***
Hammett, Chandler and James M. Cain are the leading lights
among what
used to be called =91the tough guy writers=92; this unholy
trinity might
would now be recognised as forming the core of what me might
call
=91classic=92 hard-boiled fiction. Sharing some of the
hard-boiled
sensibilities of these exponents of the =91tough guy=92
style, but also
diverging from them in several important ways, are a group of
writers=97a
=91second wave=92=97that might be identified as =91noir=92
rather than
=91hard-boiled=92. Among this second wave one can include Jim
Thompson,
David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich. The main difference
between the
classic hard-boiled writers and the =91noir
writers=92=97although James M.
Cain has a foot in each camp=97can probably be characterised
by two
tendencies: a tendency in hardboiled writing to paint a
backdrop of
institutionalised social corruption; and a tendency in noir
writing to
focus on personal pyschology, whether it is despair, paranoia
or some
other psychological crisis. The two schools=97if we can call
these
tendencies =91schools=92=97are by no means mutually
exclusive: hard boile=
d
writing can display elements of noir, and noir writing can
be
hard-boiled.
Institutionalised corruption is taken as given among the hard
boiled
school: corrupt institutions (police force, judiciary,
politicians).
There may be mean streets in the world of noir, but these
streets are
peopled by the psychologically insecure: psychological
instability is
the key characteristic among the protagonists of the noir
writers, if
not the key characteristic of the noir writers themselves.
=20
Paranoid insecurity, doubts and fears about identity,
sexuality and
personal safety are the key fault lines in the noir
personality.
***
Woolrich is part of the so-called =91Black Mask school=92
inasmuch as man=
y
of his stories were printed in Black Mask in the late
nineteen-thirties
and during the nineteen forties. After Black Mask editor Joe
=91Cap=92 S=
haw
was fired in 1936 for refusing to cut writer=92s rates, Fanny
Ellsworth,
who has been editing a romance magazine across the corridor,
was brought
in as new editor. Although she was Black Mask=92s second
female editor,
her gender was hidden by the use of her initial instead of
her
forename. After Shaw=92s sacking, several of his stable of
loyal writers
(William F. Nolan calls them =93Cap=92s boys=94) shunned
Black Mask and t=
urned
instead to rival publications for an outlet for their work.
Faced with
this exodus, which included Raymond Chandler, Frederick Nebel
and Paul
Cain, by the end of 1937 Ellsworth had recruited a new group
of writers,
among them Cornell Woolrich. The effect of this injection of
new blood
resulted in something of a =91softening=92 of Black Mask=92s
hard-boiled
content.
Robert Profirio writes, =91Woolrich must be considered as
comprising the
extreme wing of [the hard-boiled tradition=92s] psychological
=94faction=94
... his protagonists seldom have their emotions under control
... if
they are not unstable to begin with they are rendered thus
through the
effects of =93dope=94, amnesia, hypnosis or just plain fear
... Woolrich
must be included along with Hammett, Chandler and [James M.]
Cain as a
major contributor to ... film noir. (pp. 88-89)=20
***
Past Masters: as mentioned above:=20
Hammett, James M. Cain, Chandler (hard boiled)
Woolrich, Goodis, Thompson, James M. Cain [again]
(noir)
Current Practicioners:
Tricky. The field is wide open now, and many, many more books
are being
published. Many of them are derivative of each other, and
most of them
refer to some of the 'past masters' on their cover blurbs.
=20
James Ellroy, however, must be included as among the current
key names
in hard boiled (neo boiled?) writing. The English writer Mark
Timlin is
not widely known in North America, but combines 'hard
boiled-ness' with
'Englishness' in an interesting way and conveys a bleak and
violent
London.=20
A deceased English ex-patriate also dominates the 'noir' end
of recent
noir writing: Derek Raymond, better known in France and
better known
under the pseudonym Robin Cook. Raymond's 'Factory novels'
relate very
grim tales of a disturbed London policeman.
There will be others I don't know of or have forgotten.
Hopefully, other rara-avians will offer more
suggestions.
Good luck for Saturday,
Eddie Duggan
--=20
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