Mark E. Hall wrote:
> I guess this would be my question overall---how the
heck are you
> defining Southern Gothic?
> By setting alone, or by the author's personal
history, etc.? I mena for
> example, by many scholars Bierce is seen as a
California writer, not a
> Southern Gothic writer.
Also, Bill Denton asked how it related to noir.
************* I am defining Southern Gothic as noir that is
distinctly Southern. That's southern USA. SANCTUARY makes the
grade and had a strong influence on noir, period. Very dark
and twisted. It involved crime that went beyond the profit
motive and way into a wicked Freudian nightmare.
I put Harry Crews's FEAST OF SNAKE in the same category. And
Dickey's DELIVERANCE too. I might even give the tag to
Caldwell's TOBACCO ROAD. Anybody that thinks that book is
simply funny and not scary isn't reading it the same way I
do.
I've heard that Woodrell, Flannery O'Connor, and a few others
fit the bill, too, but I haven't read them.
Southern Gothic is hardcore hardboiled and noir. There are
some specific characteristics which I have found common to
the three or four I have read besides being tough and
colloquial and dark and sinister. Sex. Raw, nasty, violent,
or deviant. Crime that don't have a damn thing to do with
money. Crime for the pleasure of it (SANCTUARY, DELIVERANCE).
Crime 'cuz they're just sick of it all and feel like doing
some killin' (FEAST OF SNAKES). Crime that they're too damn
stupid to even recognize as crime (TOBACCO ROAD).
Hardcore. Hardboiled. Noir.
miker
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