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Collects: CRIME NOVELS: AMERICAN NOIR OF THE 1930s & 40s The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M.?Cain They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich 990 pages - 978-1-883011-46-8 Library of America volume #94 CRIME NOVELS: AMERICAN NOIR OF THE 1950s The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith Pick-Up by Charles Willeford Down There by David Goodis The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes 892 pages - 978-1-883011-49-9 Library of America volume #95 This adventurous two-volume collection presents a rich vein of modern American writing too often neglected in mainstream literary histories. Evolving out of the terse and violent hardboiled style of the pulp magazines, noir fiction expanded over the decades into a varied and innovative body of writing. Tapping deep roots in the American literary imagination, the novels in this volume explore themes of crime, guilt, deception, obsessive passion, murder, and the disintegrating psyche. With visionary and often subversive force they create a dark and violent mythology out of the most commonplace elements of modern life. The raw power of their vernacular style has profoundly influenced contemporary American culture and writing.