ENGA 5831: American Crime Stories
Lenny Cassuto
Fordham University
Fall 2007
Office: Lincoln Center: LL917d, email: Lcassuto at erols.com
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Required texts
Lawrence Block, When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes (Orion)
James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (Vintage)
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (Vintage)
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (Vintage)
Arthur Conan Doyle, Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories (Dover Thrift)
Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy (Signet NAL)
Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the America Gothic Imagination
(Harvard UP, 1998)
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (Vintage)
Sean McCann, Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of
New Deal Liberalism (Duke UP, 2000)
Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold-Bug and Other Tales (Dover Thrift)
Robert Polito, ed. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s (Library of America)
and a Course Pak containing a handful of essays and stories, labeled with my
name and the name of this course. Call 800-254-paks or go to www.ccpaks.com to
order it from Campus Coursepaks. It will be delivered within 1-2 business days.
Required Movies:
Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder, 1944)
The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991; see this one on your own time,
or else read the book--we will be referring to it during the term)
A Few Recommended Secondary Sources:
John Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance
Woody Haut, Pulp Culture
Geoffrey O’Brien, Hard-Boiled America
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Crime narrative has long been a staple of American literature and culture, traversing
both high, so-called literary, fiction and lowbrow popular efforts which were sometimes
named for how much they cost (dime novels) or for the cheap, coarse paper they were
printed on (pulp fiction). Beginning with the invention of the modern detective story by Poe,
we will seek the roots of the thematics of one of the most enduring and vital genres in
American fiction. We’ll be reading a selection of crime stories ranging from the antebellum
era to contemporary times, but the main focus will fall on the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the
period when the distinctively American hard-boiled style evolved in print and the film noir
became an identifiable American movie idiom. In discussing these books and movies, we
will, I hope, find them interesting in their own right--and also for what they tell us about the
mysterious magnetism of genre fiction, and about a country whose writers have done so
much to develop genre fiction writing.
Because literary study today is highly contextual, I will be pointing you towards various
background readings that will involve you with the history and culture of nineteenth and
twentieth century America, as well as with the current literary scholarship on the works that
we will be reading. In particular, we will be reading large portions of two recent books, Sean
McCann’s Gumshoe America and Karen Halttunen’s Murder Most Foul. Though you should
remember that placing the writing in context is only a means to an end, each of you should
make yourself broadly familiar with the history of the period, and the events that both affect
and are affected by the writers whose work we will discuss. If we are to be most productive
in our discussions about how this literature works, you should have a basic grasp of the
history of its times.
--Conferences
I will be meeting individually with each of you at least twice during the term. These
meetings allow us a chance to discuss your work, and to get acquainted outside the
confines of class discussion. Drop by for any reason, or for no special reason at all.
Note: Telephone conferences can be arranged if our schedules don't mesh easily, but
face-to-face meetings are preferable because they allow us to work more easily with your
work.
Just as an architect's blueprint is never exactly reflected in the resulting structure, so
this syllabus should be considered no more than a tentative schedule, subject to revision.
Because we may be tinkering with the reading list, consult me if you decide to read far
ahead.
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Schedule of Readings
Thurs 9/6
Introduction
Roots of the Modern American Crime Narrative
Thurs 9/13
Jewish Holiday; class rescheduled to 9/19 (see below).
Meanwhile, start reading An American Tragedy. Because of the
unusual schedule to open the term, we will spend only two weeks on
Dreiser, so be sure to read at least half of the novel by 9/27.
Wed 9/19
Special class meeting: public reading of selections from the just-published
collection Bronx Noir, 4pm. Discussion afterwards. Refreshments too.
Joanne Dobson, former Fordham professor and contributor to Bronx Noir,
together with the volume’s editor, S. J. Rozan, will give a master class
beforehand (beginning at 2) on writing detective fiction. If you’re interested in
attending the class, please write to DGS Mary Bly, the sooner the better. No
prerequisites.
Thurs 9/20
Poe, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,”
“The Purloined Letter”;
Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”;
Auden, “The Guilty Vicarage” (course pak);
Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, chapter 4
Thurs 9/27
Dreiser, An American Tragedy, pages 1-515 (from the beginning through
Book Two).
Thurs 10/4
Dreiser concluded; Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, chapter 5
The Hard-Boiled Crime Narrative
Thurs 10/11 Hammett, The Maltese Falcon;
Hemingway, “The Killers” (course pak);
McCann, Gumshoe America, chapter 2;
optional movie: The Maltese Falcon
Make sure your choice for the book review has been approved by now.
Thurs 10/18 Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice;
required movie: Double Indemnity
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Thurs 10/25 Chandler, The Big Sleep;
essay: Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder” (course pak);
McCann, Gumshoe America, chapter 3
Book review due in class.
Thurs 11/1
Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (in Polito);
McCann, Gumshoe America, chapter 4
Statement of term paper topic due.
Thurs 11/8
Himes, Real Cool Killers (in Polito); McCann, Gumshoe America,
chapter 5
Into the Present
Thurs 11/15 Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley (in Polito);
Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, chapter 7
optional movie: The Talented Mr. Ripley
Annotated bibliography of term paper topic due.
Thurs 11/22 Thanksgiving Break—no class
Thurs 11/29 Capote, In Cold Blood;
Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, chapter 1
TBA—either Block, When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes or we’ll begin
Presentations
Term paper abstract due
Thurs 12/6
Thurs 12/13 Presentations
Thurs 12/20 Presentations/Conclusion
Last day for final drafts of term papers.
Some other authors and titles worth looking at (or writing about):
An asterisk denotes a particularly significant or influential American crime writer.
*Lawrence Block
Gil Brewer
*W.R. Burnett
*James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce
Paul Cain
G.K. Chesterton
Wilkie Collins
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie
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*James Ellroy
Erle Stanley Gardner
P.D. James
David Lindsey
*John D. MacDonald
*Ross Macdonald
Margaret Maron
*Ed McBain
William McGivern
*Walter Mosley
Frank Norris’s McTeague
Ruth Rendell
Michael Slade
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Mickey Spillane
Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson
Andrew Vachss
Raoul Whitfield
Charles Willeford
*Cornell Woolrich
Film Noir and its Legacies-An Incomplete and Unsystematic List of Movies and Directors:
The Asphalt Jungle (dir. John Huston, 1950)
The Big Sleep (dir. Howard Hawks, 1946)
Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, 1982)
Body Heat (dir. Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
Cape Fear (both versions)
Conflict (dir. Curtis Bernhardt, 1945)
D.O.A. (the original, dir. Rudolph Mate, 1949)
Dead End (dir.William Wyler, 1937)
Devil With a Blue Dress (dir. Carl Franklin, 1995 )
Farewell, My Lovely (dir. Dick Richards, 1975)
Force of Evil (dir. Abraham Polonsky, 1949)
Gilda (dir. Charles Vidor, 1946)
The Godfather (part I [1972] and part II [1974]; dir. Francis Coppola)
Goodfellas (dir.Martin Scorcese, 1990)
The Grifters (dir. Stephen Frears, 1990)
Gun Crazy (dir. Joseph H. Lewis, 1949)
High Sierra (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1941)
Killer’s Kiss (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1955)
The Killing (dir. Kubrick, 1956)
Kiss of Death (dir. Henry Hathaway, 1947)
L.A. Confidential (dir. Curtis Hanson, 1997)
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The Lady from Shanghai (dir. Orson Welles, 1948)
The Last Seduction (dir. John Dahl, 1994)
M (1931; and also Fritz Lang’s American noirs)
The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston, 1941)
Murder, My Sweet (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1944)
Naked City (dir. Jules Dassin, 1948)
One False Move (dir. Carl Franklin, 1992)
Out of the Past (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
Pick-Up on South Street (dir. Sam Fuller, 1953)
Prime Suspect (BBC miniseries; available on video)
Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarentino, 1994)
Red Rock West (dir. John Dahl, 1993)
Reservoir Dogs (dir. Tarentino, 1992)
Seven (dir. David Hincher, 1995)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1946)
T-Men (1947; and many others by Anthony Mann)
Touch of Evil (dir. Orson Welles, 1958)
The Usual Suspects (dir. Bryan Singer, 1995)
White Heat (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1949)