Jim Blue wrote: The wiggle words in this statement are "a
lot." It is equally true that "a lot" of the current hard
boiled protagonists are as heroic and as far from loser land
as their predecessors. IMO, the self acknowledged losers are
still a minority voice, but maybe that reflects my reading
choices more than it reflects the overall picture.
********** I'd say "self-acknowledged" is a wiggle
word.
They don't lose at their jobs, but the rest of their life
sucks. They have few friends. They don't like hardly anybody.
They are not happy. If they have a relationship at all with
someone of the opposite sex, it's usually dysfunctional. Let
me name the authors of the last 10 private/police detective
novels I've read: Taibo, Hammett, Prather, Hamilton, Sallis,
Estelman, Torrey, Lochte, McGivern, Corris. Two of them are
old enough that they had no private life, Torrey and Hammett.
That leaves 8. Out of those 8, only Prather's Shell Scott was
a happy camper, and he is so ridiculous as to not hardly
count.
Name the last few detective novels you've read. No cheating
and culling the list to fit the premise, either. I wanna hear
about some of these hardboiled winners.
miker
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