This document traces the evolution of hard-boiled fiction from its origins in the 1920s to more modern works. It begins with Carroll John Daly publishing the first hard-boiled story in Black Mask magazine in response to social issues in post-WWI America. Dashiell Hammett further developed the genre with realistic detectives like Sam Spade. Charles Willeford introduced the "everyday psychopath" protagonist in novels like The Woman Chaser. Scott Phillips' novel The Adjustment features another psychopath, Wayne Ogden, influenced by Willeford. The document examines how these authors and their works influenced each other to continually develop the hard-boiled genre.
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Tiffani Nye
Professor Pendarvis
English 461
8 October 2012
From Daly to Phillips: A Geneology of Hard-Boiled Fiction
In the early 1920’s, a shell-shocked America was still recovering from World War I.
Weary soldiers returned home from the battlefields of Europe, once-young and idealistic men
made cynical by the scent of gunpowder and the flash of grenades. The country they returned to
had changed as well. America grew up during the war, becoming a much more industrialized and
urban nation (Smith 15-20). Prohibition of alcohol led to a huge increase in organized crime,
especially in highly populated cities, where every day citizens suddenly became criminals for
producing and consuming outlawed liquor (Server 75). Ordinary people were arrested, but those
“lucky” individuals with ties to the mob simply paid their debt to society in cash. Police were no
longer keepers of the peace, but keepers of a corrupt status quo. As Dennis Porter writes in
chapter six of The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, “…the common man was raised into
a potential hero who required his own code of justice, as the legal system he [had to deal with]
was often virtually as corrupt as the criminals.” (Porter n.pag). If Porter is correct, one can
understand how such a disillusioned populace, having faced the harsh realities of war in Europe
only to come home to corruption and mob rule, would rebel against stories about affluent British
detectives and brilliant socialite heiresses (Server 75). America was ready for a new kind of
crime fiction; grittier, more realistic… even sexy. A type of fiction where bodies were real,
morality had shades of grey, and just about everyone had blood on their hands. So, amid the
cynicism and social upset of post-WWI America, hard-boiled crime fiction was born.
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It is impossible to trace the origins of hard-boiled fiction without stressing the importance
of the development of the “pulp” magazine. Until the late 1800’s, magazines in America were
largely unavailable to the masses. Printing paper of quality was expensive and so magazines
were mostly read by the wealthy and well-educated upper class. Then, in the 1890’s, the
“magazine revolution” saw editors slashing prices by using lower-quality paper (the “pulp” type
paper that later lent its name to the stories published on it) and including articles aimed at the
general population (Smith 20). Magazine readership increased exponentially, and with the new
demographic came new demand for content aimed at the general population. This shift would be
instrumental in the development of pulp and hard-boiled fiction (21). Many so-called “pulp”
magazines popped up during this time, including the influential Black Mask Magazine, a title
often hailed as one of the most important pulp fiction publications (Smith 1-4).
The Encyclopedia Britannica describes hard-boiled fiction as “…a tough, unsentimental
style of American crime writing that brought a new tone of earthy realism or naturalism to the
field of detective fiction.” The encyclopedia goes on to add that the genre is best known for its
seedy settings, slang-filled dialogue, and its graphic depictions of sex and violence (“Hard-boiled
fiction”). The genre was pioneered by two very different authors: Carroll John Daly and
Dashiell Hammett. Their stories featured tough, street-smart detectives who were just as likely to
find themselves on the wrong side of the law as the criminals they were trying to catch (Server
135). Not only that, the dialogue of these new characters was filled with slang and local color.
Dennis Porter claims that hard-boiled fiction “…conferred the dignity of print on what sounded
like the language of ordinary people” (qtd. in Smith 128).
While many sources cite Hammett as the father of hard-boiled fiction, the first official
hard-boiled story was published by Carroll John Daly in Black Mask magazine, three months
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before Dashiell Hammett’s debut, “Fly Paper,” appeared in the same publication (Server 75).
Though often dismissed as “primitive,” Daly’s contributions to the hard-boiled genre are most
evident in the way his characters speak and interact with the world around them. His first
publication, “Three Gun Terry,” is a short story about an outlandish, gun-slinging, self-styled
“detective” named Terry Mack. In his own words, Mack describes his place in the world: “I ain’t
a crook, and I ain’t a dick. I play the game on the level, in my own way” (Daly n.pag). Mack,
with his over-the-top urban dialect and “grey” morals, would set the stage for Daly’s most
famous protagonist, the hard-nosed detective Race Williams (Server 75). Like Terry Mack,
Williams spoke, not with words that the average reader might have to look up in the dictionary,
but in clipped, plain English, often laced with slang and vulgarities (76). Both characters are
considered forerunners of a whole host of hard-talking detectives. In the words of pulp historian
William Nolan, “This pioneer private eye tale is remarkable in that almost every cliché that was
to plague the genre from the 1920’s into the 1980’s is evident in ‘Three Gun Terry’,” (qtd. in
Server 75).
In many ways, Dashiell Hammett is the antithesis of Daly. While both men came from
humble beginnings, Hammett was a self-taught writer with actual private detective experience.
Where Daly’s protagonists come across almost as caricatures, Hammett’s understated prose and
realistic use of actual methods of detection and crime-solving feel authentic (Server 135-6).
Perhaps it is for this reason that Hammett is so widely hailed over Daly as the father of hard-
boiled fiction (Mertz).
By 1930, Hammett made the jump from pulp magazines to serial novels, publishing a
string of extremely successful stories including The Glass Key and The Maltese Falcon, two
stories that are considered to be extremely influential to modern hard-boiled and crime fiction
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writers. Hammett’s sharp-eyed private dick protagonist, Sam Spade, is considered by many to be
the ultimate hard-boiled private detective (Server 136).
In his introduction to The Maltese Falcon, Hammett himself describes Spade as “…a
dream man…he does not…want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes
manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself…able to get the best
of anybody he comes in contact with…” (Hammett n.pag.) Hammett’s description of Sam
Spade’s personality shows the evolution of the typical crime fiction hero since Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes haunted the halls of Baker Street. No longer satisfied with convoluted
plots and brainy, affluent private detectives, readers wanted the gritty realism of this new breed
of private detective. Writers such as Raymond Chandler, an influential hard-boiled novelist
himself, cite Hammett’s Spade as the impetus for his own famous P.I. protagonist, Phillip
Marlowe (Server 57-8).
With the end of the Second World War, America once again found itself full of
disenfranchised soldiers trying to reintegrate into society. A new breed of hard-boiled crime
writer began to emerge. Like Dashiell Hammett, many of these writers had private detective or
police experience, lending an element of realism to the characters they brought to life. A few of
them were ex-Army guys, and they brought their own special brand of dark humor and cynicism
to hard-boiled fiction (Cochran xiii). This new school of writers would turn the hard-boiled genre
on its ear by shifting the focus from the detective’s point of view, giving readers a chance to
experience their sordid tales from different angles. George Tuttle, in his article “What is Noir?”
writes, “…the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a
perpetrator. He is tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation”
(n.pag.).
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Pulling from Hammett’s realistic prose style and cool, clipped dialogue, writers in the
noir tradition brought the hard-boiled novel to a new level of grittiness. Readers found
themselves in the thick of the action; they weren’t trying to solve the crime, they were living the
crime. Writers like Jim Thompson, author of The Killer Inside Me, took readers on surrealistic
joy rides through the minds of killers and psychopaths (Server 253). James M. Cain, a writer
whom most scholars consider to be every bit as influential as Dashiell Hammett, was hailed for
his ability to capture the darker aspects of the human psyche, as evidenced in his most famous
work, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Postman, a story about a down-and-out drifter, his
married lover and their sordid plot to murder her erstwhile husband, was an enormous critical
and popular success despite its graphic depictions of violence and sex (Server 51).
In the early 1950’s, a former army tank commander named Charles Willeford started
writing a book at the behest of his army buddies. The book, titled The High Priest of California,
is the story of a used-car salesman with a dangerous personality problem. In the Encyclopedia of
Pulp Fiction Writers, author Lee Server describes Willeford’s debut novel as “a weird little
item,” adding that Willeford’s initial choice of publisher refused the book as being “too weird”
(269). Throughout the 1950’s, Willeford continued to publish his “weird” novels with various
pulp fiction publishers. Many times, his novels were renamed with more “interesting” titles so as
to attract readership (Cochran 42). Many of Willeford’s protagonists are “hidden psychopaths:”
characters who, at a glance, seem normal but turn out to have a major dark side. Willeford may
have drawn on his military service as inspiration for his characters. He is noted as saying, “A
good half of the men you deal with in the Army are psychopaths” (qtd. in Cochran 41).
In 1960’s The Woman Chaser, Willeford perfects his “everyday psychopath” in the
character Richard Hudson. The novel, originally titled The Director, follows the escapades of
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another used car salesman as he attempts to live out his dream of directing a cinematic
masterpiece. Throughout the novel, Willeford draws on the influence of earlier hard-boiled and
noir fiction writers while maintaining a cynical humor that is all his own. Like Hammett,
Willeford’s characters often speak with cold precision and very few “bells and whistles.” They
speak like criminals and salesmen would speak. Willeford’s characters often used slang, such as
Richard Hudson’s quip about “Insiders and Feebs” in an early chapter of the novel (Willeford
14).
However, Willeford turns Hammett’s ideal protagonist – the quintessential self-sufficient,
raw, street-smart detective – into a head case used car salesman with delusions of grandeur. In a
related vein, Willeford also mirrors James M. Cain’s ability to capture the dark parts of the
human condition. Like Cain, Willeford enjoys bringing out the crazy sociopathic tendencies of a
character that would otherwise seem quite ordinary. Readers are stuck in Richard Hudson’s
warped perspective, listening to his self-serving justifications for his horrible deeds, such as the
defloration of his sixteen year old stepsister, Becky (Willeford 63-64). Readers not only watch as
Richard commits statutory rape, they also listen as he justifies his actions afterward: “But I
solved Becky’s problem and mine – at the time – and I saved the girl from an emotional and
physical involvement with another male of any age for a long, long time!” (64). Hudson’s
psychopathic delusions and self-gratifying justifications set the stage for author Scott Phillips to
write his own version of the sociopath next door, many years later.
Scott Phillips’ fourth novel, The Adjustment, is the tale of Wayne Ogden, an ex-Army
supply sergeant who is having a bit of trouble readjusting to everyday life after World War II. A
takeaway from an earlier work, The Walkaway, Phillips’ new protagonist is the ultimate amiable
psychopath, taking Willeford’s Richard Hudson to a whole new level of crazy. Throughout the
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novel, Wayne consistently displays various and assorted behaviors commonly associated with
psychopathy, such as superficial charm, manipulative behavior, impulsivity, and an inability to
accept responsibility for his actions. The character has fairly skewed vision of the world he lives
in: to Wayne Ogden, everything is about supply and demand, and he’s got the supply side locked
down. If you want it, Wayne can get it – and he doesn’t particularly mind taking down people
who get in his way.
Phillips’ most obvious takeaway from Willeford’s work is in his characterization. Both
novels feature psychopathic protagonists with delusions of grandeur. Ogden thinks he is the
ultimate nice guy; someone who fixes everyone’s problems and never asks for anything for
himself (Phillips 215). Hudson considers himself to be a great artist – a man of vision – and will
let the rest of his life fall to ruins in pursuit of that vision, including the used car business that
he’s been eager to get off the ground (Willeford 1-192). Neither man is prepared to deal with the
actual consequences of pursing their dreams.
Phillips also takes a leaf from Willeford’s novel in his characterization of women. Most
of the female characters in both novels are on the receiving end of awful behavior from the male
protagonists. Many of the women, such as Phillips’ “b-girls” and Willeford’s Laura Harmon, are
portrayed as easily manipulated and emotionally indulgent; characters to be used, abused, and
tossed away by the stronger male personalities around them. Though this treatment of female
characters may at times come across as misogynistic, both authors marginally redeem themselves
with the addition of enticingly strong female characters that confound and inspire the men
around them. For example, Richard Hudson’s ephemeral, ageless mother, a former ballet dancer,
embodies nothing short of perfection to Hudson (Willeford 20-23). In fact, there are times in The
Woman Chaser when the relationship between Hudson and his mother takes on a sensual tone,
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such as the scene where the pair dances to The Miraculous Mandarin, Hudson’s favorite ballet
(70-74). The mother’s offhanded, almost scolding treatment of her husband Leo is yet another
display of female power that stands out in a novel full of women getting pushed around (74).
Similarly, Scott Phillips chooses to include a couple of female characters who seem to
hold their own against the strong male personalities surrounding them. Vickie, Wayne Ogden’s
sometime lover, refuses to let her live revolve around Wayne’s whims. At one point in the novel,
she refuses to see him although he’s traveled quite far to see her. Wayne is confused by this, and
it may be no accident that Vickie does not reappear in the pages of The Adjustment. Millie Grau,
one of the poor unfortunate souls whose future plans have been demolished thanks to Wayne’s
“help,” is an odd character in that she seems to see through Ogden’s superficial charm to the
monster beneath. Even if she isn’t consciously aware of it, her refusal to follow Wayne into the
army as a civilian employee is telling (214-15).
In terms of endings, Scott Phillips chooses to diverge from Willeford’s more
conventional “bad guy gets it” spiel: Wayne Ogden, the helpful psychopath, gets everything he
ever wanted: a re-enlistment and one-way ticket to his dream job as a supply sarge in Japan
(Phillips 211). Instead, it is the people around Wayne who pay the price for his actions.
Conversely, Willeford’s protagonist ultimately pays for his own misdeeds at the end of The
Woman Chaser, even if he manages to do some damage on his way out (Willeford 191-2).
Just as Scott Phillips’ work was influenced by Charles Willeford, and Charles Willeford
was influenced by Dashiell Hammett and other early pioneers of hard-boiled and noir fiction,
new writers are coming into the scene whose work may be influenced by Scott Phillips. One
such author is Sophie Littlefield. In her so-called “Bad Day” crime novel series, Littlefield’s
protagonist is a tough, no-nonsense middle aged woman who delivers vigilante justice to nasty
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boyfriends and abusive husbands. Like Phillips and other hard-boiled writers before him,
Littlefield writes her protagonist Stella as a gritty, no-nonsense character who doesn’t always
operate on the right side of the law. Like Wayne Ogden, she dishes out her own special brand of
justice. In “A Bad Day for Pretty,” the first of Littlefield’s crime novels, Stella has decided to
start a side business of running down “no-good, cheatin’ sons of bitches” (Littlefield n. pag).
Though Littlefield seems to take a few cues from Phillips and earlier masters of the genre, her
fiction differs in that her gritty protagonist is a woman with a huge chip on her shoulder and
attitudes about men that rival the misogynistic tendencies of earlier male hard-boiled
protagonists.
This paper has traced the genealogy of American hard-boiled fiction from its humble
beginnings in the pulp magazines, through the golden years of noir fiction, to new hard-boiled
and neo-noir writers like Scott Phillips and Sophie Littlefield. As society changes and adapts to
new social traditions, the genre of crime fiction will continue to evolve to reflect reader’s needs.
Just as the cynicism and moral confusion of post-war America gave authors like Dashiell
Hammett and James M. Cain a platform to showcase their artistry, new social ideals and trends
will continue to shape the way authors represent the gritty, seedy realism that is hard-boiled
fiction.