LARB Digital eDitions #40: Noir

October 201543 pages

LARB Digital eDitions #40: Noir

The contours of “noir” are difficult to define. On the one hand, noir might describe the subject matter of certain authors: Dorothy Hughes, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes, to name a few. On the other hand, noir is a visual style, a chapter in film history, and a cinematic language of its own, one so alluring we continue to dress up our crime fictions – film, television, video games, and comics – in its worn, baggy clothes, for better or for worse. (I’m looking at you, True Detective Season 2.) The works reviewed here stretch the definition of “noir” even further, and for the better.