Kriminalakte

Vor einigen Tagen besuchte Christa Faust Deutschland, stellte ihren grandiosen Krimi „Hardcore Angel“ (Money Shot) vor und bemerkte einen gravierenden Unterschied zwischen der deutschen und der amerikanischen Krimikultur:

It took me several days to wrap my brain around this fact, but apparently in Germany hardboiled pulp (vintage or modern) is basically considered lowbrow trash on the level of supermarket romance. I had several interviewers ask me about how it feels not to be taken seriously, and I honestly didn’t get what they meant at first. After all, hardboiled and noir fiction is taken very seriously in the US. It’s more the cozy or chick-lit writers who get no respect. But the Germans have this idea that crime fiction ought to be much more literary and “serious.” Apparently this means no explicit sex or violence, just lots of depressed, angst-ridden (male, of course) detectives brooding and contemplating the meaning of life. In fact, there was a scathing write-up in the local paper about my reading in Leipzig (published before the reading even took place.) The author was complaining that it was stupid and pointless to feature a trashy hardboiled writer at a venue meant for more serious literary fiction. I really had a blast blowing everyone’s expectations out of the water. I may be a trashy pulp writer, but I have no problem talking about the underlying gender issues and other socially relevant “serious” themes in Money Shot. I hope I did my part as a hardboiled missionary in a land of unbelievers. I’ll bet I opened up a mind or two.

This entry was posted on Donnerstag, 30. Oktober 2008 at 1:06 am and is filed under Zitat des Tages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.