Synopses & Reviews
Thrilling, absorbing, and full of bizarre plot twists and motivations, the roman noir is crime fiction at its most exciting. In this lively introduction to the post-war French roman noir, Claire Gorrara challenges preconceptions about the roman noir as little more than a populist form of crime fiction and examines how selected writers have appropriated it as a critical response to formative concerns and debates in post-war French society.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [128]-132) and index.
About the Author
Claire Gorrara is Senior Lecturer in French at Cardiff University. She is author of
French Women's Writing and the Occupation in Post-1968 France (Macmillan, 1998) and co-editor of
European Memories of the Second World War (Berghahn, 1998) and
France Since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts (Arnold, forthcoming 2003).
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Origins and beginnings: Lo Malet's 120, rue de la Gare (1943)
2. Criminal Intentions: Film Noir and Les Diabioliques (1955)
3. Counter-Cultural Politics: Jean-Patrick Manchette's Le Petit Bleu de la cte ouest (1976)
4. Historical investigations: Didier Daenickx's Meurtres pour mmoire (1984)
5. Telling Tales: Daniel Pennac's La Fe Carabine (1987)
6. Feminist fictions: Maud Tabachnik's Un t pourri (1994)
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index