The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir

by Megan E. Abbott

This book considers a recurrent figure in American literature: the solitary white man moving through urban space. The descendent of 19th-century frontier and western heroes, the figure reemerges in 1930s-’50s America as the “tough guy.” The Street Was Mine looks to the tough guy in the works of hardboiled novelists Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) and James M. Cain (Double Indemnity) and their popular film noir adaptations. Focusing on the way he negotiates racial and gender “otherness,” this study argues that the tough guy embodies the promise of an impervious white masculinity amidst the turmoil of the Depression through the beginnings of the Cold War. The book concludes with an analysis of Chester Himes, whose Harlem crime novels (For Love of Imabelle) unleash a ferocious revisionary critique of the tough guy tradition.

Genres: Noir, Nonfiction, Film, History, Gender, Mystery, American

246 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2002

About the author

Megan E. Abbott is Assistant Professor of English at State University of New York-Oswego.

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just from the introductory chapter it is easy to see why Abbott's fiction is so good. This is surely a repurposing of her PhD dissertation and is scrupulously researched and clearly and forcefully argued. (I'd read this before but had forgotten how small the type is in this hardcover edition: it must be 6pt, which makes reading excruciatingly hard even for the nearsighted!) Also clearly a product of the late 20th century literary criticism milieu with a heavy dose of psychoanalytic (Freud, Lacan, and both of them filtered through Siszek), feminist, Others, and deconstructionist readings of Cain and Chandler novels. These types of critical analyses always send me back to the source novels because invariably the response is: "are we reading the same books?" Abbott's reading are clearly supported by the texts, but as with the case with most criticism, it is easy to cherry pick to support just about any reading you want.

Abbott's thesis at the simplest level is that Cain and Chandler's protagonists reflect white male anxieties. Not controversial at all. One could argue, if one was a mind to, however, over a wide number of her detailed arguments.

[Zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really excellent study of masculinity in noir and hard-boiled fiction. Abbott finds that the uncertainty and anxiety in this kind of detective fiction is watered down in the movie versions, but there is still a nagging doubt over the role of men in these texts and how far they conform to patrirachal norms. There is some fascinating discussion of noir heroes and femme fatales in classic noir movies, as well as some illuminating commentary on neo-noir films, especially near the end where Abbott talks about Polanski's "Chinatown".

[Astria]

This is $100+ dollars & not available at the library or as part of the TX catalog. Looks like I'd have to contact a university to figure out how to get a hold of a copy. Will check WorldCat when I'm ready to read it.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astute analysis

[Kristopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interestingly, the woman who wrote this critical work on hardboiled fiction (and film noir, as the title recounts) is also a rising star in noir-revivalism (I guess that's what I'd call it). I've not read any of those books (Die a Little, Queenpin, Song is You), but she's been highly praised by the likes of James Ellroy and has won an Edgar award for Queenpin, after a nomination for Die a Little. When I have time, I'll check her out. For now, I can recommend this work as a focused appraisal of the work of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, and Chester Himes and their reflection of white male anxiety in the mid-twentieth century. It's a little lacking in full attention on these authors' complete works, but it's a very interesting thesis, and holds quite a bit of merit.

[L.M. Elm · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic analysis of what made the men, men, and women fatale in hard-broiled fiction from the 1930s-1950s. A bit dry at times and her over analysis of the material forced me to read the book in small sections. I couldn't digest everything Abbout threw at me all at once.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but writing too academic. Suppose that was the point, but not for me.