Narrative innovation is typically seen as the domain of the
avant-garde. However, techniques such as nonlinear timelines,
multiple points of view, and unreliable narration have long been
part of American popular culture. How did forms and styles once
regarded as "difficult" become familiar to audiences? In Perplexing
Plots, David Bordwell reveals how crime fiction, plays, and films
made unconventional narrative mainstream. He shows that since the
nineteenth century, detective stories and suspense thrillers have
allowed ambitious storytellers to experiment with narrative. Tales
of crime and mystery became a training ground where audiences
learned to appreciate artifice. These genres demand a sophisticated
awareness of storytelling conventions: they play games with
narrative form and toy with audience expectations. Bordwell
examines how writers and directors have pushed, pulled, and
collaborated with their audiences to change popular storytelling.
He explores the plot engineering of figures such as Raymond
Chandler, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith,
Alfred Hitchcock, Dorothy Sayers, and Quentin Tarantino, and traces
how mainstream storytellers and modernist experimenters influenced
one another's work. A sweeping, kaleidoscopic account written in a
lively, conversational style, Perplexing Plots offers an ambitious
new understanding of how movies, literature, theater, and popular
culture have evolved over the past century.
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