<<That's a kind of rambling preamble to the thought
that prompted this
post. Actually, what I really want to hear your opinions
about was this
-- is there a mass audience for new hardboiled novels? True,
people like
Vacchs and Mad Dog Elroy sell lots of copies; but there are
lots of
crime books by lesser-known writers out there, many of them
being
overlooked. Whadda ya think?>>
I don't think there is anything like a mass audience for
hardboiled
novels. Some people have achieved recognition thanks to the
movies
(Elmore Leonard, for example) but for the vast majority of
mystery
readers (who read cozies or romance crossover, let's face it)
Westlake,
Mosley, Block, Crumley, Ellroy, Burke, and so on are almost
unknown. We
hardboiled dogs may think that these guys are giants, but we
hardly
represent the book-buying public. I bet Sue Grafton and Mary
Higgins
Clark outsell all of the above, all the time.
For me, hardboiled fiction is a bit like jazz. It has a small
but
devoted audience that values quality, but the big sales are
mostly in
the crossover variety. There is something implicit in what I
said above,
and I should make it explicit: hardboiled writers are usually
far better
writers than authors of cozies. For one thing, hardboiled
follows a
tradition of great writers like Hammett, Whitfield, Chandler,
Howard
Browne, Chester Himes, Fredric Brown, Charles Willeford, Jim
Thompson,
John D. MacDonald, many of the Gold Medal guys that we always
rave
about, and so on. You might say that the qualifications for
writing
hardboiled are quite a bit higher than for writing a
garden-variety
romance mystery. Just my opinion. Now to get some coffee
before this
rant becomes a speech.
Regards,
mt
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