Notes from a Noir Fan: The Definition, History, and Pleasures of American Noir Fiction
I can't say when I first became a fan, but I became a much more focused fan after I took a year-long, two semester course in undergrad at The Johns Hopkins University on classic American noir in fiction and film with Professor Richard Macksey (who, as it happens, had a library that got internet famous there for a while).
Over the years since that time—let’s not go into how long ago my undergraduate years happened—my fandom hasn’t waned. It’s waxed, rather, and as it has I’ve developed some strong personal theories about what makes a book or story fit the category. (I add the “American” qualifier because I have learned that American noir has very culturally specific aspects.)
And, as every coin has a second side, I’ve hardened some very specific notions about what might make a book very, very good and very, very dark—and what makes books often classified as noir very, very much not.
How I Define American Noir
I see people today ascribe the “noir” category to anything dark.
Hey, to each their opinion, but I’m too much of an American noir traditionalist not to balk a bit when they do.
For it to be American noir according to the traditional definition of the genre that my professor taught and that I espouse, a story must have a corrupt, organized, and powerful establishment or institution—whether mob, church, government, wealthy cabals, corrupt police, Feds, or what-have-you—that the main character, often who has no special skills, tries to take down or thwart in some way. The main character invariably must fail in the attempt.
Like how a rom-com isn’t a rom-com if there isn't a meet-cute and the protagonists don’t hook up in the end, a noir novel isn’t a noir novel if the main character isn’t trying to take down a nefarious institution or, if said protagonist is trying to do so, they succeed.
To provide a television example, you’ll note that “The Wire” does this with several characters and several institutions across its five seasons. Side note: See “The WIre,” if you haven’t.
Let’s look at a couple recent novel examples. First, take Dennis Lehane’s novel, Small Mercies: A lower-class, powerless woman with nothing to lose takes on the Boston mafia. Second, consider Gabino Iglesias's fantastic novel The Devil Takes You Home, in which the main character takes on a powerful, organized, and established institution, digging ever deeper into an unimaginable underworld. (With the latter book, telling you too much about which organization would give away the fun of reading the book, which you really should.)
I don’t need to tell you that with all of these examples, screen and page, the protagonists don’t succeed in the end. The satisfaction in noir comes from seeing what they try and what they uncover and what they realize along the way.
The Noir story’s Main Character
In classic, plot-forward American noir, the protagonist does not typically have much of an arc. In other words, the main character does not tend to evolve much emotionally or otherwise over the course of the story, at least not in a way that’s evident to the reader or viewer.
The main character in noir generally serves to pull the reader or viewer through the story, a journey over which the reader has as many epiphanies as the protagonist, if not more. The work of the noir novel is for the reader to have learned something or to have something to consider about life and society and the point of it all by the end. Whether the story’s protagonist grows and changes and improves is somewhat beyond the point. It’s a nice little bonus if it happens and makes sense for the story, sure—but it’s not an element essential to noir.
While some people make the mistake of assuming that the noir novel’s main character is always a detective, this is not at all the case. Take the Lehane and the Iglesias examples given above. Neither has a detective as a protagonist, even if each protagonist does a whole lot of investigating as the story moves forward.
Main characters in noir are rarely experts in whatever they undertake in the plot, even if they may have a few useful skills. They tend to be bumblers, in fact, making multiple mistakes along the way and, in short, making a mess of it, whatever it is.
Also, more often than not, noir protagonists are themselves morally questionable in some fashion or they pursue their quests for morally questionable reasons. What they seek to achieve in the story rarely lacks in self-interest, whether that interest is personal gain (including the drives of pure ego) or straightforward revenge.
Themes in American Noir
The themes of American noir may seem unconscionably bleak to some people, but I find them thought provoking. (You say “tomato,” I say “tom-ah-toe.”)
The themes in noir fiction stem from the genre’s core belief that humans and society in general are corrupt, dark, and as likely to do wrong as to do right. Humans, in noir, are not “inherently good.”
Through this lens, noir stories explore the deeper and more challenging questions we face as humans and societies—questions that are not always easily debated and answers that are not always light, fun, or easily digestible.
What you get in noir are debates between right and wrong and the lack of clear definition between the two, given that so much of the answer depends on circumstances and history. This debate connects directly to noir fiction’s exploration of the notion of free will. Can humans truly direct the course of their lives, including their thoughts and actions? Or are we shaped and driven by internal and external forces that are beyond our control? And on a bigger scale, noir questions life’s meaning (or lack thereof).
The Heyday and Popularity Noir Fiction
American film noir had a heyday in the 1940s, though most of the movies made at that time used stories written in the 1930s.
Historians can only hypothesize as to why the category became popular during this time period, though I’ve read what seem to be reasonable theories about the themes in noir speaking to the general population’s disillusionment after the Great Depression and the first World War, a disillusionment that continued into the Second World War and only really somewhat dissipated during the economic boom of the 1950s. After a fallow period, noir stories had a resurgence in the 1970s, during the great social malaise of that time.
Though noir fiction still exists, it isn’t a particularly popular category, whether in film, series, or novel form. Why that is, I can only guess—but I don’t have a lot of confidence in my guesses.
If pessimism drove the form’s past popularity, why isn’t all the uncertainty today driving it back to the forefront? Could it be that, despite all the headwinds we face, today’s society still doesn’t have the cynicism needed to make noir palatable? Without cynicism—if we have a steadfast need to believe that all will be okay in the end—an unhappy ending probably won’t satisfy.
Bring on the Noir
If all this sounds awful, you probably aren’t a noir fan—but you likely can still appreciate the genre at some level. It’s an interesting take and worldview and tone, isn’t it?
Noir fans, like me, have endless theories and stances and opinions about the genre, enough to make me wonder if noir fiction isn’t unique in its nebulousness. (A fitting descriptor for the form, come to think of it.)
But what most genuine noir fans will agree is that a story with an unequivocally happy ending isn’t noir. Nor does a story that’s simply “dark”—in that it deals with difficult themes or has awful things that happen or even features a down-on-his-luck detective—qualify as noir.
Of course, for every stance there’s someone who will take the opposite position. Hey, as long as it means the world gets more noir because there’s more noir fans, I’m down for that. Bring on the debate.