The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture. Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration. Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter.
For this 16th episode we went a different route and discuss a smorgasbord of fine American Noir, novels about detectives and criminals and femme fatales and button men, gunsels and grifters, sharps and snakes. We discuss works by Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B. Hughes, Vera Caspary, Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes, Jim Thompson, and Horace McCoy.
Film audio clips are from Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) and The Big Sleep (Howard Hawkes, 1946).
All show music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley”; the intermission is “The First Moment,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/.
We may be contacted at greatamericannovelpodcast (@) gmail.com. As always, the views of the hosts do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions.
Episode 28: Falling off the Cliff with The Catcher in the Rye
Episode 27: Filtering the Static in Don DeLillo's WHITE NOISE
Episode 26: Seekers of the Lonely Heart: Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Episode 25: Surmising the Motives in Henry James's THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY
Episode 24: Speeding Down the Highway with PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Joan Didion
Episode 23: Hearing Voices in William Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING
Episode 22: Rambling Along the REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Defining Dignity through Service in Ernest J. Gaines' A LESSON BEFORE DYING
Episode 20: Cracking Through the Scrub with THE YEARLING
Episode 19: Riding the Rocket with Thomas Pynchon's GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
Episode 18: We Want to Fly Away with Chopin's THE AWAKENING
Ep 17: Pursuing the Picaro in Saul Bellow's THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH
Searching for the Ghost of Tom Joad in John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Episode 14: Ride into the sun--Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN
Homing in on the Prairie with Willa Cather's My Ántonia
Episode 12: Hitting the Road with LOLITA
The Everyday Ecstasy of Marilynne Robinsone's GILEAD
Episode 10: Finding the Lost Generation in Hemingway's THE SUN ALSO RISES
Episode 9: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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