The Resource Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann
Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann
Resource Information
The item Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries.This item is available to borrow from 1 library branch.
Resource Information
The item Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries.
This item is available to borrow from 1 library branch.
- Summary
-
- In Gumshoe America Sean McCann offers a bold new account of the hard-boiled crime story and its literary and political significance. Illuminating a previously unnoticed set of concerns at the heart of the fiction, he contends that mid-twentieth-century American crime writers used the genre to confront and wrestle with many of the paradoxes and disappointments of New Deal liberalism. For these authors, the same contradictions inherent in liberal democracy were present within the changing literary marketplace of the mid-twentieth-century United States: the competing claims of the elite versus the popular, the demands of market capitalism versus conceptions of quality, and the individual versus a homogenized society
- Gumshoe America traces the way those problems surfaced in hard-boiled crime fiction from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning by using a forum on the Ku Klux Klan in the pulp magazine Black Mask to describe both the economic and political culture of pulp fiction in the early twenties, McCann locates the origins of the hard-boiled crime story in the genre's conflict with the racist antiliberalism prominent at the time. Turning his focus to Dashiell Hammett's career, McCann shows how Hammett's writings in the late 1920s and early 1930s moved detective fiction away from its founding fables of social compact to the cultural alienation triggered by a burgeoning administrative state. He then examines how Raymond Chandler's fiction, unlike Hammett's, idealized sentimental fraternity, echoing the communitarian appeals of the late New Deal. Two of the first crime writers to publish original fiction in paperback -- Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford -- are examined next injuxtaposition to the popularity enjoyed by their contemporaries Mickey Spillane and Ross Macdonald. The stories of the former two, claims McCann, portray the decline of the New Deal and the emergence of the rights-based liberalism of the postwar years and reveal new attitudes toward government: individual alienation, frustration with bureaucratic institutions, and dissatisfaction with the growing vision of America as a meritocracy. Before concluding, McCann turns to the work of Chester Himes, who, in producing revolutionary hard-boiled novels, used the genre to explore the changing political significance of race that accompanied the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s and the 1960s
- Combining a striking reinterpretation of the hard-boiled crime story with a fresh view of the political complications and cultural legacies of the New Deal, Gumshoe America will interest students and fans of the genre, and scholars of American history, culture, and government
- Language
- eng
- Extent
- viii, 370 pages
- Contents
-
- Uncivil society: hard-boiled crime fiction and the idea of a democratic culture
- "Mystic rigmarole": Dashiell Hammett and the realist critique of liberalism
- The pulp writer as vanishing American: Raymond Chandler's decentralist imagination
- Letdown artists: paperback noir and the procedural republic
- Tangibles: Chester Himes and the slow death of new deal populism
- Conclusion: Beyond us, yet ourselves
- Isbn
- 9780822325802
- Label
- Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism
- Title
- Gumshoe America
- Title remainder
- hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism
- Statement of responsibility
- Sean McCann
- Subject
-
- Crime in literature
- Criticism, interpretation, etc
- Detective and mystery stories, American -- History and criticism
- History
- Liberalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- New Deal, 1933-1939
- Noir fiction, American -- History and criticism
- Political fiction, American -- History and criticism
- Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
- Language
- eng
- Summary
-
- In Gumshoe America Sean McCann offers a bold new account of the hard-boiled crime story and its literary and political significance. Illuminating a previously unnoticed set of concerns at the heart of the fiction, he contends that mid-twentieth-century American crime writers used the genre to confront and wrestle with many of the paradoxes and disappointments of New Deal liberalism. For these authors, the same contradictions inherent in liberal democracy were present within the changing literary marketplace of the mid-twentieth-century United States: the competing claims of the elite versus the popular, the demands of market capitalism versus conceptions of quality, and the individual versus a homogenized society
- Gumshoe America traces the way those problems surfaced in hard-boiled crime fiction from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning by using a forum on the Ku Klux Klan in the pulp magazine Black Mask to describe both the economic and political culture of pulp fiction in the early twenties, McCann locates the origins of the hard-boiled crime story in the genre's conflict with the racist antiliberalism prominent at the time. Turning his focus to Dashiell Hammett's career, McCann shows how Hammett's writings in the late 1920s and early 1930s moved detective fiction away from its founding fables of social compact to the cultural alienation triggered by a burgeoning administrative state. He then examines how Raymond Chandler's fiction, unlike Hammett's, idealized sentimental fraternity, echoing the communitarian appeals of the late New Deal. Two of the first crime writers to publish original fiction in paperback -- Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford -- are examined next injuxtaposition to the popularity enjoyed by their contemporaries Mickey Spillane and Ross Macdonald. The stories of the former two, claims McCann, portray the decline of the New Deal and the emergence of the rights-based liberalism of the postwar years and reveal new attitudes toward government: individual alienation, frustration with bureaucratic institutions, and dissatisfaction with the growing vision of America as a meritocracy. Before concluding, McCann turns to the work of Chester Himes, who, in producing revolutionary hard-boiled novels, used the genre to explore the changing political significance of race that accompanied the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s and the 1960s
- Combining a striking reinterpretation of the hard-boiled crime story with a fresh view of the political complications and cultural legacies of the New Deal, Gumshoe America will interest students and fans of the genre, and scholars of American history, culture, and government
- Cataloging source
- DLC
- http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
- McCann, Sean
- Dewey number
- 813/.087209358
- Index
- index present
- LC call number
- PS374.D4
- LC item number
- M38 2000
- Literary form
- non fiction
- Nature of contents
- bibliography
- Series statement
- New Americanists
- http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
-
- Detective and mystery stories, American
- Politics and literature
- American fiction
- Liberalism
- Political fiction, American
- Noir fiction, American
- New Deal, 1933-1939
- Crime in literature
- Label
- Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann
- Bibliography note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [349]-364) and index
- Carrier category
- volume
- Carrier category code
-
- nc
- Carrier MARC source
- rdacarrier
- Content category
- text
- Content type code
-
- txt
- Content type MARC source
- rdacontent
- Contents
- Uncivil society: hard-boiled crime fiction and the idea of a democratic culture -- "Mystic rigmarole": Dashiell Hammett and the realist critique of liberalism -- The pulp writer as vanishing American: Raymond Chandler's decentralist imagination -- Letdown artists: paperback noir and the procedural republic -- Tangibles: Chester Himes and the slow death of new deal populism -- Conclusion: Beyond us, yet ourselves
- Control code
- 44868842
- Dimensions
- 24 cm
- Extent
- viii, 370 pages
- Isbn
- 9780822325802
- Isbn Type
- (cloth)
- Lccn
- 00010992
- Media category
- unmediated
- Media MARC source
- rdamedia
- Media type code
-
- n
- Label
- Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann
- Bibliography note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [349]-364) and index
- Carrier category
- volume
- Carrier category code
-
- nc
- Carrier MARC source
- rdacarrier
- Content category
- text
- Content type code
-
- txt
- Content type MARC source
- rdacontent
- Contents
- Uncivil society: hard-boiled crime fiction and the idea of a democratic culture -- "Mystic rigmarole": Dashiell Hammett and the realist critique of liberalism -- The pulp writer as vanishing American: Raymond Chandler's decentralist imagination -- Letdown artists: paperback noir and the procedural republic -- Tangibles: Chester Himes and the slow death of new deal populism -- Conclusion: Beyond us, yet ourselves
- Control code
- 44868842
- Dimensions
- 24 cm
- Extent
- viii, 370 pages
- Isbn
- 9780822325802
- Isbn Type
- (cloth)
- Lccn
- 00010992
- Media category
- unmediated
- Media MARC source
- rdamedia
- Media type code
-
- n
Subject
- Crime in literature
- Criticism, interpretation, etc
- Detective and mystery stories, American -- History and criticism
- History
- Liberalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- New Deal, 1933-1939
- Noir fiction, American -- History and criticism
- Political fiction, American -- History and criticism
- Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
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<div class="citation" vocab="http://schema.org/"><i class="fa fa-external-link-square fa-fw"></i> Data from <span resource="http://link.library.missouri.edu/portal/Gumshoe-America--hard-boiled-crime-fiction-and/WHV6UMpRAU8/" typeof="Book http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/Item"><span property="name http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/label"><a href="http://link.library.missouri.edu/portal/Gumshoe-America--hard-boiled-crime-fiction-and/WHV6UMpRAU8/">Gumshoe America : hard-boiled crime fiction and the rise and fall of New Deal liberalism, Sean McCann</a></span> - <span property="potentialAction" typeOf="OrganizeAction"><span property="agent" typeof="LibrarySystem http://library.link/vocab/LibrarySystem" resource="http://link.library.missouri.edu/"><span property="name http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/label"><a property="url" href="http://link.library.missouri.edu/">University of Missouri Libraries</a></span></span></span></span></div>
