Just Finished Reading: Hardboiled America – Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir by Geoffrey O’Brien (FP: 1981/1997) [175pp] 

I was a fan of hardboiled detective fiction long before I read my first book of the genre. I had grown up watching the classic Noir films of the 40’s and 50’s care of my father's love of them. Strangely I actually started reading the novels in my 20’s after I stumbled upon Cyberpunk and the works of William Gibson, specifically the ‘Sprawl Trilogy’ starting off with Neuromancer. The blurb on the back of the book labelled Gibson as the Sci-Fi answer to Raymond Chadler so I felt compelled to check him out. I’m actually amazed at not doing so previously. Films such as The Big Sleep have remained in my Top List for the last 40+ years so it came as no great surprise that I immediately fell in love with the books too. Naturally after Chandler I moved on to James M Cain, Dashiell Hammett and others. Although checking through the hardboiled checklist at the back of this book I see that there are many novels and many authors awaiting to be sampled. 

Regular readers of this Blog will no doubt be aware of my love of pulp fiction covers. One of the delights in this slim volume is the authors attention given to the artists who produced this seemingly endless supply of the iconic artwork as well as numerous examples sprinkled throughout its pages – unfortunately only in black & white but you can’t have everything. Generally, as with the music I enjoy, I know very little indeed about the producers of the fiction I enjoy so much. I’ve never really been interested in the personal lives of authors or musicians (or artists etc..) and would rather enjoy the books, records or movies I like without know anything about them. Part of that is I’m not that interested in other people's lives and I don’t think that knowing if an author is a dog or cat person or how many times they’ve been divorced would enhance my reading pleasure, and to be honest some authors/artists are just not very nice people and I’d just rather not know. That said, I did find some of the authors insights into my favourite noir authors rather illuminating – especially as to what they thought of each other! Raymond Chandler was especially outspoken. 

Overall, this was a highly entertaining and informative read. I do love my Noir in all its forms and this book has inspired me to dive back into the genre. The checklist in the back, running from 1929 to 1960 will certainly help focus my attention and I might even slip in a few books about the phenomena too. Definitely recommended for all Noir fans.