Women Crime Writers
Even the whitest of picket fences can hide a twisting darkness. And that very pressure could itself serve as one of the most complex themes of noir — that of dreams deferred and decisions made with extreme regret.
20th Century
20th Century works were written between 1900 and 1999.
These books are the ones most current readers will recognized. The modern novel has been fully developed and fiction has been separated into categories and genre. The 20th century is the root of recent history. It includes events such as suffrage, World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War.
Beginning with the Edwardian Era and the Modernist movement, these years explore experiments with form and structure. Post-War and Interwar fiction is often featured in reviews.
If you’re looking for post-modernism, structuralism, post-structuralism, post-post-modernism, or any very recent movement, you will find those listed under contemporary works.
You are viewing 20th Century reviews.
You can view all other eras/movements, or you can search by language/region, genre, editor/translator, book authors, or year of edition.
Crime Novels: Thrillers from the 1960s Part 2
As the 1960s began to fade into the 1970s, noir took a fascinating and complex turn. It wasn’t enough to just be about a crime — now it was about being relevant to the current moment.
Crime Novels: Thrillers from the 1960s Part 1
Readers begin to ask the question — what happens when your job is crime? What happens when people decide to make money ‘the easy way’?
Crime Novels American Noir of the 1950s
Here we are moving away from looming dread of war and toward the disillusionment of what was waiting for those that returned from overseas.
Crime Novels of the 1930s and 1940s
For July, I’m going to take a deep dive into American crime noir novels from the 1930s to 1960s, give them a bit of context, and maybe mention a film or two along the way.
The Only Problem
While The Only Problem thankfully took a lot less time to read than Anna Hastings, I didn’t like it all that much. On the whole, I found it a novel that was just very un-Muriel-Spark.
Anna Hastings
It actually is a mean-spirited and sexist statement about women in traditionally male roles, positing that when women are working, they are inherently not fulfilling their assigned role in society and apparently everything crumbles around them.
Eve’s Hollywood
A collection of shorter pieces, and longer prose, all of the writing is connected by Babitz’s love for Southern California’s most famous city and its environs.
Free Love & Reminiscences of a Student’s Life
This week I’m going to review two McNally selections from earlier this year, both of which are delightful non-fiction reads that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen off the shelf.
Ex-Wife
Patricia is not broken by her divorce; instead, she uses it as opportunity to live life on her terms and to determine what it is she wants out of herself and out of a partner. She is a complex character that has a lot to say and also displays a range of emotions that are sometimes contradictory in a very human way.