Blacktop Wasteland

Literary genres possess motifs and thematic earmarks that readers come to expect. Many romance novels contain a moment in which true love is expressed with a kiss, while many Westerns contain galloping horses and six guns. Blacktop Wasteland, a noir novel, both fulfills and subverts the tropes of its genre.

While noir resists a tidy definition, it usually presents a loose constellation of distinctive traits. As with much noir literature, Cosby’s novel pits a disenchanted underdog against long odds. The novel’s setting is also typical of noir insofar as it’s a corrupt and violent world that, even after the protagonist triumphs (or at least survives), remains corrupt and violent. Likewise, many quandaries remain unanswered, symbolizing the ambiguity (or unsolvability) of the human condition. There is a sense of inescapable fatedness and a grim view of society and capitalism.

The novel’s trope subversions include the rural setting, as most noir is urban. Additionally, the femme fatale—Jenny—uses sexual charm to hoodwink not the protagonist but a relatively peripheral character, Lou Ellen. Lou Ellen, in turn, subverts the trope wherein the femme fatale’s “victim” is a man. Still, Blacktop Wasteland subverts fewer tropes than it fulfills, and some of these fulfilled tropes become thematic linchpins.