Thanks for your input Mark...To answer your input and some
others too, I¹d say that Leonard, Lehane/Ellroy are excellent
writers, superb ones sometimes, but they are not innovators
of the genre which is was the original question by
AD...Innovators could be 20 or 80 years old, that doesn¹t
even enter into the picture, but the question originally
asked concerned publications done since about the turn of
this century (if that is a valid boundary?)...and innovators
goes a lot deeper than successful books at the box
office...it has to do with fundamental
transformations/alterations to the genre in terms of style,
voice, locations, subjects, characters, plot lines and it is
directly linked to different conceptions about writing, about
stylistics and what one would call the Œpolitics¹ of the
genre...A prime example is the transformation brought by
people like Manchette in France in the 70¹s (see http://www.domenicstansberry.com/newsletter.htm
for example) and as AD pointed out those brought about by
people like Dantec or others...trends are less formalized (or
simply less Œadvertised¹) here but they do exist and any info
is valuable... I¹m very curious about Sallis and Jack
O¹Connell in that context and would love to know more about
your opinion about them...
Many thanks in advance
Steve Novak
On 3/1/07 6:02 PM, "
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net" <
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> wrote:
> I forget, was the question who has changed noir
writing or who is now
> changing noir writing? While Leonard would certainly
fit into the
> former category, isn't he a bit of an old master for
the latter?
>
> I'd say Ken Bruen certainly fits here. Not meaning
to restart the coat
> tails debate over him again, but one thing that
struck me as odd about
> it was that everyone, even his many defenders,
seemed to place him among
> the old guard. Yes, he is chronologically older than
many of the
> younger generation, and he has written a lot more
books than most of
> them have, but he's done it in just over 10 years.
For instance, most
> would call Jason Starr a member of the new guard,
but his first novel,
> Cold Caller, came out just two years after Bruen's
first published crime
> novel, Rilke on Black.
>
> Two others that I'd definitely say have been doing
new things with noir
> in the last decades or so are James Sallis, both in
his Lew Griffin
> series and in standalones, and Jack O'Connell, who
based his series
> around a city, Quinsigamond, not recurring
characters.
>
> Mark
>
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