirls about to conjure a domestic ideal, efflorescing next
door to the seedy haunts of the whole corrupt world that cohabits with
suburbia in LA. Both in this novel and in Queenpin, there is a doubling
of the femme fatale and a struggle for power between two women, cir-
cling around the theme of ‘what you will do if you have to’ (237). What
lies behind these competing performances of female power is, of course,
a reversal of the male version of reality exposed. Under the female
performance, which signals compliance with centrally important male
stereotypes
(whether marital obedience, domestic virtue or sexual avail-
ability), lies precisely what the average male is lacking - ruthless, unre-
pentant hard-boiled agency. The stereotypes manipulated here, as in the
Tart Noir stories, draw on the classic film noir juxtaposition of the bad
girl and the domestic woman. As in so many of the other novels of this
period, there is self-reflexive play with the Hollywood conventions of
plotting, here throwing into relief the serious themes underlying the
classic tropes, in a way not distorted by the sexual ideology of the earlier
reworkings of character types and plot elements. The plot is, as so often
in neo-noir, a take on Farewell, My Lovely: a barely buried past investi-
gated, driving the bad girl in respectable hiding to reveal how far she’s
willing to go to protect herself. But here, via the carefully controlled
first-person narration of the apparently good woman, Abbott gradually
draws out the resemblance, and the fascination of prying virtue with
hidden sin, which is horrifying but utterly compelling: ‘it’s like the
world, once sealed so tight and exact, has fallen open - no, been cracked
open, and inside, inside . . .’ (130). Drawn inexorably into this dark
world, Lora discovers in herself the same hidden depths of terrifying
toughness, and learns at the last her likeness to the femme fatale: ‘“It’s
something we’ve both got in us”’, Alice tells her. ‘“I don’t have it in
me,” I said louder . . .’ (241). The end is Conradian in the truths that
can’t be spoken: Lora is together again with the brother stolen away by
marriage to Alice, but they are joined by ‘secrets so dark’ that they can
never speak of them to one another, living in a world in which ‘there
are things you can never tell these people’ (234-7).
ability), lies precisely what the average male is lacking - ruthless, unre-
pentant hard-boiled agency. The stereotypes manipulated here, as in the
Tart Noir stories, draw on the classic film noir juxtaposition of the bad
girl and the domestic woman. As in so many of the other novels of this
period, there is self-reflexive play with the Hollywood conventions of
plotting, here throwing into relief the serious themes underlying the
classic tropes, in a way not distorted by the sexual ideology of the earlier
reworkings of character types and plot elements. The plot is, as so often
in neo-noir, a take on Farewell, My Lovely: a barely buried past investi-
gated, driving the bad girl in respectable hiding to reveal how far she’s
willing to go to protect herself. But here, via the carefully controlled
first-person narration of the apparently good woman, Abbott gradually
draws out the resemblance, and the fascination of prying virtue with
hidden sin, which is horrifying but utterly compelling: ‘it’s like the
world, once sealed so tight and exact, has fallen open - no, been cracked
open, and inside, inside . . .’ (130). Drawn inexorably into this dark
world, Lora discovers in herself the same hidden depths of terrifying
toughness, and learns at the last her likeness to the femme fatale: ‘“It’s
something we’ve both got in us”’, Alice tells her. ‘“I don’t have it in
me,” I said louder . . .’ (241). The end is Conradian in the truths that
can’t be spoken: Lora is together again with the brother stolen away by
marriage to Alice, but they are joined by ‘secrets so dark’ that they can
never speak of them to one another, living in a world in which ‘there
are things you can never tell these people’ (234-7).
Discovering ‘what you are capable of’ (Die a Little, 238) is also the
central theme of Abbott’s Queenpin, a more stripped-down anatomy of
female power and formative influence. Like Sallis’ Drive, Abbott’s recent
novel gives us a nameless existential loner, in this case, an isolated female
figure who first has to learn from and then prove herself in combat with
an archetypal older woman. The namelessness of the narrator, suggest-
ing the creation of a pure type, reanimates a whole tradition of fictional
female agency that depends on looks and flawless performance and,
underneath it all, the cold-hearted calculation required to become
another ‘queenpin’. In the opening line - ‘I want the legs’ - the most
fetishised aspect of the femme fatale is brought into view, drawing our
attention to the immense durability of the image (‘But the legs, they
lasted, I tell you’). The legendary Gloria Denton is wholly independent,
no one’s wife or moll, and seems to hold the secrets of upward mobility
in a world in which you have to be single-minded and ruthless to survive.
In the opening temptation scene, she offers the young narrator some
central theme of Abbott’s Queenpin, a more stripped-down anatomy of
female power and formative influence. Like Sallis’ Drive, Abbott’s recent
novel gives us a nameless existential loner, in this case, an isolated female
figure who first has to learn from and then prove herself in combat with
an archetypal older woman. The namelessness of the narrator, suggest-
ing the creation of a pure type, reanimates a whole tradition of fictional
female agency that depends on looks and flawless performance and,
underneath it all, the cold-hearted calculation required to become
another ‘queenpin’. In the opening line - ‘I want the legs’ - the most
fetishised aspect of the femme fatale is brought into view, drawing our
attention to the immense durability of the image (‘But the legs, they
lasted, I tell you’). The legendary Gloria Denton is wholly independent,
no one’s wife or moll, and seems to hold the secrets of upward mobility
in a world in which you have to be single-minded and ruthless to survive.
In the opening temptation scene, she offers the young narrator some
‘brighter opportunities . . . She was giving
me the keys to the kingdom.
I knew that much, even then. I just didn’t know where the kingdom was’
I knew that much, even then. I just didn’t know where the kingdom was’
(11).
The idea of a move upwards that requires iron discipline is in some
ways not all that distant from the tough persona of the female PI, but
here the accoutrements of the role are unequivocally female: ‘. . . Boy,
did she school me. She talked to me, low and cool, for hours . . . So, I
followed her example. I wore the clothes, I did the jobs . . .’ When Gloria
stands behind her looking into the mirror, it is ‘as if she was saying to
herself, This was me once . . . I’ve seen it all. But look. We’re the same . . .
I made you’ (20, 30). What is required of this iconic figure are the tradi-
tional traits of the femme fatale - flawless performance, the ‘steel’ (20),
the class, inscrutability and lack of visible emotion. This is eroticised
power, but its real strength lies in the fact that the sexuality is pure per-
formance, not actual engagement. Female empowerment can only be
assured by avoiding any entrapment in a close sexual relationship, and
it is the narrator’s involvement with ‘a sharpie, a plunger’ (55) with an
easy grin that leads to an ending of savage violence, mutual guilt,
betrayal and at last, the threat of the weak male eliminated, the ques-
tion of whether the queenpin-in-waiting has learned her lessons well
enough to take on her mentor and secure her place in the succession:
‘Save yourself, serve yourself. She taught me that. That’s what I’m saying.
I’m saying it was her’ (165).
ways not all that distant from the tough persona of the female PI, but
here the accoutrements of the role are unequivocally female: ‘. . . Boy,
did she school me. She talked to me, low and cool, for hours . . . So, I
followed her example. I wore the clothes, I did the jobs . . .’ When Gloria
stands behind her looking into the mirror, it is ‘as if she was saying to
herself, This was me once . . . I’ve seen it all. But look. We’re the same . . .
I made you’ (20, 30). What is required of this iconic figure are the tradi-
tional traits of the femme fatale - flawless performance, the ‘steel’ (20),
the class, inscrutability and lack of visible emotion. This is eroticised
power, but its real strength lies in the fact that the sexuality is pure per-
formance, not actual engagement. Female empowerment can only be
assured by avoiding any entrapment in a close sexual relationship, and
it is the narrator’s involvement with ‘a sharpie, a plunger’ (55) with an
easy grin that leads to an ending of savage violence, mutual guilt,
betrayal and at last, the threat of the weak male eliminated, the ques-
tion of whether the queenpin-in-waiting has learned her lessons well
enough to take on her mentor and secure her place in the succession:
‘Save yourself, serve yourself. She taught me that. That’s what I’m saying.
I’m saying it was her’ (165).
‘No dawns ever did break .
. .’
Queenpin is in a way a coming of age novel. The ‘dingy
issue of a vending
machine man’ (27), having chosen a surrogate parent, inherits a future
that is also a past - freedom from her own identity being offered by
total submission to a role that is already legendary. For noir, there can’t
really be a new millennium. The narratives of noir, as we have seen, can
be re-imagined to express the anxieties of successive decades, but it is
generically unaccommodating to the idea of some kind of phase shift
that breaks free of past patterns and wrongs. In the new millennium,
variants of the same iconic roles continue to define the cast of literary
noir, even if perspectives and judgements shift; the sources of darkness
may have different historical correlatives but don’t dissipate. This
generic refusal of innocent hopefulness is at the core of one of the most
striking variants of literary noir to emerge in recent years. Previous
decades have produced noir narratives that took as their subject dis-
torted young lives (for example, the juvenile delinquent novels of the
1950s), but these were on the whole slight, whereas towards the end of
machine man’ (27), having chosen a surrogate parent, inherits a future
that is also a past - freedom from her own identity being offered by
total submission to a role that is already legendary. For noir, there can’t
really be a new millennium. The narratives of noir, as we have seen, can
be re-imagined to express the anxieties of successive decades, but it is
generically unaccommodating to the idea of some kind of phase shift
that breaks free of past patterns and wrongs. In the new millennium,
variants of the same iconic roles continue to define the cast of literary
noir, even if perspectives and judgements shift; the sources of darkness
may have different historical correlatives but don’t dissipate. This
generic refusal of innocent hopefulness is at the core of one of the most
striking variants of literary noir to emerge in recent years. Previous
decades have produced noir narratives that took as their subject dis-
torted young lives (for example, the juvenile delinquent novels of the
1950s), but these were on the whole slight, whereas towards the end of
the
twentieth century (for example, Womack’s Random
Acts of Senseless Violence) and into the twenty-first, some of the most
impressive noir fiction has centred on new lives thwarted and twisted by their
inheritance from the past, denied fresh starts, permitted only heartbreaking generational
recapitulations.
Such narratives can use the loss of innocence
theme as simply one
element in an otherwise adult tale: in Sara Gran’s retro-noir Dope (2006),
for example, our understanding of the female investigative figure hinges
on a shift from detective to victim, in a narrative that spirals out of
control in ways that take her back to her past. Thinking of herself as
empowered (the breadwinner, the maternal figure, the investigator), she
finds nothing but evidence of how deluded she’s been - every step in
mastering circumstances being a step that leads to her own undoing.
The narrative moves towards answers, but ones which expose the rifts,
hidden truths and dark compromises of the investigator’s life, so that
the novel ends with her own coming-of-age. This is a plot driven by the
American-dream - making something of yourself, transforming your
prospects and identity. But the reality is turning tricks from an early age
to feed mother and sister before becoming one of the junkies who are
used as a microcosm of America’s underbelly: ‘That’s why you start, and
that’s why you stick with it, so you can finally be someone: a junkie’
(105).
element in an otherwise adult tale: in Sara Gran’s retro-noir Dope (2006),
for example, our understanding of the female investigative figure hinges
on a shift from detective to victim, in a narrative that spirals out of
control in ways that take her back to her past. Thinking of herself as
empowered (the breadwinner, the maternal figure, the investigator), she
finds nothing but evidence of how deluded she’s been - every step in
mastering circumstances being a step that leads to her own undoing.
The narrative moves towards answers, but ones which expose the rifts,
hidden truths and dark compromises of the investigator’s life, so that
the novel ends with her own coming-of-age. This is a plot driven by the
American-dream - making something of yourself, transforming your
prospects and identity. But the reality is turning tricks from an early age
to feed mother and sister before becoming one of the junkies who are
used as a microcosm of America’s underbelly: ‘That’s why you start, and
that’s why you stick with it, so you can finally be someone: a junkie’
(105).
The defeat of all aspirations is most
affectingly treated in a small
handful of novels that follow a protagonist through from childhood to
the brink of maturity, charting the struggle to ‘be someone’ in a world
all but devoid of millennial possibilities. One of the most compelling
pieces of recent British noir, Nicola Monaghan’s The Killing Jar (2006),
is set on the council estates of Nottingham. The straightforwardly
chronological narrative produces a remorseless momentum, a grimly
pessimistic picture of entrapment in a milieu from which escape is
nearly impossible. The two central metaphors are both embedded in the
experience of the narrator, Kez, at the age of five, with her eccentric
neighbour, Mrs Ivanovich: the killing jar, like drugs in Sara Gran’s novel,
represents a way out of pain and entrapment; the butterflies collected,
a once present possibility of change for someone ‘trapped inside my life
with Mark, and twisted up with the pain of it all’ (283). Within this
metaphoric structure, The Killing Jar is a harsh, unremitting, inexorable
narrative of increasing addiction and taken-for-granted violence and
revenge, the progression through drug dealing and murder narrated in
so matter-of-fact a way that it seems inevitable, given where she lives
and her ‘pile of crap as a mam’ (129). The violence is equally matter-
handful of novels that follow a protagonist through from childhood to
the brink of maturity, charting the struggle to ‘be someone’ in a world
all but devoid of millennial possibilities. One of the most compelling
pieces of recent British noir, Nicola Monaghan’s The Killing Jar (2006),
is set on the council estates of Nottingham. The straightforwardly
chronological narrative produces a remorseless momentum, a grimly
pessimistic picture of entrapment in a milieu from which escape is
nearly impossible. The two central metaphors are both embedded in the
experience of the narrator, Kez, at the age of five, with her eccentric
neighbour, Mrs Ivanovich: the killing jar, like drugs in Sara Gran’s novel,
represents a way out of pain and entrapment; the butterflies collected,
a once present possibility of change for someone ‘trapped inside my life
with Mark, and twisted up with the pain of it all’ (283). Within this
metaphoric structure, The Killing Jar is a harsh, unremitting, inexorable
narrative of increasing addiction and taken-for-granted violence and
revenge, the progression through drug dealing and murder narrated in
so matter-of-fact a way that it seems inevitable, given where she lives
and her ‘pile of crap as a mam’ (129). The violence is equally matter-
of-course,
from ‘the Danny Morrison campfire’ (121) to the murder
of Phil Tynside, a college student who callously gets Kez pregnant and
acts towards her with contempt and indifference. The ultimate horror
isn’t murder but the brutal reality of a late medical termination, which
conveys an overwhelming sense of young lives perpetually blighted: Kez
goes through with it because of the intolerable thought of consigning
babies to the life she’s had, bringing them ‘into drug running and
dealing at ten, smuggling guns out of attics for pimps and dealers, like
what I was’ (93).
of Phil Tynside, a college student who callously gets Kez pregnant and
acts towards her with contempt and indifference. The ultimate horror
isn’t murder but the brutal reality of a late medical termination, which
conveys an overwhelming sense of young lives perpetually blighted: Kez
goes through with it because of the intolerable thought of consigning
babies to the life she’s had, bringing them ‘into drug running and
dealing at ten, smuggling guns out of attics for pimps and dealers, like
what I was’ (93).
At the end of The
Killing Jar,
Kez pulls back from another murder and
leaves instead. Although testing herself ‘to see how far I could go’ (271),
she doesn’t ‘go the distance’ in killing Mark, but simply leaves - ‘And I
stayed on the bus’ (284). The most recent Southern noir novels of Daniel
Woodrell are also centred on motifs of flight - of ‘breaking out’ and the
transformation (or not) of young lives. Both set in Missouri, Woodrell’s
two twenty-first-century novels - The Death of Sweet Mister (2001) and
Winter’s Bone (2006) - convey an extraordinarily strong sense of the
American dream gone wrong, capturing the yearning for something
better and the entrapment in circumstances so desperate that there are
only the faintest glimmers of a way out. Winter’s Bone is, in its ending,
a little less dark, but, except for the accident of a recovered cache of
stolen money, the circumstances of the story are almost unremittingly
grim. The Ozarks deprivation is extreme. Sixteen-year-old Ree Dolly has
no wood for the fire, no gas for the chain saw, no food except grits, two
young brothers and a senile mother to look after and a missing father.
Her ‘grand hope’ is only that the two boys ‘would not be dead to wonder
by age twelve, dulled to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean. So
many Dolly kids were that way, ruined before they had chin hair . . .’
leaves instead. Although testing herself ‘to see how far I could go’ (271),
she doesn’t ‘go the distance’ in killing Mark, but simply leaves - ‘And I
stayed on the bus’ (284). The most recent Southern noir novels of Daniel
Woodrell are also centred on motifs of flight - of ‘breaking out’ and the
transformation (or not) of young lives. Both set in Missouri, Woodrell’s
two twenty-first-century novels - The Death of Sweet Mister (2001) and
Winter’s Bone (2006) - convey an extraordinarily strong sense of the
American dream gone wrong, capturing the yearning for something
better and the entrapment in circumstances so desperate that there are
only the faintest glimmers of a way out. Winter’s Bone is, in its ending,
a little less dark, but, except for the accident of a recovered cache of
stolen money, the circumstances of the story are almost unremittingly
grim. The Ozarks deprivation is extreme. Sixteen-year-old Ree Dolly has
no wood for the fire, no gas for the chain saw, no food except grits, two
young brothers and a senile mother to look after and a missing father.
Her ‘grand hope’ is only that the two boys ‘would not be dead to wonder
by age twelve, dulled to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean. So
many Dolly kids were that way, ruined before they had chin hair . . .’
(8).
The plot is set in motion by a missing father who has put up their
house and timber acres up for his bond, forcing Ree to embark on a
quest through deep snow, cutting wind, appalling pain and terrifying
relatives. As in the Monaghan novel, the ‘coming of age’ plot gives a
particularly strong role to its female protagonist: Ree isn’t just coura-
geous, tough and determined herself but sets an example of endurance
for her brothers. Her bloody-minded resistance and her use of the ill-
gotten money to buy wheels are amongst the novel’s few small intima-
tions of possible redemption.
house and timber acres up for his bond, forcing Ree to embark on a
quest through deep snow, cutting wind, appalling pain and terrifying
relatives. As in the Monaghan novel, the ‘coming of age’ plot gives a
particularly strong role to its female protagonist: Ree isn’t just coura-
geous, tough and determined herself but sets an example of endurance
for her brothers. Her bloody-minded resistance and her use of the ill-
gotten money to buy wheels are amongst the novel’s few small intima-
tions of possible redemption.
In Woodrell’s Death
of Sweet Mister, a
constricting life is seen through
the eyes of a 13-year-old boy who is on the cusp of maturity. Shug is at
the mercy of a cast of off-beat noir character types - the shamelessly
erotic femme fatale, the tough-talking, violent but ultimately useless
the eyes of a 13-year-old boy who is on the cusp of maturity. Shug is at
the mercy of a cast of off-beat noir character types - the shamelessly
erotic femme fatale, the tough-talking, violent but ultimately useless
bully,
the dandified man too weak to survive, let alone to carry them
away in his vintage car. The novel uses cars and food as its main tropes
of luxury and another life. In contrast to reality as embodied by the
brutal Red’s succession of clapped out cars and trucks, Woodrell gives
the tubby 13-year-old Shug and his dazzling mother Glenda the Thun-
derbird driven by the ‘“nice, nice man”’ (103), Jimmy Vin. The car is
‘green like the future’, with ‘special qualities I wouldn’t have known
how to ask for . . . I never had been so high in the world’ (39-40, 99).
As they ponder their escape, the places Glenda evokes to tempt Shug
are a cornucopia of visceral pleasures, food especially, in a New Orleans
of unheard of treats. But when the idyll of escape turns out not to
include Shug, the betrayal leads him towards adult betrayals of his own,
complicity in violence and a sudden maturation into a warped version
of the adult males whose power he has been resisting.
away in his vintage car. The novel uses cars and food as its main tropes
of luxury and another life. In contrast to reality as embodied by the
brutal Red’s succession of clapped out cars and trucks, Woodrell gives
the tubby 13-year-old Shug and his dazzling mother Glenda the Thun-
derbird driven by the ‘“nice, nice man”’ (103), Jimmy Vin. The car is
‘green like the future’, with ‘special qualities I wouldn’t have known
how to ask for . . . I never had been so high in the world’ (39-40, 99).
As they ponder their escape, the places Glenda evokes to tempt Shug
are a cornucopia of visceral pleasures, food especially, in a New Orleans
of unheard of treats. But when the idyll of escape turns out not to
include Shug, the betrayal leads him towards adult betrayals of his own,
complicity in violence and a sudden maturation into a warped version
of the adult males whose power he has been resisting.
In reflecting on the defining characteristics
that publishers look for
in contemporary noir, Charles Ardai writes: ‘It’s about innocent people
desperately trying to prove their innocence and finding the deck stacked
against them at every turn. It is, as Cornell Woolrich famously wrote,
about “some sort of a poor insect that you’ve put inside a downturned
glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can’t, and it can’t, and it
can’t.” This is the flavor of doom I look for, the sense of struggling and
failing and struggling some more.’11 The last lines of The Death of Sweet
Mister, an epitaph to Shug’s childhood, are also a moving summation
of the noir sense of doomed innocence. Shug renders up Jimmy Vin,
leaving him to the vengeance of Red’s oldest friend, and the end sees
him no longer having to rob places for Red but taking over the man’s
role in his and Glenda’s trailer-trash life, looking after his mother in a
more than filial fashion, supporting her in the family line of work -
‘“Never you mind how”’. Shug and Glenda will carry on living by the
cemetery with its ‘vista of tombstones’ and with no glimpse of future
hope to sustain them: ‘I’d say no dawns ever did break right over her
and me again’ (188-9).
in contemporary noir, Charles Ardai writes: ‘It’s about innocent people
desperately trying to prove their innocence and finding the deck stacked
against them at every turn. It is, as Cornell Woolrich famously wrote,
about “some sort of a poor insect that you’ve put inside a downturned
glass, and it tries to climb up the sides, and it can’t, and it can’t, and it
can’t.” This is the flavor of doom I look for, the sense of struggling and
failing and struggling some more.’11 The last lines of The Death of Sweet
Mister, an epitaph to Shug’s childhood, are also a moving summation
of the noir sense of doomed innocence. Shug renders up Jimmy Vin,
leaving him to the vengeance of Red’s oldest friend, and the end sees
him no longer having to rob places for Red but taking over the man’s
role in his and Glenda’s trailer-trash life, looking after his mother in a
more than filial fashion, supporting her in the family line of work -
‘“Never you mind how”’. Shug and Glenda will carry on living by the
cemetery with its ‘vista of tombstones’ and with no glimpse of future
hope to sustain them: ‘I’d say no dawns ever did break right over her
and me again’ (188-9).
Notes
Introduction
1. Martin Rowson, The
Waste Land
(Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1990),
jacket
copy.
2. Raymond Chandler, ‘The Simple Art of Murder’, Atlantic Monthly, Decem-
ber 1944, quoted by Tom Hiney, Raymond Chandler: a Biography (London:
Vintage, 1997), p. 101.
ber 1944, quoted by Tom Hiney, Raymond Chandler: a Biography (London:
Vintage, 1997), p. 101.
3. Malcolm
Bradbury and James
McFarlane (eds), Modernism 1890-1930
(Harmondsworth,
Middx.: Penguin, 1976, 1985), p. 26; Scott R. Christian-
son, ‘A Heap of Broken Images . . .’, in Ronald G. Walker and June M. Frazer
(eds), The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contempo-
rary Literary Theory (Macomb: Western Illinois University Press, 1990), pp.
141-7, considers affinities between hard-boiled detective novels and Eliot’s
Waste Land, emphasising setting, narrative fragmentation, the representa-
tion of the meaninglessness of modern life and the subjective, oppositional
nature of hard-boiled popular modernism.
son, ‘A Heap of Broken Images . . .’, in Ronald G. Walker and June M. Frazer
(eds), The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contempo-
rary Literary Theory (Macomb: Western Illinois University Press, 1990), pp.
141-7, considers affinities between hard-boiled detective novels and Eliot’s
Waste Land, emphasising setting, narrative fragmentation, the representa-
tion of the meaninglessness of modern life and the subjective, oppositional
nature of hard-boiled popular modernism.
4. Ginette Vincendeau, ‘Noir is Also a French
Word’, in Ian Cameron (ed.),
The Movie Book of Film Noir (London: Studio Vista, 1992), p. 52, quoting
Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, Panorama du Film Noir Américain
(Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1955).
The Movie Book of Film Noir (London: Studio Vista, 1992), p. 52, quoting
Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, Panorama du Film Noir Américain
(Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1955).
5. James Naremore, More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1998), pp. 38 and 48.
versity of California Press, 1998), pp. 38 and 48.
6. Malcolm Bradbury and Howard Temperley, Introduction to American Studies
(London: Longman, 1981, 1998), p. 46. See also Jon Tuska, Dark Cinema:
American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984),
(London: Longman, 1981, 1998), p. 46. See also Jon Tuska, Dark Cinema:
American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984),
p.
152. Tuska argues that noir is in effect an anti-generic movement, that
is, implicitly a critique of the escapist fare offered by more traditional
Hollywood genres. This contrast between more traditional genres and noir
is neatly captured in the two Muse figures at the end of the Coen brothers’
1991 film, Barton Fink - the picture-postcard girl of romance on the one
hand and, on the other, the severed head of Audrey, noir victim and
inspiration.
is, implicitly a critique of the escapist fare offered by more traditional
Hollywood genres. This contrast between more traditional genres and noir
is neatly captured in the two Muse figures at the end of the Coen brothers’
1991 film, Barton Fink - the picture-postcard girl of romance on the one
hand and, on the other, the severed head of Audrey, noir victim and
inspiration.
7. Christine Gledhill, ‘Klute 1: a Contemporary
Film Noir and Feminist Criti-
cism’, in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir (London: British Film Insti-
tute, 1972), p. 14.
cism’, in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir (London: British Film Insti-
tute, 1972), p. 14.
8. Bradbury and McFarlane, pp. 41 and 47.
9. Michael Shelden, Graham Greene: the Man Within (London: Heinemann,
1994), p. 99; Naremore, pp. 48 and 53; Lillian Hellman, ‘Introduction’ to
Hammett’s The Big Knockover and Other Stories (Harmondsworth, Middx.:
Penguin, 1969), p. 9.
1994), p. 99; Naremore, pp. 48 and 53; Lillian Hellman, ‘Introduction’ to
Hammett’s The Big Knockover and Other Stories (Harmondsworth, Middx.:
Penguin, 1969), p. 9.
10.
Naremore, p. 43.
11.
Even though critics like Silver and Ward take
account of European influ-
ences, they have remained
committed to a view of film noir as essentially
272
American
in character - ‘the unique example of a wholly American film
style’. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (eds), Film Noir: an Encyclopedic Ref-
erence to the American Style (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1992), p. 1.
Others, like Robin Buss, in French Film Noir (London and New York: Marion
Boyars, 1994), have more strongly stressed the influence of, for example,
European directors working in America after the war, German Expression-
ism and the Gothic.
style’. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (eds), Film Noir: an Encyclopedic Ref-
erence to the American Style (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1992), p. 1.
Others, like Robin Buss, in French Film Noir (London and New York: Marion
Boyars, 1994), have more strongly stressed the influence of, for example,
European directors working in America after the war, German Expression-
ism and the Gothic.
12.
Naremore, p. 237.
13.
Reprinted in R. Barton Palmer (ed.), Perspectives on Film Noir (New York:
G.
K. Hall and Co., 1996) and in Alain Silver and James Ursini (eds), Film Noir Reader (New York: Limelight Editions, 1996, 1999).
14.
Revised and expanded third edition. The Silver
and Ward Encyclopedic Ref-
erence, which was first published in 1979, is one of
the essential film noir reference books.
15.
Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton, ‘Towards
a Definition of Film Noir’
(1955),
and Todd Erickson, ‘Kill Me Again: Movement becomes Genre’
(1990), in Silver and Ursini, pp. 17-26 and 307-30; Naremore, pp. 220 and
(1990), in Silver and Ursini, pp. 17-26 and 307-30; Naremore, pp. 220 and
38.
16.
Naremore, pp. 276-7 and 10.
17.
There have, in addition, been another 400-plus
noir-influenced films dis-
tributed
directly into home video, cable and so on. Erickson, in Silver and
Ursini, pp. 307 and 323-4. ‘Tech Noir’ is the name of the nightclub in The
Terminator (James Cameron, 1984); ‘Digital Noir’ is a website that concen-
trates on cyber noir.
Ursini, pp. 307 and 323-4. ‘Tech Noir’ is the name of the nightclub in The
Terminator (James Cameron, 1984); ‘Digital Noir’ is a website that concen-
trates on cyber noir.
18.
J. P. Telotte, Voices
in the Dark: the Narrative Patterns of Film Noir (Urbana and
Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1989), p. 5.
19.
That is, a definition appropriate to literary
noir must go beyond things like
low-key
lighting, chiaroscuro effects, deep focus photography, extreme camera angles and
expressionist distortion.
20.
Julian Symons, Bloody
Murder, From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: a
History (London: Pan, 1972, 1992), pp. 201-3.
21.
Martin Rubin, Thrillers (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999),
pp.
5-7 and 17-32. As Rubin observes, the label ‘thriller’ has been con-
tentious, and in formulating his own definition he rightly jettisons,
for example, the widely applied definition offered by Jerry Palmer in
Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre (London: Edward Arnold,
1978), viz., that a thriller requires just two ingredients, a hero and a
conspiracy - which is, as Rubin argues, both too wide (including, for
example, the classic detective story) and too narrow (excluding many texts
and films that would generally be counted as ‘classic thrillers’, such as
Greene’s Confidential Agent, Highsmith’s Ripley novels and Hitchcock’s
Psycho).
tentious, and in formulating his own definition he rightly jettisons,
for example, the widely applied definition offered by Jerry Palmer in
Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre (London: Edward Arnold,
1978), viz., that a thriller requires just two ingredients, a hero and a
conspiracy - which is, as Rubin argues, both too wide (including, for
example, the classic detective story) and too narrow (excluding many texts
and films that would generally be counted as ‘classic thrillers’, such as
Greene’s Confidential Agent, Highsmith’s Ripley novels and Hitchcock’s
Psycho).
22. Silver and Ward, p. 3.
23. Fritz Lang, quoted in Peter Bogdanovich, Fritz Lang in America (New York:
Praeger,
1967), pp. 86-7.
24.
Examples of Thompson narratives that function
in this way are discussed
at
the end of Chapter 4. Telotte, p. 35, and see Gledhill, ‘Klute 1’, in Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir on ways in which conflicting interpretations
can be brought to the fore in film noir.
25. James Sallis, Difficult
Lives: Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Chester Himes (New
York:
Gryphon Books, 1993), p. 5.
26.
The similarities to Hammett have been noted by
Jon Thompson, ‘Dashiell
Hammett’s
Hard-Boiled Modernism’, in Christopher Metress (ed.), The Criti-
cal Response to Dashiell Hammett (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994),
cal Response to Dashiell Hammett (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994),
p.
119: ‘the principle of equivalence between the underworld and the bourgeois society proper that
produces an essentially anarchistic vision of society in The Secret Agent finds resonances in the violent,
mayhem-filled cities described
in Hammett’s fiction . . .’.
27. Robert McKee, Story:
Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screen-
writing (London: Methuen, 1999), p. 82.
28.
Noir is also distinguished from certain kinds
of hard-boiled fiction by the
fact
that the ‘tough guy’ investigator, heir to the action adventure hero, can, like the Holmesian
detective, emerge as a scourge of wrongdoing, defeating a villain by decisive
physical action as the detective defeats him by effective intellectual
endeavour.
29. Erickson, in Silver and Ursini, p. 319,
quoting Eugenio Zaretti, art director
of Slam Dance.
30. Erickson, in Silver and Ursini, p. 308;
Naremore, p. 10.
31.
Tuska, pp. 150-1, suggests that a film which
is ‘noir’ only at times but not
in
its resolution is perhaps better classified as a ‘film gris’ or melodrama,
rather than as ‘a truly black film’. Comedy can also, if it becomes dominant,
make a film or text ‘less noir’: a noir atmosphere can combine with
black humour but is deflated by certain kinds of comedy. Silver and Ward,
rather than as ‘a truly black film’. Comedy can also, if it becomes dominant,
make a film or text ‘less noir’: a noir atmosphere can combine with
black humour but is deflated by certain kinds of comedy. Silver and Ward,
p.
331, discuss the difference between films
noirs that
contain elements
of comic relief (a common ingredient) and films in which the ‘tonal
of comic relief (a common ingredient) and films in which the ‘tonal
divergence’
is greater, producing, say, a comedy thriller. In films of the
nineties, the point can be illustrated with reference to the tendency
towards broad comedy to be found in such noir-related films as the
Lethal Weapon series (Richard Donner, 1987-98), which goes too far in the
direction of emphasising the humorous aspects of the relationships to be
truly noir, in contrast, for example, to a darker version of the buddy-cop
film like Colors (Dennis Hopper, 1988). See Erickson, in Silver and Ursini,
nineties, the point can be illustrated with reference to the tendency
towards broad comedy to be found in such noir-related films as the
Lethal Weapon series (Richard Donner, 1987-98), which goes too far in the
direction of emphasising the humorous aspects of the relationships to be
truly noir, in contrast, for example, to a darker version of the buddy-cop
film like Colors (Dennis Hopper, 1988). See Erickson, in Silver and Ursini,
p. 324.
32.
Telotte, pp. 4-5.
33.
Alfred Appel, Nabokov’s
Dark Cinema,
quoted by Robert Porfirio, ‘No Way
Out: Existential Motifs in
the Film Noir’, in Palmer (ed.), Perspectives, p. 117.
Part I: 1920-45
1. Introduction to Fingerman ([1950], London: Ace, 1960), p. 6.
2. Fingerman, p. 5.
3.
David Madden (ed.), Tough Guy Writers of
the Thirties
(Carbondale, Ill., 1968),
pp. xxv-xxvi.
pp. xxv-xxvi.
4.
George Orwell, ‘Raffles and Miss Blandish’, in Collected Essays (London:
Secker & Warburg, 1961, 1975), pp. 249-63.
Secker & Warburg, 1961, 1975), pp. 249-63.
5. John
Houseman, ‘Today’s Hero: a Review’, Hollywood
Quarterly,
2, No. 2
(1947), p. 163, and John Houseman, Vogue, 15 January 1947, quoted by
(1947), p. 163, and John Houseman, Vogue, 15 January 1947, quoted by
Richard
Maltby, ‘The Politics of the Maladjusted Text’, in Ian Cameron (ed.), The Movie Book of Film Noir (London: Studio Vista, 1992), p. 41.
6. Joseph T. Shaw, quoted by Bill Pronzini and
Jack Adrian (eds), Hard-Boiled:
an Anthology of American Crime Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995), p. 9.
an Anthology of American Crime Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995), p. 9.
7.
Herbert Ruhm (ed.), The Hard-Boiled
Detective: Stories from ‘Black Mask’ Maga-
zine, 1920-1951 (New York: Random House, 1977), p. xiv.
zine, 1920-1951 (New York: Random House, 1977), p. xiv.
8. Rick A. Eden, ‘Detective Fiction as Satire’, Genre,
16 (Fall 1983), pp. 279-95,
argues that the hard-boiled detective is akin to the Juvenalian satirist, in
contrast to the Horatian tone of formal detective fiction.
argues that the hard-boiled detective is akin to the Juvenalian satirist, in
contrast to the Horatian tone of formal detective fiction.
9. George Orwell, ‘Wells, Hitler and the World
State’ (1941), in Collected Essays,
p.
161. For a fuller discussion of these pre-World War Two English dilem-
mas, see Lee Horsley, Fictions of Power in English Literature: 1900-1950
mas, see Lee Horsley, Fictions of Power in English Literature: 1900-1950
(London: Longman, 1995),
pp. 155-61.
1 Hard-boiled Investigators
1. For example, in the Introduction to Bill
Pronzini and Jack Adrian (eds),
Hard-Boiled: an Anthology of American Crime
Stories
(Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity
Press, 1995), p. 6, and in Geoffrey O’Brien, Hardboiled America:
Lurid
Paperbacks and the
Masters of Noir (New York:
Da Capo Press,
1997).
2. Dana Polan, Power
and Paranoia: History, Narrative and the American Cinema,
1940-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 238.
3. Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939), p. 105. Foster Hirsch, Film Noir: the Dark Side
of the Screen (San Diego: A. S. Barnes, 1981), p. 170, argues that this sharper
distinction between hunter and hunted makes the private eye investigative
framework thematically the least rewarding of the various noir story types.
4. Anne Cranny-Francis, ‘Gender and Genre: Feminist Rewritings of Detective
Fiction’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 11 (1988), p. 69.
5. For further discussion of Nebel, see: David Geherin, The American Private Eye:
the Image in Fiction (New York: Ungar, 1985), pp. 36-42; John M. Reilly (ed.),
Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (New York: St Martin’s Press,
1980, 1985), pp. 666-7; Lee Server, Danger is My Business: an Illustrated
History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines: 1896-1953 (San Francisco, 1993),
pp. 67-9; Pronzini and Adrian, pp. 83-4.
1940-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 238.
3. Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939), p. 105. Foster Hirsch, Film Noir: the Dark Side
of the Screen (San Diego: A. S. Barnes, 1981), p. 170, argues that this sharper
distinction between hunter and hunted makes the private eye investigative
framework thematically the least rewarding of the various noir story types.
4. Anne Cranny-Francis, ‘Gender and Genre: Feminist Rewritings of Detective
Fiction’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 11 (1988), p. 69.
5. For further discussion of Nebel, see: David Geherin, The American Private Eye:
the Image in Fiction (New York: Ungar, 1985), pp. 36-42; John M. Reilly (ed.),
Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (New York: St Martin’s Press,
1980, 1985), pp. 666-7; Lee Server, Danger is My Business: an Illustrated
History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines: 1896-1953 (San Francisco, 1993),
pp. 67-9; Pronzini and Adrian, pp. 83-4.
6. ‘Backwash’ (Black
Mask,
May 1932), reprinted in Pronzini and Adrian, p. 93.
7. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (eds), Film Noir (London: Secker & Warburg,
1979,
1992), p. 43.
8. Nebel, ‘Death’s Not Enough’, in Six Deadly Dames ([1930s; 1950] Boston:
Gregg
Press, 1980), p. 159.
9. ‘Backwash’, p. 88.
10. The
Adventures of Cardigan
([1933-5], New York: Mysterious Press, 1988),
p.
127.
11.
See Reilly, pp. 234-7, Geherin, pp. 8-16, and
Philip Durham, ‘The “Black
Mask”
School’, in David Madden (ed.), Tough Guy Writers of
the Thirties
(Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968), pp. 67-8.
(Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968), pp. 67-8.
12.
Durham, in Madden, pp. 54-5: Daly was ‘short
on style’ but created ‘the
type’
of the hard-boiled hero and, in many of his stories, established the moral ambiguity
of this central figure.
13.
‘The False Burton Combs’, in Herbert Ruhm
(ed.), The Hard-Boiled Detective:
Stories from ‘Black Mask’ Magazine, 1920-1951 (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 4.
14. ‘False Burton Combs’, in Ruhm, p. 17.
15. ‘False Burton Combs’, in Ruhm, pp. 29-30.
16. Geherin, p. 10.
17. Daly, The
Third Murderer
(New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1931), quoted by
Geherin,
p. 12.
18.
See Richard Gid Powers, G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in American Popular Culture
(Carbondale,
Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), p. 77, whose
analysis makes it clear how far Race Williams was part of a very strongly
established nineteenth-century tradition of action heroes; see also Ron
Goulart, Cheap Thrills: an Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (New
analysis makes it clear how far Race Williams was part of a very strongly
established nineteenth-century tradition of action heroes; see also Ron
Goulart, Cheap Thrills: an Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (New
Rochelle, NY: Arlington
House, 1972), pp. 118-19.
19.
Published in Black
Mask in
June-September 1927.
20.
All of the Satan Hall stories mentioned here
are collected in The Adventures
of Satan Hall (New York: Mysterious Press, 1988): page references
for individual pieces are to this edition.
21.
There are often unmistakable echoes of the
Wild West. Indeed, the basic
plot
of Hammett’s first novel, Red Harvest (1929), has served as the basis
both for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964),
both for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964),
and
more recently for the gangster western, Last
Man Standing
(Walter
Hill, 1996). The shift to a western setting is facilitated by the fable-like
quality of Hammett’s tale of a representative town, metaphoric of national
corruption.
Hill, 1996). The shift to a western setting is facilitated by the fable-like
quality of Hammett’s tale of a representative town, metaphoric of national
corruption.
22.
Blood
Money is
Hammett’s first novel (not published as a novel until 1943),
which
couples two stories - ‘The Big Knock-Over’ and ‘$106,000 Blood Money’ (1927) - now most
readily available as the concluding stories in The
Big Knockover and Other Stories.
23.
See, for example, William F. Nolan, Hammett: a Life at the Edge (Congdon
and
Weed, 1983), pp. 77-8, excerpted in Christopher Metress (ed.), The Criti-
cal Response to Dashiell Hammett (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994),
cal Response to Dashiell Hammett (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994),
p. 5.
24.
For various other interpretations of the
symbol of the glass key (for example,
as
emblematic of impotence and guilt-ridden sexuality and as signifying Ned himself as a ‘hollow man’
and moral failure) see the extracts from reviews and articles in Mettress, pp.
109-31.
25.
See Annette Kuhn’s discussion of The Big Sleep in Kuhn, The
Power of the
Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1985),
pp. 74-95.
pp. 74-95.
26.
It is telling that Chandler himself wanted
Cary Grant for the role of Marlowe
in Murder, My Sweet. See Ian Ousby, The Crime and Mystery Book: a Reader’s Companion (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1997), p. 115.
27. See Silver and Ward, p. 192.
28. Reprinted in Fingerman, p. 50.
29. Reprinted in Trouble
is My Business,
pp. 134-7.
30. Reprinted in
Trouble is My Business,
p. 22.
31. Stephen Knight, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (London: Macmillan,
1980),
p. 148.
32. Brian
Docherty (ed.), American Crime
Fiction: Studies in
the Genre
(Houndmills:
Macmillan, 1988), p. 77; Chandler, ‘The Simple
Art of
Murder’,
Atlantic Monthly (December 1944), quoted in Tom Hiney, Raymond
Chandler: a Biography (London: Vintage, 1997),
pp. 101-2.
33. See Knight, pp. 142-3.
34.
Frank Krutnik, In
a Lonely Street: Film, Genre, Masculinity (London: Routledge,
1991), p. 128; Silver and
Ward, p. 192; Knight, pp. 142-3 and 158.
35.
William F. Nolan, of Paul Cain, Introduction
(July 1987) to Seven Slayers (Los
Angeles: Blood and Guts
Press, 1987).
36.
Ted Malvern, for example, in ‘Guns at
Cyrano’s’, is connected to the crimi-
nal
world by his parentage and (predictably, since this is Chandler) feels guilty about being ‘a guy
who lives on crooked dough and doesn’t even do his own stealing’. Fingerman, pp. 247-8.
37.
Paul Cain (who also wrote as Peter Ruric for
his film and television work)
wrote
for Black Mask in the period 1932-6. Some of his short
stories were
republished in 1946 in a collection entitled Seven Slayers. Whitfield wrote
for Black Mask between 1930 and 1933; his first novel, Green Ice, was pub-
republished in 1946 in a collection entitled Seven Slayers. Whitfield wrote
for Black Mask between 1930 and 1933; his first novel, Green Ice, was pub-
lished by Knopf in 1930.
See Reilly, pp. 135-6 and 898-900.
38.
Knight, pp. 145-6.
39. Joseph T. Shaw, ‘A Letter to the Editor of Writer’s Digest’ (September 1930),
in
Metress, pp. 111-12.
2 Big-shot Gangsters and Small-time Crooks
1. See
Jonathan Munby’s discussion of the popularisation of Dillinger during
the Depression (in comparison to his postwar representation): Public
the Depression (in comparison to his postwar representation): Public
Enemies,
Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil
(Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 151-6.
2.
Richard Gid Powers, G-Men:
Hoover’s FBI in
American Popular Culture
(Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), pp. 19-25,
(Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), pp. 19-25,
analyses
the anti-crime mythology of vigilante and G-Men films. The fullest and best recent discussion
of the representation of the gangster in Hollywood films is in Munby’s Public Enemies.
3. ‘Public enemy’ is a phrase that entered
popular rhetoric after the April 1930
release of a Crime Commission list of Chicago’s 28 most dangerous ‘public
enemies’. See David E. Ruth, Inventing the Public Enemy: the Gangster in
American Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 2.
release of a Crime Commission list of Chicago’s 28 most dangerous ‘public
enemies’. See David E. Ruth, Inventing the Public Enemy: the Gangster in
American Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 2.
4. Powers, pp. 3-32 and 68.
5. Kiss Tomorrow
Goodbye
was directed by Gordon Douglas. Another notable
Cagney performance as a psychopathic gangster was in White Heat (Raoul
Walsh, 1949). See Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 115-16, on the contrasts
between these roles and Cagney’s earlier portrayal of Tommy Powers in
Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931).
Cagney performance as a psychopathic gangster was in White Heat (Raoul
Walsh, 1949). See Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 115-16, on the contrasts
between these roles and Cagney’s earlier portrayal of Tommy Powers in
Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931).
6.
Ruth, p. 25, referring to S. Tee Bee, ‘With the Gangsters’, Saturday Evening
Post, 198 (26 June 1926), p. 54.
Post, 198 (26 June 1926), p. 54.
7. Munby, Public
Enemies,
pp. 4-5.
8. Powers, pp. 90-1; Jack Shadoian, Dreams and Dead Ends: the American
Gangster/Crime Film (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 59-60.
9. Burnett in Pat McGilligan, Backstory (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986), p. 57, quoted by Munby, Public Enemies, p. 46.
Gangster/Crime Film (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 59-60.
9. Burnett in Pat McGilligan, Backstory (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1986), p. 57, quoted by Munby, Public Enemies, p. 46.
10. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (eds), Film Noir (London: Secker and
Warburg,
1979, 1992), pp. 17 and 324-5.
11.
Munby, Public
Enemies,
pp. 84-5. In supporting his argument that film
noir
is
simply a more overtly modernist mutation of ‘older formulas’, Munby
also notes that many films previously categorised as gangster films have
been reclassified as films noirs - for example, The Killers, Kiss of Death and
Ride the Pink Horse (Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 7 and 115-43). See also
Jonathan Munby, ‘The “Un-American” Film Art: Robert Siodmak and the
Political Significance of Film Noir’s German Connection’, iris, 21 (Spring,
1996), pp. 74-88.
also notes that many films previously categorised as gangster films have
been reclassified as films noirs - for example, The Killers, Kiss of Death and
Ride the Pink Horse (Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 7 and 115-43). See also
Jonathan Munby, ‘The “Un-American” Film Art: Robert Siodmak and the
Political Significance of Film Noir’s German Connection’, iris, 21 (Spring,
1996), pp. 74-88.
12. Ruth, p. 48.
13.
For example, Foster Hirsch, Film Noir: the Dark Side of the Screen (San Diego:
A.
S. Barnes, 1981), pp. 170-2, argues that in comparison to the weaker noir
anti-hero the gangster is lacking a psychological dimension. Many gangster
novels, like those by Burnett and Trail, do, however, explore the motiva-
tions and neuroses that drive the gangster and do give him the ability to
confront and understand his problems (see discussion in this chapter of
Trail’s Scarface). See also Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 47-9: ‘Little Caesar’s
desires for the signs of official society signify his yearning for cultural inclu-
sion and acceptance.’
anti-hero the gangster is lacking a psychological dimension. Many gangster
novels, like those by Burnett and Trail, do, however, explore the motiva-
tions and neuroses that drive the gangster and do give him the ability to
confront and understand his problems (see discussion in this chapter of
Trail’s Scarface). See also Munby, Public Enemies, pp. 47-9: ‘Little Caesar’s
desires for the signs of official society signify his yearning for cultural inclu-
sion and acceptance.’
14.
Appel’s first novel, Brain Guy, was published in 1934.
Brain
Guy
and
several
of his short stories (collected as Hell’s
Kitchen
and Dock Walloper)
were reissued by Lion paperbacks in the 1950s. Appel also wrote some
paperback originals, such as Sweet Money Girl (1954) and The Raw Edge
(1958).
were reissued by Lion paperbacks in the 1950s. Appel also wrote some
paperback originals, such as Sweet Money Girl (1954) and The Raw Edge
(1958).
15.
That is, the 1934-9 stories published by Lion
in 1952 as Hell’s Kitchen. The
reissue cited here is: New
York: Berkley Books, 1958.
16. Ruth, p. 62.
17.
George Grella, in John M. Reilly (ed.), Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery
Writers (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1980, 1985), p.
129. Once paperback
originals began to be published in the fifties, Burnett wrote some of his
novels (Underdog and Big Stan, for example) for Gold Medal. His novels of
the forties and early fifties, however, were all published in hardcover with
Knopf. Blanche and Alfred Knopf were also responsible for furthering the
careers of other hard-boiled writers, such as James M. Cain, Chandler and
Hammett. See James Naremore, More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 52.
originals began to be published in the fifties, Burnett wrote some of his
novels (Underdog and Big Stan, for example) for Gold Medal. His novels of
the forties and early fifties, however, were all published in hardcover with
Knopf. Blanche and Alfred Knopf were also responsible for furthering the
careers of other hard-boiled writers, such as James M. Cain, Chandler and
Hammett. See James Naremore, More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 52.
18. Burnett, in McGilligan, Backstory, p. 58, quoted by Munby, Public Enemies,
p.
47.
19. Powers, p. 13.
20. Burnett, in McGilligan, Backstory, p. 57, quoted by Munby, Public Enemies,
p.
45.
21. Powers, pp. 4-6.
22.
This approach brings Trail closer than Burnett
to the tendency of Hollywood
studios (under pressure to
acquiesce in censorship) to add ‘crime doesn’t
pay’
riders to gangster films, see Munby, Public
Enemies,
pp. 51 and passim. The censors demanded, for example, that the
film of Scarface be subtitled ‘the Shame of a Nation’.
23.
That is, the 1934-5 stories published by
Lion in 1953 as Dock Walloper. This
is
the edition cited here. It includes a story, ‘Dock Walloper’, written in 1953 for this edition: this
story is reprinted by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian (eds), Hard-Boiled: an Anthology of American Crime Stories (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995), pp. 230-56.
24.
See, for example, Thieves Like Us, pp. 284-5 (in Crime
Novels: American Noir
of the 1930s and 40s, No. 94, The Library of
America, 1997), on popular support for robbing banks on the part of ‘Real
People’.
25.
In the film, there is a stronger stress on the
irony of things looking good
just
when they get bad (with Marie and Pard ironically precipitating Roy’s
death by their devotion); in the book the real force of the irony is much
more to do with Roy, an essentially humane, generous, honourable man,
perceived as the menace to society ‘Mad Dog Earle’ (161), and the function
of Marie and Pard is mainly to provide confirmation of his humanity.
Powers, p. 7, notes that the real-life gangster called ‘Mad Dog’ was (in con-
trast to the non-violent Roy) actually tried for killing one child and wound-
ing four others.
death by their devotion); in the book the real force of the irony is much
more to do with Roy, an essentially humane, generous, honourable man,
perceived as the menace to society ‘Mad Dog Earle’ (161), and the function
of Marie and Pard is mainly to provide confirmation of his humanity.
Powers, p. 7, notes that the real-life gangster called ‘Mad Dog’ was (in con-
trast to the non-violent Roy) actually tried for killing one child and wound-
ing four others.
26. Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy (eds), British Crime Cinema (London:
Routledge,
1999), pp. 5-7.
27. There is, for example, in Love’s Lovely Counterfeit, pp. 134-5, a passing com-
parison
of an ex-gangster boss to Hitler.
28. ’Fritz Lang’, New
York World Telegram,
11 June 1941, quoted by Siegfried
Kracauer,
From
Caligari to Hitler:
a Psychological History
of the German
Film (Princeton University Press, 1947, 1974), pp.
248-9.
29. Monthly
Film Bulletin
(April 1948), 47, quoted by Chibnall and Murphy, pp.
38,
8-9.
30. Brian McFarlane, ‘Outrage: No Orchids for Miss Blandish’, in Chibnall and
Murphy,
pp. 37-50.
31.
Borde and Chaumeton credit Greene with playing
a role ‘in the birth of film
noir
(This Gun For Hire), in the acclimatization
of noir in England (Brighton
Rock), and in its international development’. Quoted by Naremore,
Rock), and in its international development’. Quoted by Naremore,
p. 48.
32. Greene, Ways
of Escape
(Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1981), pp. 56-7.
33. Paul Duncan, ‘It’s Raining Violence: a Brief
History of British Noir’, Crime
Time, 2, No. 3 (1999), p. 81.
34.
They
Drive by Night
was made into a film, directed by Arthur Woods, in 1938.
It
was influenced by Expressionism and was visually akin to later films noirs: ‘its rainy roads, glittering dance halls,
dismal lodgings and degenerate murderer seem to prefigure American film noir’.
Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy,
‘Parole Overdue: Releasing the British Crime Film into the Critical Community’,
in Chibnall and Murphy, pp. 4-5.
35. Ibid.
36.
Silver and Ward, p. 201. The playing down of
Fabian’s unsympathetic char-
acter
is carried much further in Irwin Winkler’s 1992 remake of Night and the City, in which Robert De Niro’s
warmer, more likeable Harry Fabian contributes to a less ‘noirish’ film.
Comments
Post a Comment