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Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories
Author(s): Leonard Cassuto (Author)
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication Date: 5 Nov. 2008
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 344 pages
- ISBN-10: 0231126905
- ISBN-13: 9780231126908
Book Description
Leonard Cassuto’s cultural history links the testosterone-saturated heroes of American crime stories to the sensitive women of the nineteenth-century sentimental novel. From classics like The Big Sleep and The Talented Mr. Ripley to neglected paperback gems, Cassuto chronicles the dialogue–centered on the power of sympathy–between these popular genres and the sweeping social changes of the twentieth century, ending with a surprising connection between today’s serial killers and the domestic fictions of long ago.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Cassuto has profitably plowed new ground in this study. It’s certain to become an essential document for undersatnding crime fiction’s inner workings.–African American Review
This is an erudite, illuminating and highly readable study–Journal of American Studies
About the Author
Leonard Cassuto is professor of English at Fordham University and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in academic journals and popular periodicals ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Salon.com. He is the author of The Inhuman Race: The Racial Grotesque in American Literature and Culture and the general editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the American Novel.
