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Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction
Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction aims 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 Britain and America during the twentieth century. It will be of interest to anyone who enjoys reading crime fiction but is specifically designed with the needs of students in mind. It introduces different theoretical approaches to crime fiction (e.g., formalist, historicist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, feminist) and will be a useful supplement to a range of crime fiction courses, whether they focus on historical contexts, ideological shifts, the emergence of sub-genres, or the application of critical theories. Forty-seven widely available stories and novels are chosen for detailed discussion.
In seeking to illuminate the relationship between different phases of generic development Lee Horsley employs an overlapping historical framework, with sections doubling back chronologically in order to explore the extent to which successive transformations 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 the classic and hard-boiled strands of detective fiction, the non-investigative crime novel (centered on transgressors or victims), and the "mixed" form of the police procedural.
The second half of the study examines 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, tracing the development of politicized detective and crime fiction, from Depression-era protests against economic injustice to more recent decades which have seen writers launching protests against ecological crimes, rampant consumerism, Reaganomics, racism, and sexism.
In seeking to illuminate the relationship between different phases of generic development Lee Horsley employs an overlapping historical framework, with sections doubling back chronologically in order to explore the extent to which successive transformations 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 the classic and hard-boiled strands of detective fiction, the non-investigative crime novel (centered on transgressors or victims), and the "mixed" form of the police procedural.
The second half of the study examines 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, tracing the development of politicized detective and crime fiction, from Depression-era protests against economic injustice to more recent decades which have seen writers launching protests against ecological crimes, rampant consumerism, Reaganomics, racism, and sexism.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 12, 2020
She analyzes a number of crime fiction novels (2-3) in each subsection but she doesn't list them in the table of contents, she only lists the subsections? If I tried to submit my thesis like this my supervisor would ask me what's wrong with me.
Anyway. There is no separation between introduction of each subsection and the actual analysis of the novels, which is very confusing. Her analysis is painted with broad brushstrokes for the most part, with a few quotes discussed in depth, so not much consistency.
She quotes a lot from other critics so not much is recoverable from her own mouth.
Anyway. There is no separation between introduction of each subsection and the actual analysis of the novels, which is very confusing. Her analysis is painted with broad brushstrokes for the most part, with a few quotes discussed in depth, so not much consistency.
She quotes a lot from other critics so not much is recoverable from her own mouth.
October 21, 2012
Not something I would read for fun, but relevant reading for one of my detective essays.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews