NOIR. Perhaps it’s the word, noir, the way it slides so decadently and glamorously off the tongue. Because, much as I rack my brains, I can think of very few other reasons for otherwise reasonably talented writers to devote so much time and effort to a genre of fiction that delivers so little.
I am, to be honest, mystified by any fiction that needs to define itself by what it isn’t. Wikipedia tells me what noir isn’t: it isn’t hard boiled, although it is related to it. It isn’t detective fiction, nor police procedure, nor mystery. The hero can’t be an officer of the law.
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- Tags: Cambodia, fiction, Lawrence Osborne, noir