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Narrated by Pete Bradbury, James Colby, Andrea Gallo
Johnny TempleUnabridged — 22 hours, 51 minutes
Narrated by Pete Bradbury, James Colby, Andrea Gallo
Johnny TempleUnabridged — 22 hours, 51 minutes
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All the heavy hitters, from Michael Connelly in Los Angeles to Joyce Carol Oates in suburban New Jersey, came out for USA Noir, an important anthology of stories shrewdly culled by Johnny Temple, Akashic's editor in chief, from dozens of volumes of regional crime fiction published since 2004 under the "Noir" banner…there's hardly a dud in the pack…
★ 09/09/2013
Temple, Akashic’s publisher and editor-in-chief, is the force behind the press’s series of noir anthologies in which each installment focuses on a different locale. This compendium showcases 37 exceptional stories from 32 separate volumes, in six thematic categories: “True Grit,” “American Values,” “Road Rage,” “Homeland Security,” “Under the Influence,” and “Street Justice.” A number of the contributors, including Lawrence Block, Laura Lippman, Joyce Carol Oates, George Pelecanos, and Dennis Lehane, have edited individual series entries. Pete Hamill’s “The Book Signing,” Reed Farrel Coleman’s “Mastermind,” and Megan Abbott’s “Our Eyes Couldn’t Stop Opening” are especially good. The humor—where there is any—is fittingly dark, as in Block’s outstanding “The Ehrengraf Settlement.” Other notable tales are Luis Alberto Urrea’s punch-in-the-gut “Amapola” and Lehane’s deliciously twisted “Animal Rescue.” Readers will be hard put to find a better collection of short stories in any genre. (Nov.)
"Hold the eggnog: What you need is a draft of ‘edgy fatalism and sexy recklessness,’ of flashy crime, gallows humor, and ‘desperate deals with a variety of devils,’ served up every year since 2004 by the editors of Akashic Books’ brilliant noir anthologies. From Brooklyn to Boston, from Phoenix to pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, each volume in the series reveals a city’s distinctive inner darkness."
"So, thanks a million to antho editor and Akashic Books head honcho Johnny Temple for doing such a crackerjack job of overloading my schedule with these dark and dirty pleasures."
"For those who prefer their crime closer to home, there is USA Noir, a veritable greatest hits of Akashic’s long-running, acclaimed noir anthology series, rounding up solid gold blackness of the bleakest and darkest kind . . . Like Chuck Berry sang, ‘Anything you want, we got right here in the USA."
"In USA Noir we are treated to range of tales by accomplished writers, and reflecting the diversity of the nation. Each draws on the dark worlds, flawed characters, and jaded mood intrinsic to the genre we have come to call Noir. If you're a fan, you're in for a real treat. If you’re not a fan, try it—you just might change your mind."
—Reviewing the Evidence
"The stories in USA Noir keep the reader guessing and waiting for the unavoidable plot twist at the end without having to sit through chapters of character development or side stories. Like good noir, everything is quick and dirty, keeps the reader engaged and shows that there is a little sex, violence and sleaziness in all of us, regardless of location."
—Denver Post's Yourhub
"So, thanks a million to antho editor and Akashic Books head honcho Johnny Temple for doing such a crackerjack job of overloading my schedule with these dark and dirty pleasures."
—Austin Chronicle
"The sultry, mysterious tone plays out like Lynch writing an old pulp paperback. Much to love here."
—Metro Times Blog (Detroit)
"In a way, the noir series at Akashic has always been a best of so you can't really miss picking this one up."
—Brooklyn Based
"This is, without question, a must-have collection that serves equally well as an introduction to each of the authors as it does the Noir series itself. Regardless if you read the stories in the order presented, or go directly to those by some of your favorites, you'll find USA Noir on your nightstand or reading table for many nights."
—Bookgasm
"This book is full of little gems that can be picked up, read and enjoyed in less than 10 minutes, and as the mother of a young child, this collection is the perfect answer when all I have is a few minutes of uninterrupted reading time."
—NY Spender
"An excellent cross-section of today's noir writers."
—SKJAM! Reviews
"For Christmas, someone could give me USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series—a good way to offset all the goodwill and frivolity."
—The Observer (UK)
"Hold the eggnog: What you need is a draft of 'edgy fatalism and sexy recklessness,' of flashy crime, gallows humor, and 'desperate deals with a variety of devils,' served up every year since 2004 by the editors of Akashic Books' brilliant noir anthologies. From Brooklyn to Boston, from Phoenix to pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, each volume in the series reveals a city's distinctive inner darkness."
—O, the Oprah Magazine
"Over the past few years, some of the best collections of short stories have been the Noir anthologies published by Akashic...To me, these collections are total gems, a quality read from some of today's best authors."
—Oline Cogdill, Sun-Sentinel
A must read for mystery fans, not just devotees of Akashic's "Noir" series, this anthology serves as both an introduction for newcomers and a greatest-hits package for regular readers of the series. Broken into six parts (True Grit, American Values, Road Rage, Homeland Security, Under the Influence, and Street Justice), the volume contains the best short mystery fiction has to offer. Some authors deliver their usual goods (George Pelecanos's entry, "The Confidential Informant," treads his familiar storytelling lines but packs a devastating emotional punch just the same) while other entries tend to surprise (Michael Connelly's playful "Mullholland Dive," for example). The best of these stories are tightly written character studies with an amazing sense of place, be it San Diego or Pittsburgh, while also concisely examining larger issues such as domestic violence, post-traumatic stress disorder, or gentrification. There isn't a weak story in the collection, and readers will be inspired to check out not only the other volumes in the series (now pushing 60 titles) but also the back catalogs of each of the authors. VERDICT Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries published by Hard Case Crime, as well as for fans of police procedurals. Not recommended for readers who are 100 percent committed to cozies exclusively, but other mystery fans who give it a chance will find much to enjoy.—Julie Elliott, Indiana Univ. Lib., South Bend
2013-09-26
Temple, general editor of Akashic's series of noir collections (Brooklyn Noir, 2004, etc.), skims the cream from the first 59 volumes. It's hard to imagine how the present anthology could be topped for sheer marquee appeal. Seasoned pros contribute stories as proficient as they are characteristic. Lawrence Block tangles quick-thinking lawyer Martin Ehrengraf in a tricky domestic triangle. Michael Connelly follows a forensic reconstructionist to a suspicious car accident on Mulholland Drive. Pete Hamill brings a successful author back to his hometown for a book signing. Lee Child's reporter abruptly rings down the curtain on the killing of a 14-year-old girl. The field is expanded by Tim Broderick's comic-book tale of Wall Street malfeasance and dispatches from Laura Lippman's Baltimore, Dennis Lehane's Boston, Julie Smith's New Orleans, James W. Hall's Miami, George Pelecanos's D.C., and even Jonathan Safran Foer's suburban New Jersey. Yet, the results are more professional than inspired. Like a series of postcards, the stories leave you with good memories of past encounters rather than creating bold new experiences. Perhaps the single most impressive feature of the collection is its range of voices, from Joyce Carol Oates' faux innocent young family to Megan Abbott's impressionable high school kids to the chorus of peremptory voices S.J. Rozan plants in a haunted thief's head. Eat your heart out, Walt Whitman: These are the folks who hear America singing, and moaning and screaming. A helpful U.S. map locating the places where all the 37 reprints are set indicates that, with a few notable exceptions--New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, the Twin Cities, Kansas City, Phoenix, Las Vegas and, of course, Texas--noir seems to flourish overwhelmingly in coastal blue states. Sociologists and pollsters take note.
| BN ID: | 2940171282981 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 01/31/2014 |
| Series: | Akashic Noir Series |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Writers on the Run
In my early years as a book publisher, I got a call one Saturday from one of our authors asking me to drop by his place for "a smoke." I politely declined as I had a full day planned. "But Johnny," the author persisted, "I have some really good smoke." My curiosity piqued, I swung by, but was a bit perplexed to be greeted with suspicion at the author's door by an unhinged whore and her near-nude john. The author rumbled over and ushered me in, promptly sitting me down on a smelly couch and assuring the others I wasn't a problem. Moments later, the john produced a crack pipe to resume the party I had evidently interrupted. This wasn't quite the smoke I'd envisaged, so I gracefully excused myself after a few (sober) minutes. I scurried home pondering the author's notion that it was somehow appropriate to invite his publisher to a crack party.
It may not have been appropriate, but it sure was noir.
From the start, the heart and soul of Akashic Books has been dark, provocative, well-crafted tales from the disenfranchised. I learned early on that writings from outside the mainstream almost necessarily coincide with a mood and spirit of noir, and are composed by authors whose life circumstances often place them in environs vulnerable to crime.
My own interest in noir fiction grew from my early exposure to urban crime, which I absorbed from various perspectives. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and have lived in Brooklyn since 1990. In the 1970s and '80s, when violent, drug-fueled crime in DC was rampant, my mother hung out with cops she'd befriended through her work as a nearly unbeatable public defender. She also grew close to some of her clients, most notably legendary DC bank robber Lester "LT" Irby (a contributor to DC Noir), who has been one of my closest friends since I was fifteen, though he was incarcerated from the early 1970s until just recently. Complicating my family's relationship with the criminal justice system, my dad sued the police stridently in his work as legal director of DC's American Civil Liberties Union.
Both of my parents worked overtime. By the time my sister Kathy was nine and I was seven, we were latchkey kids prone to roam, explore, and occasionally break laws. Though an arrest for shoplifting helped curb my delinquent tendencies, the interest in crime remained. After college I worked with adolescents and completed a master's degree in social work; my focus was on teen delinquency.
Throughout the 1990s, my relationship with the urban underbelly expanded as I spent a great deal of time in dank nightclubs populated by degenerates and outcasts. I played bass guitar in Girls Against Boys, a rock and roll group that toured extensively in the US and Europe. The long hours on the road not spent on stage gave way to book publishing, which began as a hobby in 1996 with my friends Bobby and Mark Sullivan.
The first book we published was The Fuck-Up, by Arthur Nersesian—adark, provocative, well-crafted tale from the disenfranchised. A few years later Heart of the Old Country by Tim McLoughlin became one of our early commercial successes. The book was widely praised both for its classic noir voice and its homage to the people of South Brooklyn. While Brooklyn is chock-full of published authors these days, Tim is one of the few who was actually born and bred here. In his five decades, Tim has never left the borough for more than five weeks at a stretch and he knows the place, through and through, better than anyone I've met.
In 2003, inspired by Brooklyn's unique and glorious mix of cultures, Tim and I set out to explore New York City's largest borough in book form, in a way that would ring true to local residents. Tim loves his home borough despite its flagrant flaws, and was easily seduced by the concept of working with Akashic to try and portray its full human breadth.
He first proposed a series of books, each one set in a different neighborhood, whether it be Bay Ridge, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Fort Greene, Bed- Stuy, or Canarsie. It was an exciting idea, but it's hard enough to publish a single book, let alone commit to a full series. After we considered various other possibilities, Tim came upon the idea of a fiction anthology organized by neighborhood, each one represented by a different author. We were looking for stylistic diversity, so we focused on "noir," and defined it in the broadest sense: we wanted stories of tragic, soulful struggle against all odds, characters slipping, no redemption in sight.
Conventional wisdom dictates that literary anthologies don't sell well, but this idea was too good to resist—it seemed the perfect form for exploring the whole borough, and we got to work soliciting stories. We batted around book titles, including Under the Hood, before settling on Brooklyn Noir. The volume came together beautifully and was a surprise hit for Akashic, quickly selling through multiple printings and winning awards. (See pages 548–550 for a full list of prizes garnered by stories originally published in the Noir Series.)
Having seen nearly every American city, large and small, through the windows of a van or tour bus, I have developed a deep fondness for their idiosyncrasies. So for me it was easy logic to take the model of Brooklyn Noir—sketching out dark urban corners through neighborhood-based short fiction—and extend it to other cities. Soon came Chicago Noir, San Francisco Noir, and London Noir (our first of many overseas locations). Selecting the right editor to curate each book has been the most important decision we make before assembling it. It's a welcome challenge because writers are often enamored of their hometowns, and many are seduced by the urban landscape's rough edges. The generous support of literary superheroes like George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, and Joyce Carol Oates, all of whom have edited series volumes, has been critical.
There are now fifty-nine books in the Noir Series. Forty of them are from American locales. As of this writing, a total of 787 authors have contributed 917 stories to the series and helped Akashic to stay afloat during perilous economic times. By publishing six to eight new volumes in the Noir Series every year, we have provided a steady venue for short stories, which have in recent times struggled with diminishing popularity. Akashic's commitment to the short story has been rewarded by the many authors—of both great stature and great obscurity—who have allowed us to publish their work in the series for a nominal fee.
I am particularly indebted to all sixty-seven editors who have cumulatively upheld a high editorial standard across the series. The series would never have gotten this far without rigorous quality control. There also couldn't be a Noir Series without my devoted and tireless (if occasionally irreverent) staff led by Johanna Ingalls, Ibrahim Ahmad, and Aaron Petrovich.
This volume serves up a top-shelf selection of stories from the series set in the United States. USA Noir only scratches the surface, however, and every single volume has more gems on offer.
When I set out to compile USA Noir, I was delighted by the immediate positive responses from nearly every author I contacted. The only author on my initial invitation list who isn't included here is one I couldn't track down: the publisher explained to me that the writer was "literally on the run." While I'm disappointed that we can't include the story, the circumstance is true to the Noir Series spirit.
And part of me—the noir part—is expecting a phone call from the writer, inviting me over for a smoke.
Excerpted from USA NOIR by Johnny Temple. Copyright © 2013 Akashic Books. Excerpted by permission of Akashic Books.
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