The American roman noir

Victorian Noir: Cornell Woolrich's Waltz into Darkness

“…If the label “Victorian” as applied to fiction conjures up idealized characters and melodramatic plots, “noir” signifies a dark kind of French cinema and American crime story that derived from the hard‐boiled tradition associated with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. In an essay on the subject for a reference work, however, Andrew Pepper asks whether Hammett's Red Harvest (1929), “often cited as the first hard‐boiled American crime novel, […] might also constitute the first American roman noir.” His point is that the commonality of traits later associated with a noir sensibility—“an unknowable, morally compromised protagonist who is implicated in the sordid world he inhabits, an overwhelming sense of fatalism and bleakness, and a socio‐political critique that yields nothing and goes nowhere”—complicates the process of categorization (Pepper, 2010, 58) 1 . Typologically prefigured in James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), the anti‐heroes of noir invariably spiral downward as a result of their greed, lust, and alienation.…”

Realigning Literary Noir: Dorothy B. Hughes's Ride the Pink Horse and The Expendable Man

“…Although not as categorical in contradistinguishing these modes of crime fiction, Megan Abbott acknowledges a difference: hard‐boiled novels are an extension of nineteenth‐century Wild West narratives featuring a valorized protagonist whose actions restore social order, but in noir “everyone is fallen, and right and wrong are not clearly defined” (“Interview”) 1 . Andrew Pepper, finally, has enumerated literary noir's distinctive themes as “the corrosive effects of money, the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, anxieties about masculinity and the bureaucratization of public life, a fascination with the grotesque[,] and a flirtation with, and rejection of, Freudian psychoanalysis” (60). Except for Pepper's mention of “anxieties about masculinity,” critical discourse on this corpus has by and large passed over its dominant focus on white men.…”

Introduction: Noir is the New Black

“…18 Pepper goes on to identify the following as similar thematic and political concerns between filmic and literary noir: 'the corrosive effects of money, the meaninglessness or absurdity of existence, anxieties about masculinity and the bureaucratization of public life, a fascination with the grotesque and a flirtation with, and rejection of, Freudian psychoanalysis'. 19 Succinctly then, issues related to subalternity, oppression, hegemonic masculinity, class struggles, globalization and the neoliberal era are paramount to understanding the emergence of noir aesthetics in contemporary literature. The exploration of troubled human psychologies and the development of violent characters challenge the reader to engage with cold-blooded protagonists who will frequently drive the story towards a completely unexpected dénouement.…”

“…In a similar fashion, the related label 'film noir' did not describe a dedicated cinematic genre, with its own codes and conventions that film-makers selfconsciously borrowed from and adapted, but it was coined retrospectively by French critics. 21 However, little attention has been paid to the presence of noir aesthetics in other World Literatures, and this special issue aims to juxtapose the Anglo-European traditions with the representation of noir aesthetics in literature and film of other literary traditions. By bringing different traditions into dialogue, this collection of essays will provide fresh and timely insight into some of the most representative debates surrounding the contemporary study of crime, detective and hardboiled fiction.…”