Electronic book text | |
April 1, 2008 | |
9780801889387 | |
English | |
304 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$28.00 USD, £20.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
September 12, 2008 | |
9780801890802 | |
English | |
304 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
.9 Pounds (US) | |
.9 Pounds (US) | |
$28.00 USD, £20.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Unless the Threat of Death Is Behind Them
Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir
Tracing the stylistic development of the genre, Irwin demonstrates the particular influence of the novel of manners, especially the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He goes on to argue that, from the time of World War II, when hard-boiled fiction began to appear on the screen in film noir just as women entered the workforce in large numbers, many of its themes came to extend to female empowerment. Finally, he discusses how these themes persist in contemporary dramatic series on television, representing the conflicted lives of Americans into the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Reviews
"Irwin gracefully and successfully accomplishes the critic's most worthy task—to return us happily to the scene of the crime."—Patrick O'Donnell, Modernism/Modernity
"Stimulating . . . Irwin's psychoanalytic criticism offers subtle readings of the novels, their adaptations, and of the relations between these texts and their authors' lives."—Brian Diemert, Journal of Popular Culture
"Persuasively locates the development of noir out of the quintessentially American genre of hard-boiled detective fiction."—Thomas Hibbs, Books and Culture
"John Irwin is a great original as an American poet-critic. Each new book by him—whether poetry or prose—delights and surprises me, in the mode of a Borgesian essay-fiction or a Kafkan parable, but expanded into the exegetical sublime. Hard-boiled fiction and film noir have found their most illuminating critic in Irwin."—Harold Bloom
"Irwin's analysis of five American crime novels from the Thirties and Forties and his insightful discussion of the 'noir' films based on them cast new light on the qualities of these 'hard-boiled' classics. The surprising affinities he uncovers that link these works with other examples of American 'main-line' fiction will surely increase the reader's perception of the inherent seriousness at the heart of these genre entertainments."—Donald A. Yates, editor and translator of Latin Blood: The Best Crime Stories from Spanish America
The Johns Hopkins University Press | |
|
|
|
|
Electronic book text | |
April 1, 2008 | |
9780801889387 | |
English | |
304 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$28.00 USD, £20.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Paperback / softback | |
September 12, 2008 | |
9780801890802 | |
English | |
304 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
.9 Pounds (US) | |
.9 Pounds (US) | |
$28.00 USD, £20.50 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by John T. Irwin
The Poetry of Weldon Kees
American Hieroglyphics
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Fiction
Other Titles in LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General
Silas House
Remainders of the American Century
Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy
Other Titles in Literature: history & criticism
The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume 7
Before the Raj
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Volume 50