Red Noir

Given the masculine brutality endemic to noir fiction, it’s hardly surprising that many readers associate the genre with conservative, even right-wing, politics. From Mickey Spillane to James Ellroy, this enormously popular form revels in callous cops and private eyes who maim and kill in the name of truth, justice, and the American way. Ellroy’s loathsome self-appointed title “white knight of the far right” indicates that noir’s ideological reputation is at least somewhat performative if not completely deserved.