Published in 1940, THEY DON'T DANCE MUCH appears to be James
Ross's only novel. And that's a real shame, since, to my mind
at least, TDDM is a milestone in the history of noir fiction.
Set in a small North Carolina town, the novel is an early
example of country noir. Essentially a straightforward tale
of robbery gone wrong, much of the immense impact of the book
is in the simplicity of the story-telling. The protagonist,
Jack MacDonald (he has a brother called John and another
called Ross - only kidding), has one of the most colloquial
voices I've encountered outside of real life, which makes the
nightmare situation in which he finds himself all the more
credible, harrowing and in-your-face. Not only the narrator's
voice, but also the setting, events, and one of its main
character's psychopathic psychology should particularly
appeal to Jim Thompson fans.
Oh, yeah. As the title promises, so it delivers. There isn't
much dancing.
Al
-- # 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 : 18 Dec 2002 EST