Hard-Boiled Sentimentality - by Leonard Cassuto (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Leonard Cassuto's cultural history links the testosterone-saturated heroes of American crime stories to the sensitive women of the nineteenth-century sentimental novel. From classics like The Big Sleep and The Talented Mr. Ripley to neglected paperback gems, Cassuto chronicles the dialogue--centered on the power of sympathy--between these popular genres and the sweeping social changes of the twentieth century, ending with a surprising connection between today's serial killers and the domestic fictions of long ago.

Review Quotes

Cassuto has profitably plowed new ground in this study. It's certain to become an essential document for undersatnding crime fiction's inner workings.-- "African American Review"

This is an erudite, illuminating and highly readable study-- "Journal of American Studies"

About the Author

Leonard Cassuto is professor of English at Fordham University and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in academic journals and popular periodicals ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Salon.com. He is the author of The Inhuman Race: The Racial Grotesque in American Literature and Culture and the general editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the American Novel.