Reprints from Centipede

Centipede Press of Lakewood, Colo. offers beautiful reprints of classic novels including many noir titles. Cornell Woolrich, Paul Cain and other authors are featured.   The Centipede website says,

“Crime fiction – in particular, the hard-boiled roman noir – has a special place in American literature. We offer a small but growing selection of classic crime novels from some of the most respected names in the genre, including David Goodis, Fredric Brown and Jim Thompson. All of our crime titles feature new introductions by prominent writers in the genre. And nearly every book has bonus features, such as original paperback cover art, one or two bonus short stories or essays, and other goodies.”

http://www.centipedepress.com/books.html

 

Good definition

Writing in the introduction to Night Has 1000 Eyes by Cornell Woolrich, Francis M. Nevins defines noir this way:

“…the kind of bleak, disillusioned study in the poetry of terror that flourished in American mystery fiction during the 1930s and 1940s and in American crime movies during the forties and fifties. The hallmarks of the noir style are fear, guilt and loneliness, breakdown and despair, sexual obsession and social corruption, a sense that the world is controlled by malignant forces preying on us, a rejection of happy endings and a preference for resolutions heavy with doom, but always redeemed by a breathtakingly vivid poetry of word (if the work was a novel or story) or image (if it was a movie).”

 

Cornell Woolrich video

Here’s a two and a half minute video tribute to Cornell Woolrich. The short program includes photos, covers of his books and posters from movies made from his novels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fgQCNGtB-M

 

Dark beginning

This book site, Biblioklept, has an article on neo noir novels and a video clip of the first scene of the Orson Welles-directed film, “Touch of Evil.” This is a noir beginning to match any film in the genre. http://biblioklept.org/2010/04/13/in-brief-new-and-not-so-new-noir-novels/

 

Who are the new noir writers?

Flavorwire lists what it says are “10 essential neo-noir authors.” http://flavorwire.com/388913/10-essential-neo-noir-authors/