The genre of female metaphysical detective novel: tradition and modernity

This article investigates female metaphysical detective novel as a specific literary genre of crime fiction. The theoretical framework of the study includes several cross-fertilizing approaches such as the structuralist approach to the genre theory, the theory of postmodern anti-detective novel, and the feminist reading of the detective novel evolution. The nexus where these mutually correlated theoretical approaches overlap is the concept of female metaphysical detective novel. This subgenre of detective fiction intertwines several important elements of the postmodern aesthetics, i. e., self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and subversiveness with emphasis on political, gender, and class issues. The specific character of female-authored detective stories is studied diachronically and synchronically. The evolution of the genre of female metaphysical detective novel from the Golden Age until now is considered through the lens of metaphysical or heterotopian settings that are featured in detective fiction written by women. First, it is shown that the construction of space in several Golden Age narratives provides grounds to consider them the precursors of contemporary female metaphysical novel. The conclusion is made that even before feminism was universally recognized as a literary theory, women had been trying to break out of the ‘locked room’ canon designated for them mainly by traditional literary criticism. Next, several new tendencies are pinpointed that have appeared in femaleauthored detective fiction only recently. Finally, the set of generic features is identified that are characteristic of female metaphysical detective novel as a distinct genre of crime fiction. Most prominently, the novels epitomizing the genre foreground the evolution of the heroine’s identity depicted as a complex network of gendered spaces.