Carrie wrote:
"My local used book store does shelve male and female crime
writers separately - which bugs the heck out of me, but what
can you do?"
Mark Sullivan wrote:
>I find this highly amusing (and ridiculous). Just out
of curiosity, >where
>do they shelve JA Jance (her JP Beaumont books under
male, her >Joanna
>Brady under female?), Jack Early (early editions
under male, >later
>editions under female after the covers started noting
Sandra >Scoppetone
>writing as . . .?), SJ Rozan (in both, depending upon
which >of her
>characters is narrating?),
All good questions - I have no idea. I have some sympathy,
because the books aren't shelved alphabetically but rather in
groups (A-D, E-J, etc) and it does give you fewer books to go
through; it's also USUALLY more straightforward than if they
were shelved by cozy/hard-boiled/regional etc - cause as we
know it's very easy to argue about those distinctions. I
still find it kinda lame though, and unless I'm after
something specific, I have to look twice as long to figure
out if it's there!
Re: Marlowe - I realize it was Spade being referenced as the
amoral one, but I actually find Marlowe's "morality" to be a
turnoff, since it's closer to
"moralistic" than moral. He's such a white knight that though
I love Chandler's style, I sometimes wish Marlowe would shut
the hell up. I realize a lot of this is a change in values -
not crazy about his reactions to gays and women and sex in
general (now, I haven't read all the books, but women are
always throwing themselves at Phil but I can't recall that he
ever actually gets any or even seems to really WANT any; I
actually find this less appealing than the James Bond
anything-in-a-skirt attitude of a lot of PIs). Anyway, I'd
rather have Marlowe on the case than Spade, but for all his
devilishness, I actually like Spade more, if only for the
give and take with Effie.
*****************
"Is that what you do for a living?" she asked. "Find
folks?"
"Sometimes," I said. "Other times I just look."
-James Crumley, "The Last Good Kiss"
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