Synopses & Reviews
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Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Chester Himes....When the masters of noir fiction moved from the pulps to the mainstream, American literature was changed forever. Here, in two volumes, are the complete texts of eleven of the most brilliant and influential crime novels ever written.
"To be brief, these two volumes constitute the most important collection of crime fiction ever published in the United States. Bar none...a wonderful and lasting gift". — Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene Magazine
Book News Annotation:
Presents six early classics of American noir fiction: James M. Cain's
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Edward Anderson's Thieves Like Us,
Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare
Alley, Cornell Woolrich's I Married a Dead Man, and Horace McCoy's
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. A companion volume collects works of
the 1950s.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Synopsis:
This adventurous volume, with its companion devoted to the 1950s, presents a rich vein of modern American writing too often neglected in mainstream literary histories. Evolving out of the terse and violent hardboiled style of the pulp magazines, noir fiction expanded over the decades into a varied and innovative body of writing. Tapping deep roots in the American literary imagination, the novels in this volume explore themes of crime, guilt, deception, obsessive passion, murder, and the disintegrating psyche. With visionary and often subversive force they create a dark and violent mythology out of the most commonplace elements of modern life. The raw power of their vernacular style has profoundly influenced contemporary American culture and writing. Far from formulaic, they are ambitious works which bend the rules of genre fiction to their often experimental purposes.
Table of Contents
The postman always rings twice / James M. Cain — They shoot horses, don't they / Horace McCoy — Thieves like us / Edward Anderson — The big clock / Kenneth Fearing — Nightmare alley / William Lindsay Gresham — I married a dead man / Cornell Woolrich.
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