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Teaching Crime Fiction pp 99–114Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Cut a Long Story Short: Teaching the Crime Short Story

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Part of the book series: Teaching the New English ((TENEEN))

Abstract

In her chapter, “Cut a Long Story Short: Teaching the Crime Short Story”, Beyer examines ways in which the crime short story as a specific generic form can be utilised in teaching and learning to explore various aspects of crime writing. By tracing critical perspectives on the crime short story specifically, as well as the short story form more generally, Beyer argues that the crime short story is a relatively overlooked field which is deserving of far greater attention by students and scholars, and which can be theorised and employed in useful and innovative ways in crime fiction teaching and learning contexts to illuminate and complicate both thematic and stylistic aspects of the crime fiction genre.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Rebeca Hernández, “Short Narrations in a Letter Frame: Cases of Genre Hybridity in Postcolonial Literature in Portuguese”, In Short Story Theories: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, edited by Viorica Patea. Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2012. 154.

  2. 2.

    Iftekharruddin states: “Postmodernism is a complex entity that encompasses a wide range of philosophical, social, linguistic , and literary interests and attracts a variety of practitioners including social theorists, poststructuralists and psychoanalysts.” Farhat Iftekharuddin. “Fictional Nonfiction and Nonfictional Fiction”. In The Postmodern Short Story: Forms and Issues, edited by Farhat Iftekharuddin; Joseph Boyden, Mary Rohrberger, Jaie Claudet. No. 124. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003. 4.

  3. 3.

    Raymond Williams, “On High and Popular Culture”. New Republic, 22 November 1974. https://newrepublic.com/article/79269/high-and-popular-culture Accessed 16 July 2017.

  4. 4.

    See Tom Nolan, “Short Stories, Hard Covers: New Partners in Crime Fiction”. The Wall Street Journal, 9 May 2007. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117867237969196688 Accessed 26 December 2017.

  5. 5.

    Ailsa Cox, “Introduction”, In Teaching the Short Story, edited by Ailsa Cox. Houndmills, Palgrave, 2011. 1.

  6. 6.

    Frank Myszor, The Modern Short Story, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001. 7.

  7. 7.

    Martin Priestman, Part III, Chapter 11. In The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story, edited by Ann-Marie Einhaus, 159–171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Kindle. See also Charlotte Beyer, ‘Bags Stuffed with the Offal of Their Own History’: Crime Fiction and the Short Story in Crimespotting: An Edinburgh Crime Collection’. Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, Vol. 3 No. 1. 37–52.

  8. 8.

    Priestman, 159.

  9. 9.

    Myszor, 8.

  10. 10.

    Ailsa Cox, “Introduction”, Writing Short Stories: A Routledge Writer’s Guide, Abingdon, Routledge, 2005; 2016. Kindle.

  11. 11.

    Adrian Hunter, The Cambridge Introduction to the Short Story in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 1.

  12. 12.

    Hunter, p. 1.

  13. 13.

    Myszor 26.

  14. 14.

    Hunter, p. 1.

  15. 15.

    Iftekharuddin, 5.

  16. 16.

    Randolph J. Cox. “Detective Short Fiction”, in The Facts on File: Companion to the American Short Story, edited by Abby Werlock and James Werlock. New York: Infobase Publishing, Cox, 2010. 185.

  17. 17.

    Weber, Christina D., Literary Fiction as a Tool for Teaching Social Theory and Critical Consciousness”. Teaching Sociology, Vol. 38 No. 4, 2010, 351.

  18. 18.

    Lisa Fletcher, “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Popular Romance Studies: What is It, and Why Does It Matter? Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 2013, 3.2.1–5. 4.

  19. 19.

    I have cited those of my publications here that apply to this discussion, specifically in relation to teaching the crime short story.

  20. 20.

    See Northedge, Andrew. “Rethinking Teaching in the Context of Diversity”, Teaching in Higher Education, 8: 1, 2003. 17–32. Northedge uses these terms as part of his discussion of pedagogy.

  21. 21.

    Thomas Leitch, “On the Margins of Mystery: The Detective in Poe and After”. In Contemporary Debates on the Short Story, edited by José R. Ibáñez Ibáñez, José Francisco Fernández, Carmen M. Bretones. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007. 25. See also Myszor, 15; Leitch, 34.

  22. 22.

    Nancy A. Harrowitz, “Criminality and Poe’s Orangutang”. In Agonistics: Arenas of Creative Contest edited by Janet Lungstrum, Elizabeth Sauer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 188.

  23. 23.

    Rachel Franks, “Hardboiled Detectives and the Roman Noir Tradition”. In Violence in American Popular Culture, Volume 2, edited by David Schmid, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015. 97.

  24. 24.

    Priestman, 166.

  25. 25.

    All in Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr. Quin, London: HarperCollins, 2003.

  26. 26.

    Charlotte Beyer, “‘With Practised Eyes’: Feminine Identity in The Mysterious Mr. Quin”. In The Ageless Agatha Christie: Essays on the Mysteries and the Legacy, edited by Jamie Bernthal. Jefferson: McFarland, 2016. 61–80.

  27. 27.

    Beyer, “Practised”. See also Merja Makinen, Agatha Christie: Investigating Femininity. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2006.

  28. 28.

    I also refer to these themes in Beyer “Practised”, 62.

  29. 29.

    Priestman, 166.

  30. 30.

    Beyer “Practised”, 76.

  31. 31.

    David Geherin, Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. 8.

  32. 32.

    See my article on the anthology: Charlotte Beyer, “‘Bags Stuffed with the Offal of Their Own History’: Crime Fiction and the Short Story in Crimespotting: An Edinburgh Crime Collection”. Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, Vol. 3 No. 1. 39.

  33. 33.

    Kate Atkinson. “Affairs of the Heart”. In Crimespotting: An Edinburgh Crime Collection, edited by Kate Atkinson et al. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2009. 13–34.

  34. 34.

    Julia Crouch, “Genre Bender”. Blog, http://juliacrouch.co.uk/blog/genre-bender. Accessed 6 January 2018.

  35. 35.

    Beyer, “Bags”, 40–41.

  36. 36.

    Beyer, “Bags”, 40.

  37. 37.

    Denise Mina, “Chris Takes the Bus”. in Crimespotting: An Edinburgh Crime Collection, edited by Denise Mina et al., Edinburgh: Polygon, 2009. 195–200.

  38. 38.

    Heather Worthington, Key Concepts in Crime Fiction. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2011. 50.

  39. 39.

    Beyer, “Bags”, 48.

  40. 40.

    These issues are also explored in Vanacker and Wynne.

  41. 41.

    See my article, in which I discuss this story; Charlotte Beyer, “Sherlock Holmes Reimagined: An Exploration of Selected Short Stories from A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon”. Oscholars (Special issue on Conan Doyle). https://oscholars-oscholars.com/doyle/.

  42. 42.

    I also discuss this story in my chapter: “‘I, Too, Mourn The Loss’: Mrs Hudson and the Absence of Sherlock Holmes”. In Sherlock Holmes in Context edited by Sam Naidu. Houndmills: Palgrave. 61–82.

  43. 43.

    Beyer, “Reimagined”, 7.

  44. 44.

    Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep. London: Penguin, 2011. 9. I also make the connection to the hard-boiled detective anti-hero in Beyer “Reimagined”, 8.

  45. 45.

    Beyer, “Reimagined”, 8.

  46. 46.

    Louisa Hadley, Neo-Victorian Fiction and Historical Narrative: The Victorians and Us. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2010. 5.

  47. 47.

    Beyer, “I, Too”, 62.

  48. 48.

    Beyer, “I, Too”, 74.

  49. 49.

    Charles May, “Teaching the Short Story Today”. In Teaching the Short Story, edited by Ailsa Cox. Houndmills: Palgrave, 2011. 149.

  50. 50.

    Linden Peach, “Women Writers”. In Teaching the Short Story, edited by Ailsa Cox. Houndmills, Palgrave, 2011. 61.

  51. 51.

    Andrew Maunder, Emma Liggins, Ruth Robbins, The British Short Story. Houndmills: Palgrave. 16.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

    Charlotte Beyer

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  1. Charlotte Beyer
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Correspondence to Charlotte Beyer .

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  1. University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, United Kingdom

    Charlotte Beyer

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Beyer, C. (2018). Cut a Long Story Short: Teaching the Crime Short Story. In: Beyer, C. (eds) Teaching Crime Fiction. Teaching the New English. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90608-9_7

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