Mario said:
>It occurs to me that crime literature may have moved
beyond
>the hardboiled vs. cozy (or dark vs. light, etc.)
dichotomy...
I agree, though I'm glad this list is devoted to the
hard-boiled end of the spectrum (with brief asides for
crucial subjects such as miker's key lime pie recipe).
I've had a hard time thinking of anything to offer in the
definition debate because (like others on the list) I
consider the writing itself and not specific characters. That
said, tough and colloquial certainly must apply to the
writing.
What's great about Jim's definition is that it is inclusive
enough to include writers like Cormac McCarthy and Richard
Price who are not normally associated with some of the other
favorites on this list. I mention this because in a Pelecanos
interview that someone linked here, he said that in Europe
his books are compared alongside DeLillo and Robert Stone,
while in America he is often labeled as "just" a crime
fiction writer. I'm glad that we have a definition that
accurately describes the books without limiting them to
conventional genre trappings.
(I recognize that you've got to be a real prick to use a
phrase like
"conventional genre trappings" and take yourself seriously,
but my time is short and I can't think of anything else on
the fly.)
Best, Chris
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