Movement and Memory: Reconfiguring the Significance of Place in Jenny Siler’sEasy MoneyandFlashback

Abstract

The narrative of hard-boiled crime fiction is typically embedded in a city, and knowledge of this place is intrinsic to the investigator’s characterization. Through an examination of Jenny Siler’s Easy Money (1998) and Flashback (2004), this essay explores the impact on both the investigative narrative and the representation of identity when place is reconfigured. By employing Doreen Massey’s analysis of the politics of place and space and Manuel Castells’ concept of the “space of flows,” I examine how Siler’s work brings into play concepts of legitimacy, geopolitical borders, and belonging. I consider how the removal of symbolic meaning from a place through the rejection of its boundary condition or the negation of its past has a political impact: it challenges what and who is given value.