NOIR FICTION - TEXAS NOIR STYLE

What Is Noir Fiction?


Roman Noir is French for black novel. The term was originally used by French critics in the 18th century to describe British Gothic novels, but by the 1930s it had acquired a new meaning, and was being used to describe American hardboiled thrillers. The French applied the term broadly--French literary scholar Jean-Jacques Schleret states:

"For the French historians and critics, the "roman noir" is the hardboiled genre...the roman noir begins with the stories of John Carroll Daly, Dashiell Hammett and all the Black Mask writers of the 20's and the 30's, continues with the second generation (the paperback writers, Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, Day Keene, Charles Williams, Jim Thompson...) to the 90's (Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, Thomas Harris). "

Most Americans first became aware of the term "noir" in reference to the film style. Film critics Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg imported the term from France in 1968, where it had been applied to certain American movies from the 1940s by the French critic Nino Frank.

In 1984 author and editor Barry Gifford founded Black Lizard Books, and started the line with reprints of three Jim Thompson novels: The Getaway, Pop. 1280, and A Hell of a Woman. Gifford wrote a preface for these books that introduced Americans to the term noir as a literary concept. He wrote "The French seem to appreciate best Thompson's brand of terror. Roman noir, literally "black novel," is a term reserved especially for novelists such as Thompson, Cornell Woolrich and David Goodis."

Black Lizard books went on to reprint more titles by Thompson, as well as long out-of-print classics by David Goodis, Peter Rabe, Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe, Charles Williams and Lionel White. This led to a rediscovery and new appreciation of the roman noir in America.