Literary Tough Guys

Abstract

Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance, like Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, fits the bill as a novel by a major literary figure that excels in the practice of an oftentimes demeaned genre that also carries some literary clout. Like Inherent Voice, Tough Guys utilized criteria of hardboiled/noir genre in question and uses them well. Its protagonist-narrator is a reasonably successful, if amateur, sleuth who in general mystery story style solves the proverbial “Who done it?” and who, in hardboiled/noir, style also deciphers enigmas and resolves challenge confronting his masculine identity. Protagonist-narrator Madden’s tale is told in a particularly forceful style.