Crime novels :  American noir of the 1950s.  [print] 
 American noir of the 1950s 

 - New York :  Library of America :  (c)1997.  Distributed to the trade in the U.S. by Penguin Books USA,  (c)1997. 
 - 892 pages ;  21 cm. 
 - The library of America ;  95 .
 - Library of America ;  95. .
<br/><br/> "Robert Polito selected the contents and wrote the notes for this volume"--5th preliminary pages. 
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<br/><br/>The killer inside me  The talented Mr. Ripley  Pick-up  Down there  The real cool killers  Jim Thompson --  Patricia Highsmith --  Charles Willeford --  David Goodis --  Chester Himes. 
<br/><br/> This adventurous volume, with its companion devoted to the 1930s and 40s, presents a rich vein of modern American writing too often neglected in mainstream literary histories. Evolving out of the terse and violent hardboiled style of the pulp magazines, noir fiction expanded over the decades into a varied and innovative body of writing. Tapping deep roots in the American literary imagination, the novels in this volume explore themes of crime, guilt, deception, obsessive passion, murder, and the disintegrating psyche. With visionary and often subversive force, they create a dark and violent mythology out of the most commonplace elements of modern life. The raw power of their vernacular style has profoundly influenced contemporary American culture and writing. Far from formulaic, they are ambitious works which bend the rules of genre fiction to their often experimental purposes. 
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<br/><br/><label>ISBN: </label>9781883011499 
<br/><br/><label>LCCN: </label>97002487 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Noir fiction, American.<br/>Detective and mystery stories, American.<br/>American fiction--20th century.<br/>Detective and mystery stories.
<br/><br/><label>LC Class. No.: </label>PS648 PS648.C929.C756 1997