RARA-AVIS: Daniel Woodrell on "Noir"

From: Michael S. Chong (menglish47@yahoo.com)
Date: 30 Jan 2009

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    "I just brought noir back to town, man. Both sides of that story do exist, the unbelievably generous and kind smalltown stuff happens two doors down from the shotgun shack and the woman who sells her twelve year old daughter for ten bucks a throw. I focused on the noir. Not to start a fracas, but hardly anything in books or films that others call noir would pass muster as noir by my indices----a saxophone, a blonde and an unfiltered cigarette do not make a thing noir. Pure noir is a direct bastard child of Greek Tragedy, a bastard child that was raised by the bunch that would have it, that being gutterbound underbelly proseteers and their disciples. Such novels are among the few places to encounter the POV of the underclass expressed as if to other underclass folk-that is to say as truthfully as can be. I am as proud to be considered related to them (I mean, Thompson, Cain, Edward Anderson, Charles Williams, Kromer, James Ross, LeSieur, Goodis and the
     rest) as I am to any of the sanctified names."

    From an interview posted at http://www.breaktech.net/emergingwritersforum/View_Interview.aspx?id=18

    Michael

          

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