On 29 August 2000, Kevin Burton Smith wrote:
: Besides your say-so, why exactly is Kinsey Millhone not
hard-boiled?
Well, I can't defend my position, really, because I haven't
read a Sue Grafton book in over 10 years. I found them
incredibly boring and I've long forgotten them. But they
never struck me as hardboiled.
: If any trace of empathy, compassion or humanity renders a
character
: non-hard-boiled, all we're left with is sociopaths like
Hammer, Burke,
: Race Williams and Ellroy's damaged little boys.
But if every private investigator (or reporter or claims
adjuster) is called hardboiled just because life isn't all
peaches and cream and he or she has a drink every now and
then, we're left with nothing but a mess.
This hardboiled women writers question comes up a fair bit
and never gets resolved. We'll all have to make do with our
own opinions, I suppose, and see if any writers who are
recommended make us adjust. I haven't read any Dorothy B.
Hughes yet, but I think that's where I'll start looking, then
Marcia Muller.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Aug 2000 EDT