Hard-boiled ecologies: Ross Macdonald’s environmental crime fiction

Ashman, Nathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4065-6253 (2018) Hard-boiled ecologies: Ross Macdonald’s environmental crime fiction. Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 22 (1). pp. 43-54. ISSN 1468-8417

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Abstract

Although Ross Macdonald’s position in the annals of great American hardboiled crime writers is unquestioned, what often been overlooked in the study of his works are the underlying environmental preoccupations that frequently serve as the background to, or context for, crime. This context of ecological violence is forcefully manifested in two of Macdonald’s later Archer novels The Underground Man (1971) and Sleeping Beauty (1973). This essay scrutinizes the environmental imperatives of Macdonald’s work, arguing that the damage and destruction inflicted upon the environment in these two texts becomes symbiotically connected to the broader, morally fraught social milieu of the city.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ross macdonald,hardboiled,pastoral,crime fiction,ecology,sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/peace_justice_and_strong_institutions
Faculty \ School:
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	16 Oct 2018 14:30
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 20:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68550
DOI:	10.1080/14688417.2018.1431139

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