num_pages: 214
description: Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, David Goodis … these are a few of the masters of noir responsible for the great lurid paperbacks of the thirties, forties, and fifties. With titles like The Big Sleep, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, and Street of the Lost, with racy cover lines like "My gun-butt smashed his skull!" and "Ruthless terror ripped away the mask that hid cold fear," and with some of the most extraordinary cover illustrations ever to grace American literature, these paperbacks held the ingredients of American nightmares. In Harboiled America—lavishly illustrated with 135 paperback covers, and expanded with new material on Thompson, Goodis, and others—Geoffrey O'Brien masterfully explores the art, history, and ideas of the American paperback.
language: English
title: Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks And The Masters Of Noir
titlecomplete: Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks And The Masters Of Noir
genres: Pulp, Reference, Noir, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 104
publisher: Da Capo Press