Crime Fiction, S/D

"too writerly" and self-consciously serious... imo

No, I can totally see this! There's a clash: between the human intelligence and heft of his writing and the cliches of the genre and all that entails. It's difficult not to wince in places.

I love film noir, read a lot of crime comics, but somehow in literature this stuff always takes a backseat for me, which is a shame as I'm sure there's plenty I'd adore. So to ring in Noirvember I'm gonna try to read one novel per week. Current line-up:

A Rage In Harlem, Chester Himes
Pop 1280, Jim Thompson
In A Lonely Place, Dorothy B. Hughes
A Leonardo Sciascia tbd

But I might have some train rides coming up as well so I prob could knock off another couple for those.

Sciascia is an interesting choice! I didn't love "Day Of The Owl" but I think I lacked a lot of context at the time I read it and would enjoy it more now. I loved "The Moro Affair" though that's more in the true crime arena. All those other three are A+ classics imo.

Daniel, re: comics -- have you read Stray Bullets? Best American comic imo, crime or otherwise.

Charles Willeford’s work is astounding. Pick-Up might have the greatest twist/gut punch ending I’ve ever encountered

Regarding Thompson, Pop. 1280 is absolutely hysterical

A Leonardo Sciascia tbd

Just so you know, Sciascia is far from the 'hard-boiled' genre so don't expect that. I'd recommend To Each His Own as the one I most enjoyed.

Sciascia is an interesting choice! I didn't love "Day Of The Owl" but I think I lacked a lot of context at the time I read it and would enjoy it more now. I loved "The Moro Affair" though that's more in the true crime arena.

I watched the movie version of Day Of The Owl the other day and it struck me how even though it's nowhere near film noir in its formal aspects - sunny Italian vistas, zero expressionism, no nighttime or rainy alleys - it v much epitomizes the noir worldview to me: society corrupt to the core, everyone is compromised, twists and turns, a protagonist who has no actual idea of what's going on and will not emerge victorious. Franco Nero, who plays the inspector, is obv perfect for that kind of role. Paradoxically this kind of bleak fatalist worldview is like comfort food for me - I once had a FAP conversation with user Tom D where I referred to Le Carré as "cozy" and he was understandably baffled by the suggestion but somehow to me it is.

Daniel, re: comics -- have you read Stray Bullets? Best American comic imo, crime or otherwise.

I have not! A friend of mine was big into it in the 00's though, need to check it out. The Brubaker/Philips team crank out pretty good hard boiled comics on the regular, if you haven't checked them out. Also really love the work of Jacques Tardi adapting French noir novelists.

3/4ths into the Himes: surprised that Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson play such a small role, and are afaict entirely unsympathetic - poor halpless Jackson and his crossdressing con artist twin Goldy elicit much more fondness. It's pretty damn full on I gotta say, with the extreme violence and everyone out for #1. I loved the scene with Jackson and the panhandler, the closest thing so far to solidarity.

I've also been playing Baldur's Gate 3 and while you wouldn't think there's any parallels there: the characters in the Himes novel only occasionally have guns, so there's a lot of hand to hand combat, much of it chaotic in a very d&d fashion; one fight takes place in a basement (dungeon!); and ppl get knocked out and recover at different times (saving throws!).

Yeah, the Day of the Owl movie is Film Soleil rather than Film Noir

tbf so is Point Blank!

To Each His Own is a great novel, and it ends on quite the note, both in terms of how the story ultimately concludes, and in terms of the implied behavior of secondary characters. i appreciate a take on the mafia which is almost entirely on the outside looking in, from the perspective of a civilian who is naive to the full extent of their evil. i like a good counterpoint to the usual; for example i enjoy a lot of the recent mafia/camorra shows from italy but the protagonists of almost all of them are so vile and the shows are so devoid of humor and indulging in such pitch-black tone that it can be p draining.

new James Ellroy The Enchanters is so good. the vibe is whiskey & dexadrine & no sleep for three days straight

I’m a Marilyn fan and did not expect to enjoy Ellroy’s dyspeptic version of her because, well, it’s Ellroy & it’s going to be gross. but the level of lore he’s woven in is nuts and I have to admit it’s almost classic-Ellroy level good. The amount of research it must have taken to be able to riff like this and resolve 75 plot threads cohesively? highwire shit. Hats off.

That being said I dunno if I could recommend it to anyone who isn’t already an Ellroy diehard. It prob won’t win him any new fans.

*dexedrine

also i read somewhere that Ellroy still writes all of his books longhand

Jordan Harper, She Rides Shotgun - solid B+, kind of feels like a novel cousin of that movie Shot Caller.

I saw a copy of that James Ellroy book at the library today but passed.

I like the Jordan Harper — apparently it was reissued in paperback under the title A Lesson In Violence, which is the edition I have. His kinda-sorta follow-up, The Last King Of California, is also really good.

I just read Tana French's latest, The Hunter, which is a sequel to her previous one. It's really good, and/but there's a character who'll have you literally tapping your foot going "Just fucking die already."

found Lady in the Lake (2019) by Laura Lippman a good read