W.C. Fields's smart-alecky remarks* to the contrary
notwithstanding, I love Philadelphia. It
has what all great cities have: great architecture and history, world-class
museums, music, and sports teams. Many
lovely restaurants. And easy connections
by air and rail to the rest of the world.
I went there this past weekend to attend the Saturday
session of Noircon—the most headily intellectual of any crime writing
conference I have ever been to. Except
for the really intelligent literary critics and professors, most of their
confreres write off crime novels with a sneer, a backhanded wave of the hand,
and sniffy, “Genre fiction,” as if they were talking about dog poo. Noir stories are the exception. Many in academe take very seriously movies
and novels that fit into this category.
There were more PhD’s per square foot at Noircon than on the campus of
Harvard. Admittedly the space in the
Society Hill Playhouse was small, but you get the idea.
A couple of the presenters were awfully filled up with
themselves, one flamingly so—very intent on proving that though he was college
professor and the editor of several literary periodicals, he distained
everything highbrow, including but not confined to—WASPs, Harvard, wealth, not
smoking, and not getting drunk. But that
was just one out of the presenters. Most
were focused on the work as art, not on themselves as artifacts of Noir culture.
I learned a lot about the best of noir fiction and came home
with a list of books, some of which I have already bought.
Here are some photos of Philly and of my favorite panels:
One of Philly’s many beautiful squares,
Tom Nolan interviews Fuminori Nakamura, a brilliant young Japanese writer of noir stories. That is Sam Bett, his interpreter holding the mike. Learn more about Nakamura here. His book are at the top of the list I brought back.
Ken Wishnia led a panel on Jewish Noir that included Dr. Michael Cooper, Alan Gordon, and Marshal Stein.
