Truth in Advertising: The Deception of Noir

One of the more interesting subdivisions of the writing world is the relationship between literary fiction and genre fiction (e.g., noir).  As a writer trying to straddle the two, if with a more sympathetic foot on the darker side of the street (or as Paul W. might say, with "one foot in the door, the other foot in the gutter...), I've discovered the presentation and promotion of both camps can be a bit deceptive. Kinda like Greenland vs. Iceland.

For those of you who are (like I) geographically challenged, that's Greenland on the left, the one covered with a fuckton of ice, looking about as hospitable as a summer's day on Hoth.  In one of the first examples of tourist duping, early settlers, attempting to lure workers to the snow-covered wasteland, came up with the idea of calling it"Greenland." (Ironically, Iceland [pictured on the right], is mostly green, but got saddled with the shittier island name.  Apparently only two names were left in the hat.)

I didn't start out intending to write one brand of fiction or the other.  In an early writing class I took after getting straight, the professor remarked that my voice betrayed a certain "hardboiled" edge.   Which I found remarkable.

"How weird!" I said.  "Because I read a lot of hardboiled authors."

Well, no shit, Joe.  That's how it works.  You are what you read (which is why, even though I haven't read the book in a few years, there is an undeniable Catcher in the Rye tone to my blog posts.  That's what you get when you read one goddamn book 6,432 times, ya phony bastards).

I soon learned that hardboiled/noir constitutes "genre," a five-letter dirty word in the writing world, and that if you wanted to be taken seriously, you needed to steer clear.  Fucking with genre is like fucking with venereal disease; you'll never shake its stigma.  I wanted to be taken seriously because I was still delusional enough to believe I'd have a legacy.  Seems crazy now, but I'd just gotten sober and my head was stuck pretty high in those pink clouds.  I was so much older than the other students, but with real world experience from which to mine; the (mostly self-imposed) standards were erected pretty goddamn high.

When I received an offer to study at Florida International University for my MFA, I found, by chance/luck/fate, that I'd ended up at a school deeply immersed in the mystery tradition, of which noir is a subset (or maybe it's the other way around). Department director Les Standiford's an accomplished mystery writer with several novels to his name, and Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) earned his Master's there. James W. Hall also taught in the program (not that he could pick me out of a line up of one), and my thesis advisor, Lynne Barrett, had spent a lot of time dissecting the inner-workings of mystery and suspense.  As a result, I started writing more noir and less literary fiction.  And I started having a lot more fun.  All the stodgy, overbearing themes and insufferable morality plays about sons who can't speak to their fathers over holiday dinner went out of the shattered bathroom window.  In its place were the wonderful criminals, the wounded and broken hearted, the morally bankrupt castoffs and fuck-ups who still try to do the right thing, even when all evidence points to the contrary.  Which made sense beyond just the fact that this is what I liked to read.  It's also the world I'd been living in for the past tent years.

This wouldn't even be worth remarking upon if there didn't exist such a chasm between the two schools.  I still write literary fiction, but I have to say, by and large, the purveyors of literary fiction tend to be pompous douches.  I know I am running the risk of over generalizing, and it's a big fucking field.  But I have been to one too many pretentious parties where "craft" is discussed as nauseum over plates of  over-rated cheeses.  I remember this one particular get-together at the AWP, a small gathering, where everyone (but me) had a fellowship, and they all wrote this brand of fiction, or poetry, all in the same uppity vein, and soon as you walked in the room, you felt drenched in the phoniness, the front of it all.  All one needs is a little validation to bring out their inner dick.  And, yeah, there was envy on my part, and I'm not saying they were bad people, and I'm certainly not saying they weren't good writers.  Still, little kindness or generosity emanated from that room.

Which is where I draw the biggest distinction between what separates the two camps, which ends up being fairly ironical.  Noir is a world populated by unsavory types doing unspeakable things, and its writers create hellish landscapes, where characters backstab, murder, and dismember (and not necessarily in that order), but in real life, the authors who write this stuff tend to be real sweethearts.

From David Corbett to Thuglit editor Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson, to the good folks over at Shotgun Honey, the noir/hardboiled/mystery community has been nothing but generous and supportive.  Go to any one of the sites that house my noir shorts and look at the comment sections.  You won't find a remotely negative comment.  For any story.  Just all these hardasses taking the time out to religiously read one another's efforts and prop each other up.

It's funny.  When you think about literary fiction, the works upon which critical acclaim is heaped--let's take, say, Infinite Jest by lit fic darling David Foster Wallace--even if you actual read that and pretend to have enjoyed it, you can't exactly use words like "like."  It's an experience, a masterpiece, a whatthefuckever, but I tried reading that shit and it bored me senseless.  Maybe I'm not that bright. But I'll take Jim Thompson over Don DeLillo any day.

The truth is I like a lot of literary fiction, including DeLillo, whose White Noise mesmerized me.  For the first half.  Until I just sorta...lost...interest.  I didn't put it down, or rather not pick it back up, because it wasn't good.  I kinda forgot about it. Which never happens with Charles Willeford, or David Goodis, or Day Keene.  I think one of the reasons I didn't read much in high school was the books they assigned.  I know the guy has his fans, but I can't stand Dickens.  Every year, they tried to cram that whimsical crap down my throat.  And I wouldn't bite.  (When I was finally forced [in grad school] to read David Copperfield, I felt justified in my prejudice.  Fuck David Copperfield.  Guy finally gets to exact his revenge against his tormentor, and what's he do?  He slaps him.  Not punches.  Slaps.  What a fancy pants dandy.) High school English teachers don't assign Stephen King, who is a brilliant, funny, amazing writer.  I'm not going to say he's better or worse than whomever, but reading King is something you enjoy, whereas so much of literary fiction feels like work.

No point in apologizing, really.  In the end, it's a matter of taste, I suppose.  Given my druthers, I'd prefer not to use expression like "given my druthers"; I prefer the cheap and lurid.  I like the lowlife.  I want the visceral grittiness of pulp, to share in the bond among the lowest common denominator.  I feel like I am among my own kind there.  And if you can get past the tattoos and criminal record, you'll find that the people are really nice. Plus I like books that have a plot.

Krazy Kuzins

Yesterday, I had a story taken by the very cool Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers (http://tinyurl.com/3qubgfu).  You may recognize the piece, "The Exterminator," and that's because it was just published by the equally excellent Thunderdome just two months ago (http://tinyurl.com/4ykwj7u).  Normally this isn't allowed in the fast-paced, financially lucrative world of e-zines.  Most of you who read this are writers as well so you know the drill.  Those of you who don't, I won't bore you with the mind-numbing, generally humiliating (and rarely satisfying) process of packaging up the work you obsess and sweat over and love like a precious lisped child with a learning disability, and sending it off to nameless grad student rejects, who may or may not even read past the opening sentence (conversely, I won't tell you what it was like what I was a grad student star [literary magazine editor] and I had to slog my way through all the crappy, shoddy, lazily written stories and cloying, pretentious erudite poetry, which I may or may not have read past the opening sentence.  Perception is 9/10ths of the law).  Quick version is you finish a story, pick 5 - 10 places to send it off to, which is called "simultaneous submitting." When you're starting off, you're told 10% acceptance rate is good.  Five years into this shit, I am right at 10%.  (Which means I've received a total of about $200, 10 complimentary copies, and a couple dozen links to slather across my social media empire).  If one magazine takes your story (and or poem, if you write that shit), you write to all the other magazines and tell them to please remove your particular piece "from consideration as it has been accepted elsewhere for publication, Thank you." Which I did with "The Exterminator."  But Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers didn't get my withdrawal request, and accepted the story for publication, putting it up on their site, which was slightly problematic, since when Thunderdome took the story in July, they "bought" first North American publishing rights, which means exclusivity for six months before it can be published elsewhere.  Furthermore, most publications don't want reprints, meaning if you're story has been published somewhere else, it's off the board.  Fortunately for me, both Thunderdome and TKC have awesome, totally cool editors, and we worked it out where I get to have "The Exterminator" up at both places.  And since this particular piece might be my best short story to date, it's nice to have the added exposure.

There'd be no reason to post this process, the detailing of which, admittedly, doesn't make the most high octane prose, except that, as a lifelong pessimist (which has earned me several unflattering nicknames including, but not limited to, Debbie Downer, Joe Dismal, and Fuckhead), I try to, in this new blessed life of mine, accentuate the positive when I can.  Every grey cloud and rainbows or some shit. See, yesterday was the first time this happened, where I withdrew a story from a magazine, which in turn accepted that same story.  What usually happens is this: you get a story taken, send out the withdrawals, and then the magazines you withdrew from still send you a rejection anyway.  Might not seem like such a big deal, but the exchange rate is already lousy, the how good you feel for an acceptance paling in comparison to the devastation of the rejection letters, further compounded by the fact that "good" is getting one out of every ten pieces taken, all of which translates to feeling like shit most of the time.  So when you are enjoying that brief .05% respite, getting a rejection letter for a piece you already told them not to consider anymore sucks ten-fold, like getting turned down by a homely girl you only asked out because you felt sorry for her and her stupid horny glasses, crooked teeth and big feet in the first place (goddamn you, Margaret Turdwerth!).


(On the other side of this delightful coin, when I was an editor, sometimes when a writer sent in a withdrawal because their lame-ass story was accepted elsewhere, I'd still send out a rejection letter for the fuck of it, maybe even two if that writer was named "Chad."  I had a strict "No Chad" policy.  Real simple.  You're named Chad, I ain't publishing you.)


So you can see how yesterday was kinda special.  Additionally, I was also told I'd been selected for a couple print editions, one of which was an outright solicitation. All of which added up to a solid, nearly fifteen minutes of professional satisfaction for Joe.


My brief revelry was soon thwarted, however, by Krazy Kuzins.  If you don't have kids (and unless your name is Matt or Angela, I don't really have any friends who do), you might not have experienced the Guantanamo-esque horror of this..."kid-friendly hip-hip," four words that should never be strung together.  But KK is on Toddler Tunes, which means I am subjected to... 


Actually, words pale.  Let's just close with a little Krazy Kuzins and "Boys vs. Girls" (in honor of Maggie Turdwerth).

Noir

Having hit a wall with the memoir, I've convinced Michele (agent) that we should focus all our efforts on my other book, the Lone Palm, a noir novel set in an alternate, darker San Francisco.  This isn't the first time I've put the LP out there, which though technically written after Junkie Love was the first book I tried getting published after grad school.  Of course, I didn't have an agent then, didn't know what the hell I was doing, and if you've read any of my query fail posts (http://tinyurl.com/3uebf9r), you'll see why I don't feel as though I beat that horse sufficiently.  I won't bore you with the rewrite process, which is probably tantamount to all my drummer friends who get wet just thinking about Terry Bozzio's drum clinic demonstrations with seven bass pedals and fourteen different time sigs: a methodology of interest to practitioners alone, and a complete fucking bore to everyone else.  But let me say, I've always thought the Lone Palm had a better shot at being my first publication, because it's the more commercial of the two.  Not that it's flawless, but I think the flaws can be remedied.  Which is what I've been doing all weekend, trying to eliminated any lingering antiquated language that harkens too much back to Chandler (the first couple drafts were too derivative in terms of its vernacular), highlighting more the love story, fleshing out some of the female characters, etc.

Noir is where my future is.  It's what I love reading.  It's what I want to write.  And while its seemed for a while all anyone wanted was my non-fiction (drug) stuff, lately it's the noir short stories that are getting taken, and noir is where I hope my star is rising.

All of which begs the question, am I delusional?  Probably.  But the bigger question is what exactly constitutes "noir"?  And the simple answer is, Who the fuck knows? Noir used to be this:

Which is a fan recut trailer I lazily pulled off YouTube from a movie called Detour. I first saw Detour one year during the Roxie's annual Film Noir Festival.  Blew me away, and has remained my favorite true film noir.  Of course, that is classifying my definition of "film noir," which is another virtually usually term given over to myriad interpretations.  When Inception came out last year, it was labeled "neo-noir," because apparently "piece of shit crapfest with gaping plot holes, shoddy writing, and complete waste of Joe's fucking time" didn't win over focus groups. Still you can't fault the filmmakers.  OK, in this case you can fault the filmmakers. But you can understand why they used the noir tag, because there's been a goddamn renaissance when it comes to the term.  Or maybe it never went away.

Technically, noir just comes from the French word for black (see, Esther, told you I know French).  So by that definition, a movie like The Dark Knight is noir (and since I don't want it to seem like I don't love Christopher Nolan, I can't heap enough praise on this, and his other very noirish--and one of the most perfectly paced and skillfully crafted films you'll ever see--the excellent Memento.  But Inception is awful; don't try defending it, Ron).

This isn't a scholarly blog.  In fact, it's decidedly anti-scholarly.  There are countless articles and books out there that attempt to define both the word and allure of noir. There isn't enough space--well, there is enough space, because the Internet never ends, but there isn't enough time for me to delve into what actually constitutes "noir."  Because Holden is a terror (more than usual) today, and furthermore, I've never come across anything definitive that makes the venture seem prudent (i.e., I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about).

Plus, I don't write for the pictures (at least not yet), and when it comes to...literature, the word is even more muddled.  Unless you hang out where I've been hanging out lately, with a decidedly fucked-up bunch of writers at sites like Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Dirty Noir, Flash Fiction Offensive, et al, and following all the great writers it comprises.  There, noir is simple: it's fucked up people doing fucked up things. It's lowlifes and thugs, petty crooks and bank robbers, it's duplicitous pretty women and broken dreams.  Or to save time, it's like the title from a book by one of our LSW readers Friday: blood, guns, whores.  Noir a worldview, a disposition, an outlook and lifestyle.  It's notan, an existence defined by the negative, the absence.  Yet, in the best of noir there is the flash of hope, the possibility that something better exists, or why else keep trying?  You just ain't getting there.

Hell, if you want the best noir novel I've ever read, pick up Jim Thompson's After Dark My Sweet.  Maybe it'll help you define the word better than I can.  And even if it doesn't, you get a helluva read.

Shotgun Honey

Just went up this morning--please read it.  It won't take long.  It's 700 words. 


http://www.shotgunhoney.net/2011/08/one-good-reason-by-joe-clifford.html.  
Shotgun Honey has fast become my new favorite ezine (taking the place of my dearly beloved Thuglit, which is on indefinite hiatus).  SH is a little different, though, all flash noir, 700 words or less. Which is challenging to say the least. It's run by Kent Gowran, Ron Earl Phillips, and Sabrina Ogden.  This magazine was actually the first (after the "Dancing: A Love Story in Five Parts" experiment [http://monkeybicycle.net/dancing-a-love-story-in-five-parts/]--but Monkeybicycle would be the sweet, sensitive little brother to Shotgun's abusive uncle who drinks too much and likes to shoot squirrels and shit from his trailer window) where I implemented my new strategy of actually reading these magazines before submitting, which, as you know if you follow this blog, has worked like a fucking charm.  And the real winner here was me, because Shotgun Honey is terrific, fast, in-your-face, kick-ass crime noir fiction, like a bullet to the brain, in under a minute or two.  Scroll down the right hand side (after you read my story, of course), and you'll see a who's who in the current world of noir, from Allan Guthrie (http://criminal-e.blogspot.com/), to Keith Rawson (http://www.crimefactoryzine.com/main/Home.html), to Thuglit's editor Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson (http://thuglit.com/), with a lot of great noir writers in between.  So today, instead of having you read my ranting and bitching about how the world has done me wrong (in between my tender musings on my son and blissful life of redemption), I urge you to check out Shotgun Honey (http://www.shotgunhoney.net/) and these writers.  I promise you won't be disappointed.   And if you don't like a particular story, stick around.  Like an Elvis Costello song, another will be along in a few minutes. (But you'll like the stories.  Unless you are a tender li'l guy [or gal] who is easily offended and put off by blood, guns, hot chicks, and people doing very bad things.  Bit if you were, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog. You'd be Nicholas Sparks.  And you don't have to do that. I've already done that for you (http://tinyurl.com/3m49wbw).

The Exterminator

A new short story of mine, "The Exterminator," just went up on a cool new e-zine, Thunderdome.  It is available here:  http://tinyurl.com/4x7l4wd.  I am normally reluctant to shill...oh, who the fuck am I kidding?  This whole blog is devoting to whoring and self-promotion.  This particular story means a great deal to me, since it is the first new thing I had written in a year, the one that got me out of the writingblockfunk I was in.  Which is why I now pimp extra hard.  I'd really appreciate if y'all could read, comment upon, repost on your various social networking sites, have your moms share it with her book group, whatever.  Besides the obvious ego fodder, I have a chance to get this in their print edition, a sort of "Best Of" anthology.  So the more reads, the more (positive) comments on the Thunderdome site, the better aided my cause.  Again, here's the site:

http://thundadome.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=110:the-exterminator&Itemid=56

Click, read, comment.  Hell, you can skip the second part.  Just say something nice, and I will send you either A.) one hot dog, or B.) a dollar.  Your choice.

Much appreciated!