The Best American Noir of the Century

The first thing we usually talk about when we talk about noir is what is it? I belong to a Facebook group on film noir and much of the discussion is whether a particular film is noir or not. Most of the time I have a "I know it when I see it" attitude about it, but film noir should concern both a crime and a protagonist of dubious morality, who is destroyed by his greed, a woman, or both. They should not have happy endings.

The term was coined by a French critic in 1946 to characterize Hollywood crime dramas that were influenced by German expressionism, especially the use of shadows and chiaroscuro. The makers of these films had no idea that they were making anything called "noir."

Noir has, by extension, become a category of literature, and again, there were noir stories before there was a word for it. James Ellroy, a crackerjack noir writer himself, and Otto Penzler, who owns the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, teamed up to compile a huge book called The Best American Noir of the Century. This title is a little misleading, as it covers 84 years, from 1923 to 2007. The stories are in chronological order, but are heavily weighted to the present.

So what do Ellroy and Penzler consider noir? Penzler divorces the private eye story from noir: "Noir works...are existential, pessimistic tales about people...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 private detective story is a different matter entirely. Raymond Chandler famously likened the private eye to a knight, a man who could walk mean streets but not himself be mean, and this is true of the overwhelming majority of those heroic figures." Thus, this collection has no Chandler, no Dashiell Hammet, or Ross McDonald. Instead they are stories that make you rethink your love the humanity. As Penzler closes his foreword, "If you find light and hilarity in these pages, I strongly recommend a visit to a mental health professional."

I honestly didn't dislike any of the stories in this collection, though some are much better than others. The collection kicks off with "Spurs," by Tod Robbins, which was the basis for Tod Browning's film Freaks. Other early stories are by James M. Cain, McKinlay Kantor ("Gun Crazy," the basis for the groundbreaking film), Mickey Spillane, David Goodis, Evan Hunter, and Jim Thompson. Giddis' story, "Professional Man," is one of my favorites, about a cold-blooded hit man who is ordered to whack his own girlfriend. Another favorite is "Texas City, 1947," by James Lee Burke, about some boys, an errant father, and a mean stepmother.

Harlan Ellison contributes "sci-fi noir" with "Mefisto in Onyx," about a man who can jump into other's people's minds, and James Crumley writes a particularly nasty story called "Hot Springs," in which a man runs off with the very young wife of a hillbilly crime boss. I also especially liked "Poachers," by Tom Franklin, about a couple of brothers who live in the swamp and the game warden who tries to catch them.

Among the later stories are pieces by Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jeffrey Deaver. Andrew Klavan writes a story redolent with S&M that his own agent wouldn't try to sell ("Her Lord and Master") and Chris Adrian has "Stab," a disturbing story about a young boy who tags along with a girl who has a passion for killing neighborhood pets. Thomas H. Cook writes a story ("What She Offered") about perhaps the ultimate femme fatale, a woman who offers a suicide pact to the man she picks up in a bar. It contains some quintessential noir prose:

"To black, she offered one concession. A string of small white pearls. Everything else, the hat, the dress, the stockings, the shoes, the little purse...everything else was black.  And so, what she offered at that first glimpse was just the old B movie stereotype of the dangerous woman, the broad-billed that discreetly covers one eye, high heels tapping on rain-slicked streets, foreign currency in the small black purse. She offered the spy, the murderess, the lure of a secret past, and, of course, that little hint of erotic peril."

Noir is easily parodied, as Garrison Keillor has done for years, but when it is done right, it escapes the bounds of parody and shakes the heart. For any fan of the genre, this volume is a must.