>Which prompts me to ask if people could recommend
hard-boiled love
>stories. Not stories where "love ain't nothing but sex
misspelled", but
>stories like _The Long Goodbye_ and _Invasion of
Privacy_.
Well, before Catskill Eagle, I think Parker wrote some pretty
damn good
"romantic novels," as I think he once referred to them. It
was only later
that Spenser and Susan became truly insufferable, and Hawk
became the
hardboiled equivalent of the smartass little black kid
sitcoms love so much
(Coming This Fall: Gary Coleman IS Hawk!)
And a few of Wade Miller's Max Thursdays, if I recall, were
pretty
romantic, if that's the word, with Max sticking his neck out
for a woman
he's already lost...
And I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but there are a
few series
characters (okay, P.I.s) who I would consider hardboiled who
are in
long-term relationships that must be something more than sex.
Michael
Collins' Dan Fortune comes to mind, Hansen's Dave
Brandstetter, Robert
Martin's Jim Bennett and even Block's Scudder. Oh, and Tucker
Coe's (Donald
Westlake, actually) now-sadly-forgotten Mitch Tobin series.
Anyone who's
ever been with someone for a while will recognize the sting
of truth in
that one...
And, in a lighter vein, there's always Hammett's Nick and
Nora and Thomas
Dewey's Pete and Jeannie Schofield...
(I think it's interesting that all these series were written
by men.
Muller's McCone is in a relationship lately, but it's a
pretty annoying
one, and both Grafton and Evanovich's "relationships" seem to
be completely
based on sex...let's skip the debate about whether they're
hardboiled or
not this time, though, okay?)
And, of course, both The Maltese Falcon and the film
Casablanca could be
viewed as hardboiled doomed romances...(though Casablanca
pushes so many
buttons with so many different people on so many different
levels that I'm
not sure if we can categorize it at all...)
Of course, I know some of you figure that NONE of these count
as
hardboiled, since it shows the protagonist as someone other
than a loner
and all that. In one-shots, it's easier to be bleak, since
you can have
everyone die at the end. In a series, people have to go on,
and have
lives...it's harder to stay hard all the time, if you
will....
But Marshall, if poked with a sharp stick, more than a few
members of this
list might admit to being "hard-boiled marshmallows" at
times. Stick
around.... (and some of us have read enough to know Ellroy
isn't
necessarily "the first writer since the 40's to capture the
true meaning of
noir")
"I pressed "Send" and the air was full of music"-from the
revised 1990's
edition of Raymond Chandler's "Playback"
**************************************************
Kevin Smith
Back to school and time to hit the books...the comic books,
that is...
Private eyes and comics in this month's P.I. Poll on The
Thrilling
Detective Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
Now with fresh fiction monthly....
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