BOOK NEWS: Subversion of convention in Irish noir fiction

Finders: Justice, Faith, and Identity in Irish Crime Fiction

BY ANJILI BABBAR

Syracuse UP, 2023

ISBN: 9780815611578

https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/5582/finders/

Some of the most iconic, hard-boiled Irish detectives in fiction insist that they are not detectives at all. Hailing from a region with a cultural history of mistrust in the criminal justice system, Irish crime writers resist many of the stereotypical devices of the genre. These writers have adroitly carved out their own individual narratives to weave firsthand perspectives of history, politics, violence, and changes in the economic and social climate together with characters who have richly detailed experiences.

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Recognizing this achievement among Irish crime writers, Babbar shines a light on how Irish noir has established a new approach to a longstanding genre. Beginning with Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor, who rejects the detective title in favor of “finder”—a reference to Saint Anthony of Padua in the context of a traditionally secular form—Babbar examines the ways Irish authors, including John Connolly, Tana French, Alex Barclay, Adrian McKinty, Brian McGilloway, Claire McGowan, Gerard Brennan, Stuart Neville, Steve Cavanagh, and Eoin McNamee, subvert convention to reclaim their stories from a number of powerful influences: Revivalism, genre snobbery, cultural literary standards, and colonialism. These writers assert their heritage while also assuming a vital role in creating a broader vision of justice.

"Babbar's rigorous, serious, and insightful Finders is the most comprehensive study into the exciting phenomenon of Northern Irish crime fiction. A must-read for literary scholars and the casual fan of the most explosive sub genre of Celtic Noir."—Adrian McKinty, author of The Chain

"This is an astonishing achievement. . . . Historically rich and geographically expansive, Babbar’s study, in smooth, erudite prose, casts an astute eye over the complexities and distinctiveness of Irish crime fiction."—Andrew Pepper, Queen’s University Belfast

"Babbar provides a wonderfully comprehensive survey of the major authors in the contemporary Irish noir field. She accomplishes a minor miracle in synthesizing so many texts in an interesting, provocative, and engaging way."—Andrew Kincaid, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

"Babbar’s hopeful readings broaden the critical lens in distinctive and valuable ways by exploring Irish crime fiction’s acute insights about the thorniest matters of community faith and self."—Brian Cliff, coeditor of Guilt Rules All: Irish Mystery, Detective, and Crime Fiction

Anjili Babbar is associate professor of English at the Community College of Baltimore County. She has published on topics ranging from Irish crime fiction to representations of Irish folklore in popular culture.

Book News: Misdirection in Noir film and fiction

Noir Fiction and Film: Diversions and Misdirections

BY LEE CLARK MITCHELL

Oxford UP, 2022

ISBN: 9780192844767

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/noir-fiction-and-film-9780192844767?cc=us&lang=en&#

The argument of Noir Fiction and Film is curiously counterintuitive: that in a century of hard-boiled fiction and detective films, characteristics that at first seemed trivial swelled in importance, flourishing into crucial aspects of the genre. Among these are aimless descriptions of people and places irrelevant to plot, along with detectives consisting of little more than sparkling dialogue and flippant attitudes. What weaves together such features, however, seems to be a paradox: that a genre rooted in solving a mystery, structured around the gathering of clues, must do so by misdirecting our attention, even withholding information we think we need to generate the suspense we also desire. Yet successful noir stories and films enhance that suspense through passing diversions (descriptive details and eccentric perspectives) rather than depending on the center pieces of plot alone (suspected motives or incriminating traces). 

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

As the greatest practitioners of the genre have realized, the "how" of detective fiction (its stylistic detours) draws us in more insistently than the "what" or the "who" (its linear advance). And the achievement of recent film noir is to make that "how" become the tantalizing object of our entire attention, shorn of any pretense of reading for the plot, immersing us in the diversionary delight that has animated the genre from the beginning.

Lee Clark Mitchell is Holmes Professor of Belles-Lettres at Princeton University, where he has served as Chair of the English Department and Director of the Program in American Studies. He teaches courses in American literature and film, with recent essays focusing on Cormac McCarthy, John Williams, the Coen brothers, and Edith Wharton. His recent books include Mere Reading: The Poetics of Wonder in Modern American Novels (Bloomsbury, 2017), Late Westerns: The Persistence of a Genre (Nebraska, 2018), and More Time: Contemporary Short Stories and Late Styles (Oxford, 2018).