Black Noir

Besides moving out for college, moving homes is not something I am familiar with. I have always been happy with where I lived, and my family has maintained a stable lifestyle, so there was never any need to move. Although, I have always been curious about what it would be like to live elsewhere. It is very interesting to me how two people from very different states in the same country can live such different lives. This is what has always sparked my curiosity of moving to somewhere new. However, moving can also be uncomfortable because change is uncomfortable. While I have never had a bad experience that has made me want to move, I have been in situations that are not healthy, but I continue to stay in them because change can be scary. This is what I perceive to be happening in Blanche on the Lam. The main character, Blanche, recounted how she tried to flee away from her normal life and headed to California, but only lasted there a year. Then she returned to the east coast and headed to New York where she stayed with her niece and nephew until they were confronted by a stranger. As a result, she moved her and the family back home down south to Farleigh, NC. Throughout these shifts in location, Blanche must have encountered many new environments, but she did not stick around in these new locations very long. Despite returning to Farleigh in the end, she does not speak very highly of the small town and describes the many racist encounters she has every day. This was what made me most curious about Blanche’s relocations.

In our previous books set in California, it has always been portrayed as progressive with a diverse population. Although the population may not be specially integrated, there was still a representation of the variety. When Blanche travels there, I wonder why she was so quick to leave. I am sure part of the reason involved her niece and nephew back home, but there must have been more to it because as a black woman one would think she could achieve a better quality of life. Though no details are explicitly mentioned, there must have been a fear within Blanche of the stark difference between a small town in the south and the big state of California. A fear, that even if she could achieve more equality, it would be different from anything she has known. Sometimes having too much freedom can be intimidating like when we enter into our adult lives and suddenly we gain a large amount of responsibilities and freedom to choose how we live our lives. I think Blanche was afraid of the new and somewhat intimidated by the agency she gained in the west.

Blanche proceeds to move to New York. She travels back east which we have referenced in class largely means traveling back in time on racial progressiveness. However, she still remains in the north, which has a different racial dynamic than the south, more closely resembling California. Even still, Blanche is scared, but I think her fear is more of the contrast between the small town she came from and the large city she entered. Cities are dangerous and can be especially frightening when you do not have experience. It is unfortunate but homeless people are more common, crime is more common, and overall darkness seems more present. Blanche is run out of the city when a man tries to convince her niece and nephew into his car. She is fearful of the dangers of the city. Not because she is a coward but these are dangers that she has no prior experience with which makes them all the more intimidating.

Finally, Blanche moves back down to Farleigh, NC. She willingly returns to the life she knows, even if it is not a good life. Blanche knows how to deal with the racist people in the south and even admits to enjoying manipulating them by acting unintelligent. Though her fears that reside in Farleigh are still ever present, they are familiar fears. Change is incredibly hard to face and Blanche believes it is much easier to face the challenges she knows than try and discover something new even if it would be to her benefit.

In class this week we talked about the dichotomy between visibility and invisibility specifically for Blanche as a black woman in the south, and how both functioned as a disadvantage for her in society. As I was finishing the book, it was interesting to see the juxtaposition of her invisibility and visibility with that of Grace’s, who used her abilities in much more sinister ways than Blanche. From the beginning, there was a certain two-facedness to all the characters that nonetheless, surprised me in the end. In hindsight, Grace’s insanity should have been more obvious, but I still audibly gasped when I realized her evil hand in all the criminal acts. Putting up her facade of the helpless and clumsy wife allowed her to masterfully use that mask to her advantage. The meek, worrisome wife could never be involved in committing criminal acts with ease, and this assumption provided the perfect veil to the eyes of an entire society. Being a woman, Grace exercises her own visibility and subsequent invisibility in conjunction with the color of her skin, which opens a plethora of doors that would never even come into view for Blanche. It is interesting because as everything finally came to light, their similarities were obvious; both women snuck around and learned things about others in the comfort of their invisibility, but being from entirely different worlds, Grace was hardwired to use that for herself while Blanche committed herself to the truth against her own self-preservation. This distinction is important because it reveals the dichotomy between women in society and their uses of their differing visibilities in life. Grace and Blanche occupy two different ends of the spectrum, but their similarities are made incomparable in the difference of their intentions. Blanche is a woman who lives for others, who cherishes her relationships in her life, while Grace lives only for herself and her money.

Throughout the semester we have discussed multiple times how various works were familiar or unfamiliar to us, and often when they were completely foreign the conversation lacked. We tend to find comfort in the known. It is the unknown, the new, the changing times, the incoming foreigners that are frightening to our characters, but us as well. I felt safe in our texts about southern California and the drive to Arizona that I knew well, or the love for a grandmother that felt familiar. We have been searching for something in each text in order to make us feel safe and confident to discuss it. We want both feet on the ground before we open ourselves up with ideas that invite counterarguments and criticisms. However, the short story Bulletproof felt familiar in a way that left me feeling completely exposed and unsafe.

Just like Lisa, I have been at a point where all I felt was pain, isolation, and a desperate need for someone to care about me, or just know that I existed for one night. While I never went down to the street of the working girls, I understand the feelings that drove her there. I know the desperation she felt as she got into Leon’s car. I know Leon too. I understand the frustration of love being conditional. I know the desperate hopeless game of vying for love from a mother that would only give it on her terms. Hearing, “I’ll love you forever if…” insert endless chores, grades, favors, and sacrifices. I know the desire to find someone who will love you as you are, no strings attached, no matter what you do, and the constant fear that this will be what finally drives them away forever.

Reading Bulletproof was suffocating. It was everything I felt in the darkest moment of my life. For the first time this semester, I was right there in the darkness with them. I knew what that darkness looked, sounded, and felt like. I lived in that darkness for a year before I dragged myself out, with the man I was made to love as my anchor. I was excited for Leon and Lisa. I thought their story could end the way mine did, but it didn’t. The darkness claimed them in a way it could have claimed me. Therefore, this text is the most familiar to me, but the least safe. It makes me regret looking for familiarity. Maybe I should be grateful for the distance I have from some of these texts, or maybe I should embrace the darkness and see where it takes me.

Our initial introduction to Noir came in a very distinct, very easily identifiable and understandable package: a sly, white detective “descends into darkness” through an encounter with the “other” as he solves a mystery. These stories were placed on the West coast—a space where the “other” could interact with the akin easily as Los Angeles became steadily more infested with foreigners.

At least for me, Noir became very closely related to its setting in the Western Coast. Here, interactions with Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Irish immigrants, and queer individuals were common due to proximity to the Eastern world and the influx of immigrants through California. From the introduction of Manifest Destiny, expansion into Western America became deeply entwined with the American Dream.

And then came the blunt transition to Trick Baby, set in the midwestern city of Chicago, which felt familiar and close to home, even including a character from my home town, “St. Louis Shorty” (Slim 3). It was more difficult for me to identify the Noir in Trick Baby and Never Die Alone because they felt much more like stories of Chicago mobsters than a “descent into darkness.” These novels felt much more similar to The Untouchables than it did to the familiar, old-timey detective novels we read in the beginning of class.

However, if we think back to Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton’s exploration of Noir, they did not identify the genre by a location, but by a couple of elements often found in Surrealism; Noir is “oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel.” All of these qualities are likewise captured in Trick Baby and Never Die Alone, and even Blanche on the Lam.

Interactions with the “strange” and the “foreign” are not only more easily accessible in the West (specifically in Los Angeles), but more controllable. One need only to walk down the street—to head to Chinatown or Hyde Park to encounter the “other.” These interactions are intentional; Philip Marlowe deliberately heads to a Black club to search for a perpetrator. He knows where the “other” exists and then chooses to take this descent into the recognizable “Black World.”

Stories set in the Midwest, or even in the South with Blanche on the Lam, interactions with the “other” must come in different, perhaps more hidden forms. For the King David, the “other” is a white Jewish man, inverting the idea of who the anti-other is. For Blanche, the “other” is Mumsfield—a white man with a disability. Thus, a setting like Los Angeles or Arizona makes capturing the essence of Noir easier. However, other settings—like the Midwest or the South—can also encapsulate Noir, though it more take more effort to do so.

In this section of the course, we have begun to explore the role of black women in the Noir genre, and in literature in general. Blanche on the Lam is our first encounter with a black female protagonist. In the pieces of literature which focused on black male protagonists, one thing which was central was black men trying to understand their masculinity and assert their power. In Blanche on the Lam, the protagonist, Blanche, is not focused on what it means to be a woman, but rather is focused on surviving and taking care of the people in her life. While Blanche is the protagonist of the story it is not in the same way that the black male protagonists are like Bob and Hugh. Blanche is still in the background, which could be seen as a reflection or commentary on the invisibility of black women in literature and in society.  

When examining the role of black women in society, they have often been pushed to the background. The civil rights movement is an example of this. Although women did have somewhat of a role in the movement, they were often pushed to the background, and have now become forgotten in the story of this historical period. Rather, it is the men that are remembered. This is also reflected in literature. In the works we have read throughout the semester, black women are either not present, or play a supporting role to black men. In “The Oppositional Gaze – Black Female Spectators,” the author explains that “black women have written little about black female spectatorship, about our moviegoing practices…The prolonged silence of black women as spectators and critics was a response to the absence, to cinematic negation” (118). Black women are invisible in the world of cinema, literature, and history. In a way, while the protagonist of Blanche on the Lam is a black woman, the book still reflects this invisibility that black women experience.

While on the lam, Blanche tries hard to blend and attempts to lean into this invisibility which is thrust upon black woman: “The sheriff didn’t bother to respond. He simply turned from her to Everett, dismissing her with his lack of interest” (80). Simultaneously, it is interesting that Blanche has a lot of self-awareness, knowing that society picks and chooses when a black woman is visible. Blanche knows what would make her vulnerable to society: “A running black person was still a target of suspicion in this town, even if the runner was a woman” (6). This sense of self-awareness and knowing how to navigate this world shows that Blanche, in a similar way to the women who have developed the oppositional gaze, does not see herself as invisible. Although society has attempted to make Blanche feel invisible and push her to the background of the historical narrative, she doesn’t really let that affect her sense of self in the same way the male protagonist let society affect their sense of masculinity. Blanche can be seen as choosing to oppose that narrative by going on the lam, reclaiming her agency, and choosing to stay with this family and solve this mystery.

Traditional noir is based on the white male gaze. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Philip Marlowe’s Farewell, My Lovely revolve around the white male protagonist’s descent into darkness without actually being overtaken by the physical and moral shadows of society. The “other” in society is defined as the opposite of the straight white male: women, foreigners, black Americans, and other non-white racial groups are pushed to the margins of society and relegated as morally dark if they do not stay in their neat geographical compartments. Yet black noir places black Americans at the center of these gruesome plots. It explores the relationship between moral and physical darkness, acknowledging the great evil that the inhabitants of the fringes of society are capable of while also revealing an exotic underworld’s separate system of justice. Chester Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go introduces the black male gaze as a voyeuristic yet powerful perspective that attempts to negate the politics of race and racism as well as that of the black female experience.

It becomes clear in the genre of noir that there is immense power in looking; in fact, Bell Hooks links the traumatic voyeurism of the master-slave dynamic to the cultural dissonance–especially amongst younger and older generations–of black Americans in Black looks: Race and representation. Bob is a Midwestern transplant in Los Angeles, the supposed factory of the new American dream; yet he becomes aware of the different relations of power that create a sense of both tension and competition between women and black Americans as they enter the workforce during World War II. “We stood there for an instant, our eyes locked, before either of us moved; then she deliberately backed away from me as if she was scared stiff, as if she was a naked virgin and I was King Kong” (Himes 19). Madge is a white woman who realizes that the concept of power as a system of domination that controls everything and leaves no room for freedom (as defined by the master-slave dynamic) is in fact a system of relations of power. It becomes clear that there is power in Bob’s oppositional gaze, for the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination opens up the possibility of agency (Hooks 116). Yet with this newfound (but flawed) agency, Bob negates the gaze of the black female. Ella Mae is a married black mother who shares a flat with Bob; she plays the role of the black castrating bitch who nags at the black man. “‘Good morning, Mrs. Brown,’ I said facetiously, then, lowering my voice, I added, ‘I was just thinking about you, baby.’ She smiled self-consciously, but her look made me button up my pyjamas. ‘Your clock woke the baby up,’ she said” (Himes 7). Ella Mae foils Madge as she is not an object of desire, but instead is an object that maintains the scopophilia of white women. In this way the black female body is denied so as to perpetuate white supremacy and phallocentric spectatorship where woman to be looked at and desired as “white.”

Violence and drugs have always been a central theme in the noir novels we have read so far, but in this book, the messiness of the situations is born from relying on these things. What was supposed to be an easy job of collecting a debt becomes the catalyst for the unraveling of the lives of all the characters. King David loses everything to the life he claims to only have dabbled in, but this dangerous game eventually seeps deep into every pore of his being until neither can live without the other. This messiness comes out of the mutual reliance on each other for life. Without the bookie or the trigger man, the drugs never sell, and the gun never fires. Even though he is not addicted to these things, David cannot live without them, ultimately bringing about his death. The life lived in these noir novels is itself an addiction. The danger and risks that come with such a life is exhilarating when you win, but when you lose, the consequences can be deadly. This novel does a great job of dismantling this fascinating attraction to the violent life when living on the edge and emphasizing the consequences that come with it. Holding grudges, cleaning up your messes, and trying to clean up your life all come at a cost. Most of the time, these people are unwilling to pay the price, which costs them their lives. Instead of giving his readers an upfront cautionary tale of this kind of life, Goines ventures to subvert their narratives with the bitter end everyone meets. Those we see fall prey to their own vices are the ones who fail to center themselves around a certain set of life rules, other than the sad fact that life is every man for himself. When you make a mistake, it will come for you. It may be a few hours, days or even years, but it will always come. David’s motto for using drugs applies in all aspects of life. One hit is too much, but many is never enough. When the judgment day comes the only thing these people can wish for is to die in the company of their limited acquaintances.  

 In Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Tradition, Toni Morrison recontextualizes the American literary tradition by addressing the “Africanist” presence inherent in all American writing. That is to say: it is impossible for an American author or an American story to embody the idea or sense of American-ism without gesturing or referring directly to the influence of Black communities, their people, and their experiences.

Over the course of this class, that perspective has been applied to various works under the umbrella of the noir genre. As early as The Maltese Falcon, one may point to the novel’s treatment of the “other” or the “foreigner” as parallel to and undeniably influenced by the treatment of white Americans towards Black Americans. Even characters identified as white or as coming from a specific place of origin would still exist within the realm of the other, a realm understood only through the paradigm of the novel’s white author. In a sense, every character but the noir anti-hero is Black, in the sense that they are othered and treated as less human than the protagonist himself.

However, Morrison’s reappraisal of the American literary tradition goes deeper, as her aim is not to merely generalize as non-white, non-male characters as equal. Her analysis is specific to the “Africanist,” Black presence. As our course has progressed, we’ve witnessed the progression of that presence: from Black secondary characters written by white authors, to Black protagonists written by white authors, to Black protagonists written by Black authors, and so on. Rather than hinting or unintentionally engaging with the presence of Blackness in their subject matter, we’ve moved towards literature that directly confronts, embraces, and bares for all the world to see the highs, the lows, the complexities, and the simple realities of the Black, American experience.

Given our class discussion identifying a perceived difficulty or a lack of engagement with our recent books, I’ve tried to understand our collective response to Never Die Alone using Morrison’s thinking as a magnifying lens. She says in her first part of the collection:

My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly racialized world. To think about (and wrestle with) the full implications of my situation leads me to consider what happens when other writers work in a highly and historically racialized society. For them, as for me, imagining is not merely looking or looking at; nor is it taking oneself intact into the other. It is, for the purposes of the work, becoming (4).

I interpret this in several ways, some of which may be taking liberties. However, when applied to Never Die Alone, I can’t help but wonder at Donald Goines’s personal experience writing the text and the ways in which he as the writer needed to become his novel; or rather, the novel became him. Like Iceberg Slim and Trick Baby, Donald Goines’s Never Die Alone draws heavily from his own personal history. What distinguishes Goines’s work from Slim’s is the extent to which each author’s novel becomes representative of the author. Slim writes a character supposedly based directly on himself. Goines, however, writes several characters who aren’t explicitly stated to be the author, yet connect to his highs, lows, complexities, and hard experiences in a way that’s multifaceted and impossible to avoid/ignore as a reader.

I’d say that, beyond our individual issues with ideology or morality in the recent texts we’ve read, our class’s difficulty in reading these texts may be due to a level of discomfort inherent in the aspect of becoming. Having been raised in a society where Blackness is both blatantly and unconsciously pushed to the margins, reading these texts may be the first time that many of us have been tasked with intimately reading a text so tied to the author’s experience as Black in America.

Again, there are several ways to apply Morrison’s thinking to our class and Never Die Alone in particular. However, I think reevaluating whether or not our earlier discussions were truly more fruitful is worth some attention. Did we truly unpack and engage with the inexplicit presence of Blackness in otherwise “white” texts? Or did we discuss only what was comfortable until confronted with texts like Trick Baby and Never Die Alone? 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading  Never Die Alone this week. The narrative flowed and was easy to grasp onto. The plot was exciting and I enjoyed the colloquialisms and banter of King David with the other men in the novel. It was easy to get swept up in the quick pacing and wanting to uncover the mystery of who King David is in Never Die Alone. This being said, I have a hard time framing this novel within the umbrella of noir. 

My understanding of noir is that it is characterized by a dark theme and is a pessimistic story about a character entering a darkness, and emerging changed (for better or worse) because of it. “Never Die Alone” clearly has the atmosphere of noir because of how it lets the reader into the world of the urban underground. Each of the characters in this world are driven by lust and greed, which lead them into situations where they kill and get killed, ending up dead in a gutter, as was the case for most of Moon’s men, and almost for King David. However, this dark theme was undercut by the protagonist. 

Paul is a sympathetic character, as we discussed in class, he seems to be one of the only redeemable characters in all of the noir novels we have read. Paul has a proximity to the dark underworld that noir is supposed to let the reader into: he is poor, a drug addict, and lives in an apartment complex in a poor, mostly black area. His whiteness is tainted with a bit of darkness, as he is Jewish, which makes his racial identity slightly ambiguous. Framing this novel from the perspective of Paul creates a distance between the grittiness of noir and the reader. I did not feel the guilt of the voyeur because Paul has already borne the burden of interpreting King David’s story for the reader. . And further, by the end of the novel Paul redeems the reader of feeling the shame of David’s actions by giving his money to help drug addicts. It felt like an anti-drug book with this ending, tying up loose strings in a bow. This perspective of this novel takes away from the shock of an ambiguous ending like If He Hollers Let Him Go, where the wrongdoings that are done to Bob go unpunished. Maybe my definition of noir needs to be expanded, but I think the character of Paul makes Never Die Alone feel lacking in the moral ambiguity of noir. 

Throughout the semester, our class has read various works in the noir genre, all of which center around a male protagonist. This prompted me to think, is the exploration of masculinity a part of the noir genre? Although we have yet to read an example of noir which centers around a female protagonist, I would argue that the noir genre is not necessarily about the exploration of masculinity, but an exploration of identity and power dynamics. However, until we read an example of noir in which the protagonist is female, my definition remains that an aspect of noir is an examination of masculinity.

What is masculinity in the noir genre? Throughout the semester we have read a variation of books, all spanning different timelines, and throughout history, the definition of what it means to be a man has shifted. First, we were introduced to Sam Spade, who embodied everything it meant to be masculine. He was strong, he didn’t need to use a gun. He made women swoon. He was good-looking and devilish. This is a complete contrast from a character like Bob, who wanted to be seen as a man, but his masculinity, or lack thereof, was directly associated with his race as a black man in the 1940s. Then there is the pimp in Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground, who was flamboyant and dressed in a way that was not the typical depiction of what it meant to be “a man” in the 1970s. It is evident that the depiction of masculinity and what it means to be a man has changed throughout time; however, one thing that has remained constant is power and exerting power over others.

From Sam Spade to King David, the conception of masculinity has centered around exerting power over others, either through physical means or financially. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade shows his masculinity through his calm and collected manner in addition to using force against the less masculine Joel Cairo. Rarely in The Maltese Falcon do we see power being used against Spade or someone having the upper hand on him physically. Spade retains his power over others.

In a similar vein, the pimp, which we discussed in class and in Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground is the antithesis of the typical masculinity displayed by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. He dresses flamboyantly and doesn’t need to use his physicality to prove it. Instead, he simply wields his power, money, and control over women to exude masculinity, which also makes people want to be him and admire him. Power is central to this admiration.

Finally, with the example of King David, his masculinity, which Paul comes to admire for a moment is centered around his ability to manipulate others in order to get what he wants, whether that be women or money. Paul is enticed by King David’s life and the way he uses power to get what he wanted: “King David has been one hell of a man, he reflected…” (150).

The idea that being a man and masculinity are centered around power has not changed today, but I think it also shows that being a man is not just one thing, but a product of a power dynamic and having control over others, which for a majority of history has been a right exclusive to men. I am curious to see in the books which have a female protagonist if men still have the power and control, which we have seen to be typical throughout the semester.