Noir with a Mint Julep Chaser

The Oxford American, that literary quarterly magazine long associated with Southern writing, has released its Winter 2007 issue, which focuses on noir literature. The main essay is by Barry Hannah, in which he remarks,

“Hard-boiled noir,” detective, mystery--where do we separate genres here or get close to a definition? The better the book, the less definition and pedantry are required. An actual masterpiece, so rare, escapes definition and genre entirely. My students are juniors and seniors and graduates in the small MFA program we have, and I remain a happy amateur coach in the genre. What bliss it is that the books themselves do the better part of teaching. My lectures are short; the students want to talk and compare notes. Noir rewards them both as readers and as writers because there is plot, and deep, ugly urges are necessary; thus the students, with a little prompting, are reminded that literature must entertain. It is not a study or a theory or a white male linguistic colonizer, as shrieked by the pitiful leftist critics and Derridians.

Also included in this issue is a story about Brad Vice, the Alabama-born author whose award-winning book of short stories, The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, was pulled from publication amidst charges of plagiarism and incomplete attribution.

Of course, eagle-eyed crime fiction readers will notice the magazine’s cover art--the Glen Orbik-created front from Wade Miller’s Branded Woman, reissued in 2005 by Hard Case Crime.

(Hat tip to Rara Avis.)