NoirCon 2008 sets out where GoodisCon 2007 left off!
We intend to shed the light on the very finest of Noir!
Check
http://noircon.com/ early and often for details.
GoodisCon celebrated the '50s Prince of Pulp, David L. Goodis. 40 years to the day after his untimely death in January 1967, he may finally be getting his due.
Contemporary noir writers such as George Pelecanos, Duane Swierczynski, Jonathan Lethem, Jason Starr, Al Guthrie and Ken Bruen have been hailing Goodis' influence.
And film directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are raving about the cinematic quality of his books.
Robert Polito, director of the graduate writing program at Manhattan's New School and the keynote speaker at Goodiscon, cites Goodis as a seminal figure in the second generation of American crime writers, the ones who inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, a group that includes Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith and Goodis. Polito says by phone. "Highsmith reinvented the American-in-Europe novel of Henry James. But Goodis was the brilliant anthropologist of Philadelphia with a terrific ear not only for the way people talked but for the ways in which they use conversation and language to evade and avoid communication."
"His books are all about people who are down on their luck with no chance of ever getting out from under the yoke they are carrying," says Lou Boxer.
NoirCon will continue the celebration of the Noir – past, present and future. We will present Noir in its many guises (and/or disguises) – writing, art, film, architecture, history, music and etc.