Up until that point, a particular literary genre had nurtured the American vision of homosexuality, a genre whose point of departure was a burning curiosity to know what really goes on in the lower depths: the hardboiled crime novel. While the reform-minded social realists (Crane, Norris, Farrell, et al.) had never had much time for homosexuality -- perhaps sharing the notion that it was chiefly an aristocratic pastime typical of pallid Etonians -- the hardboiled writers from Hammett onward found it hard to keep away. Although gays are not as commonly associated with tough-guy fiction as racketeers, crooked cops or B-girls, the fact remains that all the main contributors to the genre -- Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Spillane, Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, among others -- helped to elaborate a gay stereotype. As the influence of hardboiled realism spread, the incidence of homosexual characters increased dramatically in mainstream mystery writing.
"Juno Was a Man; or, The Case of the Hardboiled Homophobes" - Geoffrey O'Brien, The Armchair Detective Vol. 18 #3 (Summer 1985)
