by William Star Moake

When I was a young man, I tried to write literary fiction, but it wasn't very good and I never got any of it published. At the time I wouldn't touch noir/pulp/detective books with a ten-foot pole. I was an intellectual snob who thought they were beneath me -- inferior writing, not serious "litrachure" and so forth. No Nobel Prize waiting at the end of that sort of writing career.

In retrospect my attitude was rather odd since I had grown up loving old noir films on television and most were based on novels I later held in contempt as a whole genre (without ever reading one example).

Elmore Leonard brought me down off my high horse and turned me into a fallen literary angel when I was middle aged. One day, out of boredom or just for the hell of it, I began reading his novel "Maximum Bob." I couldn't believe my eyes. The writing style was simple, yet strangely engaging -- especially the offbeat dialogue. The story was so bizarrely hilarious I couldn't stop laughing. I had once lived in Palm Beach County and Leonard captured the feel of the place better than any mainstream author I had ever read.

I was hooked. After reading "Kill Shot" and a couple more Leonard novels I borrowed from a friend, I scurried to my local public library looking for other good noir authors like a junkie trying to relive his first rush on heroin. I discovered Jim Thompson, Charles Bukowski and Graham Greene's "entertainments" in quick order. Aside from being a splendidly decadent noir tale, "The Quiet American" was the the most insightful book I ever read about the tragedy of U.S. involvement in Vietnam . Social history and psychology disguised as a noir narrative!

Then I began delving into the classic noir writers. After finishing Hammett's novel "The Maltese Falcon," I had the feeling I had just read the screenplay of the Bogart film practically word for word. I later learned I was virtually right. Director and script writer John Huston had only changed the ending when he had Sam Spade describe the bird as "the stuff that dreams are made of." I'd be willing to bet that Hammett approved of borrowing that phrase from Shakespeare and perhaps kicked himself for not thinking of it before Huston.

Raymond Chandler's books were a revelation. His colorful tortured similes never failed to elicit a chuckle from me, as if he had poked me in the ribs and winked at his own verbal mischief. His plots wandered, but I couldn't have cared less when I read dialogue such as: "Even on Central Avenue , not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food." Who talks like that? No one except a Chandler character and that's exactly what makes it so entertaining as a world within itself.

Chandler led me to Cain, Burnett, Algren, West and other noir writers from the 1930s and 40s. I was like a kid in a candy store, discovering the darkly skewed visions of one author after another. I tried a few of the newest generation of noir writers, but I didn't find them as interesting as the classic authors. Their books were too forensic for my tastes and not as highly stylized. I like my anti-heroes to have cool flaws, not ugly warts or dimestore psychology.

I returned to Leonard's books for inspiration before I attempted writing my first noir novella. I thought: "Hell, that looks easy. I can write something as good."

Well, maybe not quite as good. But I had more fun writing the book than I ever had with literary fiction and I managed to get it published as a paperback. A couple years later I wrote a sequel to the novella and that was even more fun. I have also written several noir short stories and a noir screenplay adapted from one of the stories. I still write literary fiction as well, including two published books, but I intend to continue my noir efforts.

Why am I attracted to noir fiction? I think I have found a few answers to this slippery question. Noir is a rather perverse kind of entertainment. It's always dark and sometimes fatalistic and even hopeless, but there is something undeniably fascinating about the seedy side of life. Reading and writing noir stories is like the voyeurism of a rich man peering into a violent slum from his chauffeur-driven limousine -- just before the mob smashes the windows and drags him out screaming. Noir paints the dark side of human nature in stylish strokes that make it seem more normal and acceptable. Most people live in denial of their dark side, which only makes it grow stronger under the surface. Noir fiction is a vent to relieve the pressure before it blows.

It also captures the tragic dimension of life that is missing from everyday existence with all its phony cheerfulness. Noir is the literature of down-and-out characters who drink too much and sleep around because they are desperate to suck the marrow out of life before their short time is up. The men use their fists or guns more often than intelligence and the women usually lie to get what they want. They find a shaky armistice in each other's arms, but it never lasts because they're always in way over their heads. Noir fiction has a way of turning such melancholy into a sort of voluptuous suffering. Imagine a cold night wind blowing a window curtain in an unlighted flat where a half-naked couple lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the end to come. In this bittersweet atmosphere noir fiction affects the reader like a Buddhist prayer of resignation. The double-crossing femme fatale and a bullet in the gut are symbols that life isn't fair, but we deserve it.

On a different level noir fiction is pure unadulterated fun -- a word game played with sarcasm, ironic twists, satire and other forms of black humor. In this respect the best noir authors are similar to famous wits like Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker.

Among my noir short stories is a tale about a writer fallen on hard times. After he buys lunch for a starving young hooker, he returns to his shabby apartment and begins writing a new story with this line: "She looked like a broken angel with bad teeth."

It was a good beginning.