Mark,
There are some French Noir novels using transgender
characters, not transvestites. Often the character is really
secondary, but there's one in which the male to female
transgender is an important character of the story; I do not
think it was ever translated: Title: PIANO BARJO (1983) -pure
play of words, could be equivalent to
"Piano Crazy" or to mimic the play of word: "Piano Parano"- a
novel by Tito Topin, taking place in the Marocco of the
fifties when a significant amount of French people were still
living there. The transgender is a singer/ dancer in a very
lousy bar where the central character plays piano. He/she is
in love with the piano player... which makes a secondary plot
expanding and mixing with the main one. Atypical, noir, very
violent during some parts, the whole thing is soaked in a
very dark humor and lot of cynicism.
Tito Topin made a string of very interesting noir novels,
some with the humor vein taking the leading, but all of them
always very inventive, atypical and full of black humor.
Topin was the script writer of a very successful police
serial for the French TV ("Navarro"), and this made him stop
-during the end of the eighties- his noir novels writing.
Unfortunately.
There are probably some other French novels to be listed to
answer Mark's request, but that's the one I immediately
remembered.
E.Borgers HARD-BOILED MYSTERIES http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
POLAR NOIR http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
>This raises a question -- are there any transgender
protagonists (not
>just walk-ons) in noir or hardboiled lit? I'm aware
of plenty of gay
>and lesbian (I've often wondered why lesbian has to
be added -- isn't
>gay gender neutral?) protagonists, but no
transgendered. I bet a pretty
>interesting book could be done from such an outsider
perspective.
>
>Mark
>
>
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Oct 2005 EST