Criminally Fat: Reframing the homme fatal in Vera Caspary’s Laura (1943)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The spectre of queer men features prominently in the traditions of both film noir and hard-boiled crime fiction. Like the femme fatale, these “deadly sissies” (Russo 70) are part of a much broader category of men whose nonconventional models of masculinity pose a threat to the detective figure and his representation of hegemonic masculinity. This article analyses the depiction of fat masculinities in Vera Caspary’s novel, Laura (1943), focusing on her notorious antagonist, Waldo Lydecker. By exploring what Christopher E. Forth describes as “the historical […] perceptions of fat males as weak, impulsive, and perverse” (387), this analysis suggests that Lydecker is the novel’s true fatal figure, whose masculinity undergoes a process of queering, not through his sexuality, but by articulating the developing association between fatness and femininity.