Twentieth- Century Crime Fiction

Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction This page intentionally left blank Twentieth- Century Crime Fiction Lee Horsley Lancaster University 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Lee Horsley The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published All rights reserved. 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Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk Preface The aim of this book is to enhance understanding of one of the most popular forms of genre fiction by examining a wide variety of the detective and crime fiction produced in twentieth-century Britain and America. The popular market for such literature continues to expand, and the number of university courses devoted to studying the genre has been steadily increasing. This study will, it is hoped, be of interest to anyone who enjoys reading crime fiction. It is also, however, designed with the needs of academic courses in mind. In any course on genre fiction, it is important to give students a broad sense both of generic development and of the ways in which different theoretical approaches (for example, formalist, historicist, psycho- analytic, postcolonial, feminist) are of relevance to the reading of popular fiction. Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction is a critical text that could be used to supplement a range of crime fiction courses, whether the structure of the course brings to the fore historical con- texts, ideological shifts, the emergence of sub-genres, or the applica- tion of critical theories. Forty-seven texts are chosen for detailed discussion. These are widely available stories and novels, all of which lend themselves to detailed analysis and to the discussion of the wider issues that arise in the study of crime fiction. In seeking to illuminate the relationship between different phases of generic development the study employs an overlapping historical framework, with sections doubling back chronologically in order to explore the extent to which successive developments have their roots within the earlier phases of crime writing, as well as responding in complex ways to the preoccupations and anxieties of their own eras. The first part of the study considers the nature and evolution of the main sub-genres of crime fiction: the classic and hard-boiled strands of detective fiction, the non-investigative crime novel (centred on transgressors or victims), and the ‘mixed’ form of the police pro- cedural. It looks closely at the culturally specific factors that shaped each form and at the contradictory ways of reading these traditions. So, for example, the alleged conservatism of the classic detective story is examined in the light of interpretations which stress its indeterminacy and its capacity to subvert as well as to contain; the vi | preface patriarchal fantasies of control associated with the hard-boiled trad- ition are set against its resistance to authoritative discourse and the evolving representations of ‘tough’ masculinity. Amongst the main writers discussed are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, James Sallis, Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, James Ellroy, and Patricia Cornwell. The focus in the second half of the study is on the ways in which writers have used crime fiction as a vehicle for socio-political critique. These chapters consider the evolution of committed, oppositional strategies. Analysing the work of writers like Carl Hiaasen, Bret Easton Ellis, Iain Banks, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Mike Phillips, Barbara Neely, Charlotte Carter, Mary Wings, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, and Helen Zahavi, they trace the development of politicized detective and crime fiction, from Depression-era protests against economic injustice to more recent decades, during which the genre has been adapted for a wide variety of purposes, with writers launch- ing protests, for example, against a complacent conformist ethos, commodification and commercialism, ecological crimes, racism, and sexism. The two final chapters centre on black and feminist appropri- ations of a genre frequently identified with predominantly white het- erosexual male values and roles. Chapter asks what distinguishes black writers’ adaptations of detective fiction and the tough thriller, which, with its depiction of character as a product of social condi- tions and its use of the viewpoint of the outsider as a way of exposing the failures of the dominant society, has been readily appropriated as a means of protest against racial oppression and exclusion. Turning to ‘regendering the genre’, Chapter focuses on female-authored novels, particularly those creating female protagonists. Approaching this fiction within the context established in earlier sections of the study, it examines the implications of texts that create female trans- gressor and victim protagonists; more centrally, it aims to clarify the ways in which the figure of the detective has been reworked to bring sexual politics to the fore, challenging patriarchal authority and reformulating gender definitions. Acknowledgements The completion of this study has been made possible by the generos- ity of the Arts and Humanities Research Board in giving me an award under the AHRB Research Leave Scheme. I am also grateful to the University of Lancaster for the extension of my sabbatical period, which has allowed me the time I needed to write this book. In add- ition, I want to thank the Department of English and Creative Writing for the strong support it has given over the last several years to those of us involved in setting up courses on popular literary forms within the department. Having been able to mount courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, I have, for nearly a decade now, had the opportunity to discuss crime literature with some of the most enthusiastic students I have ever taught. During the past few years, the work of the best of these students has also made possible the creation of a website, www.crimeculture.com, dedicated to the academic study of crime fiction and film. Their essays on a wide range of topics are central to the site, and their lively insights have added considerably to my own enjoyment and understanding of crime fiction. Special thanks are due to three of my Ph.D. students, Jem Aziz, Sinead Boyd, and Paul Ferguson, all of whom have given me new ideas about popular literature and film. I am additionally grateful to Sinead and Paul for their willingness to read draft chapters of this study and for their many valuable suggestions. By stepping in to help with the teaching of my crime courses, they made it possible for these to run during my sabbatical year, a task to which several of my colleagues also contributed: I particularly want to thank David Law, Andrew Tate, Michael Greaney, and Jayne Steel, not just for keeping the courses going during my absence but for making my time in the Department so enjoyable when I am there. The friendship and advice of many other colleagues, both at Lancaster and elsewhere, have helped me greatly in this project. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Richard Dutton, whose encouragement and suggestions about my research proposal were invaluable, as was the help of Patrick O’Malley and Eamonn Hughes. The advice of Fiona Kinnear, the Oxford University Press editor who commissioned viii | acknowledgements this study, was of crucial importance at the planning stage. During the time I have been writing the book, I have benefited enormously from my e-friendship with Allan Guthrie, who founded www.- pulporiginals.com with me and whose knowledge of literary noir has been a constantly useful resource. I am also grateful to the far-flung group of people whose contributions to the crimeculture website have stimulated my own interest in many facets of crime fiction and film––particularly to Roger Westcombe, Philippa Gates, Vicky Munro, Stacy Gillis, and Christopher Pittard. As always, my greatest debt is to my family: to Tony Horsley for his thoughtful and sharp-eyed reading of the book in draft form; to my sons, Daniel and Samuel, whose interest and support have sustained me; and to Katharine Horsley, co-author of three papers that contributed very directly to this study, assiduous reader of drafts, and collaborator in present and future crime literature projects. Sadly, our future collaborations will not be centred in the house we have occu- pied for a quarter of a century, which is scheduled to fall to develop- ers before the end of : this book is in memory of our house and all it has contained.

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