Noir A Novel

This is an enjoyable romp; a page-turner which approaches Christopher Moore's best work, such as A Dirty Job or Bloodsucking Fiends. I read a good sized chunk of it while sailing up the coast of North Carolina from Cape Fear to Beaufort, and it was a good way to pass the time.

When you imagine Christopher Moore + noir, you might think that he is going in a new, dark direction. You'd be wrong. His version of noir is less dark and brooding and more of a comedy of errors. Regular Joe finds himself in over his head. Oh, and there's a dame complicating things. :) This book is set in San Francisco in 1947. The time period and the locations are well-researched. As a resident of San Francisco, I was excited to recognize places I knew, and I learned some new things as well. I love books make you think about them when you aren't reading them, and you can't wait to find time to read more. I definitely loved this book!

The plot is comfortably predictable from the very beginning of the story, and would make great B-grade SciFi movie for a Friday night in, except that the kind of character development you need to fall in love with a book like this takes a backseat to sometimes overly clever observational narration. Loved the local San Francisco period color. The afterword went into more detail on Moore's process of picking a year, doing quite a bit of detailed research, then spinning a yarn around fixed points like cafes and theaters and people who actually existed. It explains the lack of character development, because the process is more like spinning cotton candy filler around a central metal pin than following typical storytelling patterns. The end is in mind from the beginning, and the enjoyment is in how he tells the story.

There’s a reason noir is confined to a particular time and place, and why the author (or his publisher, more likely) felt a disclaimer was needed at the outset. To fully steep the novel Noir in its period requires a significant amount of now-offensive slang and bigotry. It’s hard to believe that this talented author couldn’t contemporize the story and create a modern-day Noir. If you can get beyond that, it was an entertaining if somewhat corny yarn, with a number of smile- or groan-inducing puns. Fun, if you’re a white male of European descent. In questionable taste for the rest of us.

There are so many levels of brilliance in this book. A wonderful parody of the time and types of characters. Well written and so nuanced in the ideas that if it weren't for the weirdness could have been a run of the mill noir paperback. This will lead to much Moore being read.

Not a book for me. It was kind of amusing, but the time period it's set in allows for too much that I can't deal with. Plus, it was kind of slow. So... on to the next book.