Purchase an online subscription to our website. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications.
For a limited time, for NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials!
After the first year, we’ll automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel*
“Pickard County Atlas” by Chris Harding Thornton, MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021, 277 pages, $27
“Pickard County Atlas,” the debut novel from Chris Harding Thornton, at first seems to be a rural variation of a classic noir, but it slowly turns into something much closer to classical tragedy.
“Noir” – it means “black” in French – is a literary genre that is often difficult to define. Some confuse it with the hardboiled detective fiction of Raymond Chandler (think Philip Marlowe in “The Big Sleep”) and Dashiell Hammett (think Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”). But in those works, there’s at least someone with a sense of right and wrong, however threadbare it might be.
