Gumshoe America - Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism

"The secret history of American crime fiction doubles back to the 1920s and 1930s American left. The noir novelists of Sean McCann's shrewd and disturbing "Gumshoe America "devised a fierce, experimental pop-Modernism, an intransigent anti-popular strain within popular culture. McCann writes passionately, argumentatively, authoritatively, alert to both accomplishment and loss. Probably no prior study of American crime fiction is more entangled in the claims and contradictions of community, race, class, and politics."--Robert Polito, author of "Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson "

Sommario

Acknowledgments vii

Uncivil Society: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Idea of a Democratic Culture 1

1. Constructing Race Williams: The Klan and the Making of Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction 39

2. "Mystic Rigmarole": Dashiell Hammett and the Realist Critique of Liberalism 87

3. The Pulp Writer as Vanishing American: Raymond Chandler's Decentralist Imagination 140

4. Letdown Artists: Paperback Noir and the Procedural Republic 198

5. Tangibles: Chester Himes and the Slow Death of New Deal Populism 251

Conclusion: Beyond Us, Yet Ourselves 306

Notes 309

Bibliography 349

Index 365

Info autore

Sean McCann

Riassunto

Offers an account of the hard-boiled crime story and its literary and political significance. Illuminating a set of concerns at the heart of the fiction, this title contends that mid-twentieth-century American crime writers used the genre to confront and wrestle with many of the paradoxes and disappointments of New Deal liberalism.

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Mccann, Sean Mccann, Sean McCann
• Editore: Duke University Press
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 06.12.2000
• EAN: 9780822325802
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-2580-2
• Pagine: 384
• Peso: 875 g
• Serie: New Americanists; New Americanists
• Categorie: Scienze sociali, diritto, economia > Sociologia > Opere generiche, enciclopedie; Scienze umane, arte, musica > Scienze linguistiche e letterarie > Letteratura generale e comparata; Englisch, 20. Jahrhundert (1900 bis 1999 n. Chr.), Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, USA, Amerikanische Geschichte, Kulturwissenschaften, Geschichte allgemein und Weltgeschichte, Politik und Staat