Adrian Turpin
Goons, Guns, and Women
From Elmore Leonard to Cormac McCarthy, noir fiction and its cinematic spin-offs have seldom been as popular as today, prompting a small army of cultural commentators to seek explanations for the genre’s success. Is it the clear-cut gender roles we crave? Maybe the appeal can be found in its rough-and-ready codes of honour and revenge, fictional comforts in an era of less black-and-white values? Or perhaps noir holds up a mirror to a culture of barely restrained individualism?
Whatever the answer (and it may be all or none of the above), with Nobody Move Denis Johnson needs no highfalutin excuse for escaping into a world of goons, guns, and women who shoot from both hip and lip. The Idaho-based writer’s last novel, the kaleidoscopic Vietnam War
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'What they created in the neighbourhood resembled more a distillation of the High German culture of their past than a fresh start.'
@GeorgeProchnik tells the story of the German–Jewish intellectuals who settled in Jerusalem in the early 20th century.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/vienna-by-temple-mount
'Good translation is ... a refined art. It requires not just excellent language skills, but experience, emotional intelligence and enterprise as well.'
@Bridget_Kendall on how interpreters navigate the 'perilous waters of diplomacy'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/to-put-it-diplomatically
'Being an ambitious female artist working in the avant-garde was far from easy. Her art ... was found variously to be feminine, cold and artisanal'.
@TanyaHarrod on @EleanorClaytone's 'finely written study' of Barbara Hepworth.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-carved-her-own-way