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Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a subgenre of crime fiction.


Definition

In its modern form, noir has come to denote a marked darkness in theme and subject matter, generally featuring a disturbing mixture of sex and violence and death in some cases. While related to and frequently confused with hardboiled detective fiction—due to the regular adaptation of hardboiled detective stories in the
film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarde ...
style—the two are not the same. Both regularly take place against a backdrop of systemic and institutional corruption. However, noir (French for "black") fiction is centred on
protagonists A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
that are either victims, suspects, or perpetrators—often self-destructive. A typical protagonist of noir fiction is forced to deal with a corrupt legal, political or other system, through which the protagonist is either victimized and/or has to victimize others, leading to a lose-lose situation.
Otto Penzler Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Biography Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to The Br ...
argues that the traditional hardboiled detective story and noir story are "diametrically opposed, with mutually exclusive philosophical premises". While the classic hard boiled private detective—as exemplified by the creations of writers such as
Dashiell Hammett Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...
,
Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
and
Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have ...
—may bend or break the law, this is done by a protagonist with meaningful agency in pursuit of justice, and "although not every one of their cases may have a happy conclusion, the hero none the less will emerge with a clean ethical slate." Noir works, on the other hand,
whether films, novels, or short stories, are existential pessimistic tales about people, including (or especially) protagonists who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry. ... The machinations of their relentless lust will cause them to lie, steal, cheat, and even kill as they become more and more entangled in a web from which they cannot possibly extricate themselves.
Author and academic Megan Abbot described the two thus:
Hardboiled is distinct from noir, though they’re often used interchangeably. The common argument is that hardboiled novels are an extension of the wild west and pioneer narratives of the 19th century. The wilderness becomes the city, and the hero is usually a somewhat fallen character, a detective or a cop. At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.

Noir is different. In noir, everyone is fallen, and right and wrong are not clearly defined and maybe not even attainable.
Andrew Pepper, in an essay published in ''The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction'', listed the major thematic commonalities of noir fiction as “the corrosive effects of money, the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, anxieties about masculinity and the bureaucratization of public life, a fascination with the grotesque and a flirtation with, and rejection of,
Freudian psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...
.”
Eddie Duggan Eddie Duggan is a British photographer, film-maker, screenwriter, author and academic games historian. Photography Eddie Duggan's photographs of bands on the burgeoning music scene in 1970s London have been published in both the underground and ...
discusses the distinction between hardboiled and noir fiction, claiming that "psychological instability is the key characteristic of the protagonists of noir writing, if not the key characteristic of the noir writers themselves".
Eddie Duggan Eddie Duggan is a British photographer, film-maker, screenwriter, author and academic games historian. Photography Eddie Duggan's photographs of bands on the burgeoning music scene in 1970s London have been published in both the underground and ...
br>(1999) "Writing in the Darkness: The World of Cornell Woolrich" ''Crime Time'' 2.6 pp. 113–126.
/ref> Similarly, Johnny Temple, founder of
Akashic Books Akashic Books is a Brooklyn-based independent publisher. Akashic Books' collection began with Arthur Nersesian's ''The Fuck Up'' in 1997, and has since expanded to include Dennis Cooper's "Little House on the Bowery" series, Chris Abani's Black ...
, observed that noir fiction tends to be written by "authors whose life circumstances often place them in environments vulnerable to crime."


Origins and later proponents

Beginning with 1940s ''The Bride Wore Black'', author
Cornell Woolrich Cornell George Hopley Woolrich ( ; December 4, 1903 – September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. He sometimes used the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich the ...
wrote a series of six unrelated noir novels with "black" in the title, three of which were adapted for film in the 1940s. The word "noir" was used by the Paris-based publisher Gallimard in 1945 as the title for its ''Série Noire'' crime fiction imprint. In the English-speaking world, the term originated as a cinematic one—
film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarde ...
. This term again first appeared in France, in 1946, though it did not enjoy wide use until the 1970s. Film noir refers to cinematic works based on novels of both the hardboiled and noir traditions, exhibiting realism and postwar disillusionment as influenced by
German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
. James M. Cain is regarded as an American pioneer of the hardboiled and noir genres. Other important early American writers in the noir genre include Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson,
Horace McCoy Horace Stanley McCoy (April 14, 1897 – December 15, 1955) was an American writer whose mostly hardboiled stories took place during the Great Depression. His best-known novel is '' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' (1935), which was made into ...
, and
David Goodis David Loeb Goodis (March 2, 1917 – January 7, 1967) was an American writer of crime fiction noted for his output of short stories and novels in the noir fiction genre. Born in Philadelphia, Goodis alternately resided there and in New York Cit ...
. In the 1950s, Fawcett Books'
Gold Medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have be ...
imprint was instrumental in releasing noir and crime novels from such writers as
Elliott Chaze Lewis Elliott Chaze (November 15, 1915 – November 11, 1990) was an American journalist and novelist. He was known for his crime novels, which have been classified in the noir genre. He won the Fawcett Gold Medal Paperback Award for his third ...
, Charles Williams,
Gil Brewer Gilbert "Gil" Brewer (November 20, 1922 – January 9, 1983) was an American novel and short story author. He was born November 20, 1922, in Canandaigua, New York. After leaving the army at the end of World War II World War I ...
,
Harry Whittington Harry Milner Whittington (March 3, 1927 – February 4, 2023) was an American lawyer, real estate investor, and political figure. He received international media attention following an incident on February 11, 2006, when he was accidentally sh ...
,
Peter Rabe Peter Rabe (born Peter Rabinowitsch, November 3, 1921 – May 20, 1990) was a German American writer who also wrote under the names Marco Malaponte and J. T. MacCargo (though not all of the latter's books were by him). Rabe was the author of ove ...
, and
Lionel White Lionel White (9 July 1905 – 26 December 1985) was an American journalist and crime novelist, several of whose dark, noirish stories were made into films. His books include ''The Snatchers'' (made into a film as ''The Night of the Follow ...
, as well as Goodis and Thompson. In the 1980s, American publisher Black Lizard would re-release many of these works. Today, publisher Akashic Books features an elaborate line of noir short-story anthologies. Prominent European authors of the genre include
Jean-Claude Izzo Jean-Claude Izzo (Marseille 20 June 1945 – Marseille 26 January 2000) was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who achieved sudden fame in the mid-1990s with the publication of his three neo-noir crime novels '' Total Chaos'', ...
and
Massimo Carlotto Massimo Carlotto (born 22 July 1956) is an Italian writer and playwright. Biography The "Carlotto case" Carlotto was at the center of one of the most controversial legal cases in Italian contemporary history. In 1976, a 25-year-old student ...
. According to Italian publisher Sandro Ferri, "Mediterranean noir" is remarkable for its attention to the duality of Mediterranean life:
The prevailing vision in the novels belonging to the genre known as Mediterranean noir is a pessimistic one. Authors and their literary inventions look upon the cities of the Mediterranean and see places that have been broken, battered, and distorted by crime. There is always a kind of dualism that pervades these works. On one hand, there is the Mediterranean lifestyle—fine wine and fine food, friendship, conviviality, solidarity, blue skies and limpid seas—an art of living brought almost to perfection. On the other hand, violence, corruption, greed, and abuses of power.
Of latter-day novelists who write in both the hardboiled and noir modes, the most prominent is
James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, st ...
. Calling noir "the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction", he wrote:
The thrill of noir is the rush of moral forfeit and the abandonment to titillation. The social importance of noir is its grounding in the big themes of race, class, gender, and systemic corruption. The overarching and lasting appeal of noir is that it makes doom fun.


References


Further reading

* Duggan, Eddie (1998)
"Life's a Bitch: Paranoia and Sexuality in the Novels of David Goodis".
''Crime Time''. 2.1: 14–20 – via
Academia.edu Academia.edu is a for-profit open repository of academic articles free to read by visitors. Uploading and downloading is restricted to registered users. Additional features are accessible only as a paid subscription. Since 2016 various social ...
. * * * Gorrara, Claire (2000). "Narratives of Protest and the Roman Noir in Post-1968 France". ''French Studies''. LIV: 313–325. * * Gorrara, Claire (2007). "French Crime Fiction: From ''Genre Mineur'' To ''Patrimoine Culturel''". ''French Studies''. LXI: 209–214. * * * *


External links


"Noir Fiction"
essay on the history of the style, including a selected and annotated list of significant works, by George Tuttle.
FIRN
Annual Festival of Noir Fiction held in
Frontignan Frontignan (; ) is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France. Frontignan is renowned for its AOC wine, the Muscat de Frontignan, a sweet wine made solely from the Muscat grape variety. Geography Frontignan is located in the ...
, France. * List of
Ten Essential Neo-Noir Authors
" by Richard Thomas at Flavorwire. {{Authority control Crime fiction Literary genres Urban society