One title on the list:
Children of Light by Robert StoneRead about the other books on the list.
The most unloved child of all Stone's work (even editor Robert Gottlieb hated it), this novel contains the psychic framework of a good noir while simultaneously being the burnout death of the genre (despite noble attempts at resurrection by Jonathan Lethem ("Gun With Occasional Music") and Charlie Smith ("Chimney Rock"). Stone dispenses the crime elements offstage, and then wallows in drugs, suicide, madness, Oedipal failures and Mexico -- the traditional dumping ground for noir.
Children of Light is one of Jane Ciabattari's five best novels on Hollywood.
--Marshal Zeringue