William Denton wrote (about his panel at Bloody Words):
> > (Mine didn't go perfectly but they did fine
jobs. Jose
>> Latour, who wrote OUTCAST, was on mine, and said
some really interesting
>> things about noir writing in Central and South
America, none of which I
>> can remember now.)
And Kerrys responded:
>You do yourself a disservice, Bill. Jose Latour
talked about the
>difficulty and
>danger of writing noir in his home country (Cuba)
because political
>authorities
>saw it as threatening. It depicted them as the
corrupt power-mongers they are.
>Clearly they feared the possibility it could lead to
social and
>political change.
>
>Peter Chambers began by admitting he didn't feel he
had a place on
>the panel as a
>noir writer, and so he acted as a foil, prodding
Latour to clarify
>and expand his
>comments into areas that might be more relevant to
North American writers and
>readers.
>
>Part way through, Gregory Ward provided an example of
how
>authorities in "western
>democracies" try to silence fans and creators of noir
fiction, by
>saying he felt
>there was a line that should not be crossed into
sensationalism and implying
>anyone who crosses that line lacks moral decency.
Making this comment at a
>gathering of people who read and write about murder
was an
>especially revealing
>hypocrisy. It became clear that writers who depict
shocking scenes in order to
>shock their readers are often moralists who feel
their readers
>should and need to
>be shocked by the state of the world.
Relax, Bill. These panels never go perfectly, from what I
hear. I agree with Kerry. If the panel wasn't a total
success, Bill, it's not your fault -- you didn't pick the
panelists, after all. At least both Peter Chambers and Greg
Ward both came right out and stated they didn't feel they
really belonged on the panel, but only Ward went out of his
way to prove it. A nice enough guy, quite articulate, but he
seemed to base his entire theory about noir on some Alfred
Hitchcock movies he'd seen. But his comments and Chambers'
certainly sparked Latour. His passionate comments alone made
the panel well worth attending. Anyone who hasn't read
OUTCAST should do so real soon -- Latour's wrath for the
powers that be, and his compassion for the people they
allegedly serve, refreshingly know no borders.
And speaking of borders, Kerry's wide-ranging and intriguing
panel, about cultural differences between Canadian and
American crime-writing was likewise slightly marred by a few
omissions (more oversight than ignorance, I think) on the
parts of panelists (eg. evidently Ontario borders on New
Brunswick), but rescued, nonetheless, by some pretty
perceptive comments by Peter Robinson and last minute
substitute Scott (THE ICE HARVEST) Phillips, who a couple of
Kerries and I had the pleasure of closing a few bars with on
the last night on the conference. And in her panel, Marianne
managed to trace the detective genre all the way back to
Beowulf. No truth to the rumours the Toronto police arrested
her later Saturday night for attacking a fibreglass moose
with a battle axe, while muttering something about
dragons.
And Estleman was a pretty interesting character himself,
appearing on several panels, including a great one on guns in
crime fiction. He isn't Amos Walker, but he comes close at
times. Though, by his own rueful admission, some of his
well-touted research seems to stumble when it crosses
borders.
I also caught a reading by Giles Blunt, who wrote FORTY WORDS
FOR SORROW. He read from a work in progress, and it was
really quite good, in a hard-boiled humourous way -- has
anyone actually read his books?
Or, for that matter, Margaret Atwood's THE BLIND ASSASSIN? It
won the ICAW Hammett prize on Saturday night for "literary
excellence in crime writing by a U.S. or Canadian author"
(beating out Scott Phillip's book, as well as Stephen
Hunter's HOT SPRINGS, Joe R. Lansdale's THE BOTTOMS and Brad
Smith's ONE-EYED JACKS). All of those could be considered
hard-boiled (and i think they've a;; been discussed on this
list), and anyone familiar with Atwood's work knows she's not
exactly a cozy writer herself. Though she did admit she
wasn't sure why she was now considered a crime writer,
despite the fact many of her novels revolve around a crime,
she did offer an interesting, if cock-eyed, justification
with a fond remembrance of her own youth, growing up reading
Dell mapbacks.
(If this somehow gets posted twice, I apologize. Somehow the
first one was bounced because it "wasn't plain ASCII text".
Weird....)
-- Kevin -- # 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/ .
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