What are you reading?

[Armitage]

Just read Thomas Renzi's book Cornell Woolrich: From Pulp Noir to Film Noir, which restarted my noir obsession and led me here. I've been a Woolrich fan since discovering him through Ron Goulart's article on him in Twilight Zone circa 1985 or so, and there are a lot of filmed versions of his work I've never seen. Trying to catch up.

Now reading Woolrich's The Doom Stone. Not exactly typical Woolrich.

[cigar joe]

Just finished a compilation of Hard Boiled fiction

[dlhartzog]

The Noir Forties, the American People from Victory to Cold War, by Richard Lingeman, deals with political and cultural changes brought about by the exigencies of war, and has a great deal to say about how film noirs reflect this. In attempting to explain what americans lived, dreamed and thought about during this period, he discusses a number of film noirs in some detail throughout the book. He believes that it is during this period that we lost our sense of unity and turned to greedy materialism. Its a pretty interesting book.

[Nighthawk]

The Noir Forties, the American People from Victory to Cold War, by Richard Lingeman, deals with political and cultural changes brought about by the exigencies of war, and has a great deal to say about how film noirs reflect this. In attempting to explain what americans lived, dreamed and thought about during this period, he discusses a number of film noirs in some detail throughout the book. He believes that it is during this period that we lost our sense of unity and turned to greedy materialism. Its a pretty interesting book.

Thanks for posting this. I'm going to check it out.

[cigar joe]

A Question for any Dashiell Hammett scholars, I've recently read a compilation of Hard Boiled fiction that contained a short Dashiell Hammett story titled "Corkscrew", it's basically the basis for the Continental Op novel "Red Harvest".

Now "Corkscrew" has a wealth of descriptive detail i.e., interior and exterior, whereas "Red Harvest" which was based on Hammett's stint as a Pinkerton Detective in the Butte-Anaconda-Walkerville area of Montana is practically devoid of any descriptive detail, interior or exterior, in arguably the most notorious city in the inter-mountain West. It had a huge polyglot population, and supposedly the largest Chinatown between Seattle and New York, and you never ever get a flavor for this from the novel at all.

So my question is, did Hammett's original manuscript for "Red Harvest" have more references and descriptions to the Butte-Anaconda-Walkerville area and were these references and descriptions expurgated (by his editors) to mask its setting so as to create anonymous any where city, or did he just change his style?

[Calenture]

So my question is, did Hammett's original manuscript for "Red Harvest" have more references and descriptions to the Butte-Anaconda-Walkerville area and were these references and descriptions expurgated (by his editors) to mask its setting so as to create anonymous any where city, or did he just change his style?

I have to say straight away that I'm not a Hammett scholar as I've only read two of the man's novels, so can't properly reply; but your question did distract me from my original reason for reading this thread, instead sending me web browsing. Possibly you'll be interested in one or two things I found:

The quote below comes from a New York Times review of Hammett's collection Nightmare Town

Indeed, the reader need only compare the stories in this volume with the first-draft chapters of ''The Thin Man'' included at the volume's end to see how the novel form liberated Hammett's storytelling gifts: ''The Thin Man'' material (which would be revised considerably before it was published as the novel featuring Nick Charles) is suspenseful and acutely observed; in sharp contrast to the stories, it never feels rushed or contrived.

Because they all suffer from compression, because they all share a similar structure, stories as disparate as ''House Dick'' (about three dead men found in a hotel room), ''Zigzags of Treachery'' (about a duplicitous doctor and his double), ''The Assistant Murderer'' (about a woman who is set up as a murderer by a pair of grifters) and ''One Hour'' (about an apparent hit-and-run accident) all end up feeling depressingly similar. At the same time, their explanatory endings (reminiscent of the clunky conclusion to the Hitchcock movie ''Psycho'') suggest that terrible crimes can always be ''solved,'' that actions all have motivations, that loose ends can eventually be tied up. Like the more traditional English mysteries that Hammett disdained, these stories suggest a far less threatening, far more rational world than Hammett delivered in his finest work.

I also thought interesting Mike Grost's comments on Hammett's plots at this link

Red Harvest

Red Harvest (1927) is a set of four linked stories, all telling a common story of corruption in a Montana mining town. The boundaries between the tales are disguised in the book publication of the work. But each story has its own puzzle plot, which comes to its own ingenious, surprise solution. Readers of the book will get more pleasure from the work, if they are aware of its structural features, and follow the different puzzle plots. Each quarter of the book comes to its own separate climax. The four sections are Chapters 1 - 7, 8 - 14, 15 - 20, and 20 - 27. Chapter 20 forms both an end to the third story, and the beginning to the fourth. The linked story series has a long and honorable tradition in mystery and science fiction. Although academic critics are obsessed with the novel, the linked story sequence has many artistic advantages over the novel proper, especially the ability to squeeze far more plots into one book. The plots can be told straightforwardly, at their natural length short story length, and with no padding. Such books can display the virtues of inventiveness and artistic economy.

Your question and the comments I've found have encouraged me to finally start reading The Glass Key, which I've repeatedly put off over the years because the mention of the book's political content has always left me feeling somehow inadequate to reading it!

Somewhere in all the browsing I did read that Red Harvest was found in a slush pile by a female editor (Nell Something? Sorry!) who liked it and returned it for revisions which Hammett completed in 8 days - the details regrettably not provided.

[dlhartzog]

Peter Gunn, a novel by Henry Kane, based on the PI series that ran from 1959-1961. Its actually pretty good. Kane had his own PI series of novels. Also just started a new biography of Raymond Chandler by Tom Williams, published in the UK but will likely turn up over here. Its well written and informative.

[dlhartzog]

Day Keene, Dead Dolls Dont Talk, 1959, from Stark House Press, who publish lots of noir fiction.

[cigar joe]

I like Day Keene ;-)

[spress]

Just finished Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand and Hell & Gone by Duane Swierczynski while on the train between Chicago & Albuquerque and back. Both of those are the 2nd in a series; looking forward to the thirds. Almost done with Nightmare Town (Dashiell Hammett short stories). About start Ariel S. Winter's The Twenty-Year Death.

[Guy Savage]

Just finished Ken Bruen's A White Arrest: dark, sordid hard-boiled. Great stuff

[AnitaDime]

Reading "Booze, boats, and billions: smuggling liquid gold" - Wow, what an exciting read about the real rum runners on Lake Ontario. Historical photos and maps (gotta love a book with maps)

"New York Noir: crime photos from the Daily News archive" - again, the real deal - black & whites, mobsters, cars, dames, and blood - lots of blood

[dlhartzog]

For hardboiled noir, there's the recently released American Death Songs, available from Amazon and B&N, short stories about losers and lowlifes, from prison yards to the backwoods, getting and giving the double shuffle. Dark and convincing stuff.

[waltermcwilliams]

Film Noir Reader and The Gods of Mars

[Bob]

I have also heard good things about the Noir 40s book by Lingeman from someone whose opinion I trust. I have the Biesen book BLACKOUT on the top of my pile to read, along with Jim Dawson's book about Bunker Hill and noir. A few months ago I read Willeford's PICK-UP, about as low down and pulpy as it gets (which is a good thing), and just finished Patrick Hamilton's HANGOVER SQUARE, which I thought was sensational. It's totally different in tone than the film, which shouldn't be a surprise. By the end of it I didn't know whether to stand and cheer, or cry, for George Harvey Bone. Currently delving into Eric Foner's THE FIERY TRIAL. There is nothing like going back to reading about the Civil War era and getting away from noir fiction for a while.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the giant FILM NOIR BIBLE by someone called Wampa 12. Perverse, snarky and idiosyncratic to the max, but it does make you re-think some conventional wisdom. In that sense, it’s a nice corrective to some of the stuff that Silver and Ursini have done (like Noir Directors and LA Noir), which seems like they are just ”mailing it in.”

[Night Editor]

All of Pete Dexter:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/content...rsion/1632126/

[dlhartzog]

The Chess Men, 2013, Peter May, Tartan noir, dark and moody.

[dlhartzog]

In Jenny Milchman's excellent, noirish Cover of Snow, Nora alone investigates the suicide of her policeman husband in a small town north of Troy in Franklin County, NY. Snow and ice substitute for rain and fog, nothing and no one are what they seem, paranoia, conspiracy, murder, and crimes out of the past are the order of the day. Reminiscent of Ross MacDonald, atmospheric, moody.

[spress]

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. A great source novel for a great film. The protagonist, Ree Dolly, (played by the ultra-talented Jennifer Lawrence in the movie) is an amazing, yet completely genuine human being. I have been honored in my professional life to have a known a few young women who have had to fight similar battles with their own families while keeping intact their sense of who they are.

[mkhand]

Listening to NPR-Fresh Air interview with tv-reporter forner NY Times reporter Charlie LeDuff about his book on Detroit
he read a section and this is a guy who can really turn a phrase and could easily be writing hardboiled noir fiction!