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David Cochran details how, at the height of the Cold War, ten writers and filmmakers challenged such social pieties as the superiority of American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone related stories of victims of vast, faceless bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson's The Grifters portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley featured an amoral con man who infiltrated the privileged class and wreaked havoc once there.
All of these artists helped to set the stage for the 1960s counterculture's challenge to the established order. In doing so, they blurred the lines between "high" and "low" art.
With this one indelible scene, Willeford presented his vision of the quintessential postwar American man. Beneath the pleasant exterior of a successful used-car salesman lies a soul equally capable of lashing out in meaningless, anonymous violence or appreciating the beauty of Tchaikovsky. While at this point in the novel the events do not come as a complete surprise---earlier Haxby had kneed a parking attendant in the groin for pointing out that he had parked in the wrong spot---the realization that the core of his soul Haxby is utterly without conscience prepares the reader for the ultimate revelation that Haxby will treat the people in his life with the same cavalier disdain he shows toward his customers at the car lot.
| Acknowledgments | ix | |
| Preface: Mapping the Underground Culture | xi | |
| Introduction: Within the Shell of the Old: The Creation of the Cold War Consensus and the Emergence of the Underground Culture | 1 | |
| Part 1 | The Killer inside Me: Roman Noir Authors | 17 |
| 1 | Slipping Deeper into Hell: Jim Thompson's Theology of Absurdity | 19 |
| 2 | "It's Always for Nothing": The Paperback Worldview of Charles Willeford | 39 |
| Part 2 | Progress and Its Discontents: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors | 53 |
| 3 | "I'm Being Ironic": Imperialism, Mass Culture, and the Fantastic World of Ray Bradbury | 55 |
| 4 | The Devil and Charles Beaumont | 73 |
| Part 3 | Outside Looking In: Minority Artists | 89 |
| 5 | "So Much Nonsense Must Make Sense": The Black Vision of Chester Himes | 91 |
| 6 | "Some Torture That Perversely Eased": Patricia Highsmith and the Everyday Schizophrenia of American Life | 114 |
| Part 4 | Little Shop of Horrors: Independent Filmmakers | 131 |
| 7 | "Lots of Socko": The Independent Cinematic Vision of Samuel Fuller | 133 |
| 8 | Roger Corman's Low-Budget Modernism | 151 |
| Part 5 | Cracks in the Consensus: Liberal Artists | 173 |
| 9 | Richard Condon and the Paranoid Surreal Style in American Politics | 175 |
| 10 | Another Dimension: Rod Serling, Consensus Liberalism, and The Twilight Zone | 194 |
| Conclusion: The Emancipation of Dissonance | 215 | |
| Notes | 223 | |
| Bibliography | 261 | |
| Index | 275 |
Overview
David Cochran details how, at the height of the Cold War, ten writers and filmmakers challenged such social pieties as the superiority of American democracy, the benevolence of free ...