Ecology of American Noir

<p>This volume investigates the relationship between the conventions of noir fiction and film and its sub-types in relation to environmental crises. Dr. Younes addresses questions that not only allow readers to (re)read early hardboiled literature and neo-noir films but also help identify a new sub-genre of noir and develop an ecocritical methodology: eco-noir. This text traces the development of strategies of mapping urban blight and environmental deterioration in classic hardboiled fiction of the 1940s neo-noir films of the 1970s and eco-noir texts of the post-millennial period. Introducing the concept of eco-noir as both a sub-genre and fictional form as well as a methodology the volume develops a new way of understanding the relationship between noir and climate fiction texts. Through a close reading of hardboiled neo-noir and eco-noir texts including those by Dashiell Hammett Raymond Chandler Robert Towne Kim Stanley Robinson and Jeff VanderMeer it asks and addresses the question: how does each sub-genre of noir map the noir atmosphere of the private investigator's natural setting in terms of environmental toxicity? <em>The Ecology of American Noir</em> contributes to critical conversations in both noir and ecocritical scholarship making clear how a new understanding of noir as defined through environmental and atmospheric conditions invites readers viewers and scholars of the genre to generate meaningful dialogues about our decaying and deteriorating environment.</p>