Oakland Noir
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Wonderfully, in Akashic’s Oakland Noir, the stereotypes about the city suffer the fate of your average noir character—they die brutally.” —San Francisco Chronicle
In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir—all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series—comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller (the “Czar of Noir”), this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.
Oakland Noir offers stories by Nick Petrulakis, Kim Addonizio, Keenan Norris, Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder, Katie Gilmartin, Dorothy Lazard, Harry Louis Williams II, Carolyn Alexander, Phil Canalin, Judy Juanita, Jamie DeWolf, Nayomi Munaweera, Mahmud Rahman, Tom McElravey, Joe Loya, and Eddie Muller.
“From the Oakland hills to the heart of downtown, each story brings Oakland to life.” —San Jose Mercury News
“Oakland is a natural for the series, with its shadowy crimes and disgruntled cops.” —Zoom Street Magazine
“San Francisco’s grittier next-door neighbor gets her day in the sun in 16 new stories in this tightly curated entry in Akashic’s Noir series. The hardscrabble streets of Oakland offer crime aplenty . . . Thompson and Muller have taken such pains to choose stories highlighting Oakland’s diversity and history that the result is a volume rich in local culture as well as crime.” —Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The legendarily tough California city of Oakland finally gets an entry in the Akashic noir series. The volume's 16 original stories touch on "thug life," as well as such issues as homelessness and suicidal despair in the digital age. Despite a few tales of torrid sexual desire, most of the contents feel less like true noir and more like something barely on the fringes of the genre the plot of Keenan Norris's "A Murder of Saviors," for example, centers on the formation of charter schools. Judy Juanita's "Cabbie" seems poised to explore controversial depths with mentions of notorious real-life cop killer Lovelle Mixon, a hero to some, but dribbles away into a vague vignette, volcanic potential untapped. Joe Loya's "Waiting for Gordo" provides visual variety by presenting the narrative as a wire transcript. The editors follow the Akashic formula with a mix of local writers of diverse ethnic backgrounds, but leave out Oakland literary giants such as the street fighter and poet Floyd Salas. The end result is just an average entry in this acclaimed series.
