What she said

Jenny Davidson got her copy of BUST (due out from Hard Case Crime in May) and reports back almost immediately, calling it “very violent and very funny.” No kidding, as I pretty much laughed my ass off as I read this on various subway cars a few days ago. But she has more to say about the in-jokes and how it must have been great for Ken Bruen and Jason Starr to work on:

The epigraphs make it clear how playfully self-conscious the whole

enterprise must have been; of course it’s impossible to know if

something really was enjoyable to write, I enjoy almost everything I

write but occasionally have to sweat something out in blood & grit

my teeth afterwards when some reader says “Oh, it must have been so fun

to write, I can really tell you were enjoying yourself,” but in this

case surely it really was a very good game for them fitting in all the

(what will I call them?) peer-group noir writers. Charlie Williams, Ray

Banks, Charlie Stella, Vicki Hendricks, Victor Gischler, etc. etc.:

they’re all here (even Charlie Stella’s Average White Band gets a

shout-out), I don’t think not knowing this inside stuff would mar the

reader’s experience but it undoubtedly adds a fillip of something. Very

fun.

Is it post-modern noir? Post-post-modern noir? Or just a case that when you take Bruen and Starr and add them together you get a really black comedy….