A Preview of Boston Noir

The latest in the Akashic Books "city noir" series is due to be released November 1st (which will be here before you know it). This time it's Boston's turn, in a series of stories edited by Dorchester native Dennis Lehane. Publishers Weekly caught up with Lehane to ask him now he avoided "genre cliches" in this anthology. In a response to a question about Lehane's assertion that noir is a working-class tragedy, Lehane replied

"Noir is a tragedy about people who are squeezed by circumstance. I'm not a big believer in genre labels, but I do believe there's a clear delineation between noir and crime fiction or mystery. For this anthology, I wanted authors who are writing noir who don't think it's about a fedora or some ham-fisted tough guy. Those are just the trappings."

A Publishers Weekly review of the book noted that "In the best of the 11 stories in this outstanding entry in Akashic's noir series, characters, plot and setting feed off each other like flames and an arsonist's accelerant," including Lehane's own "Animal Rescue," about a killing resulting from a lost and contested pit bull, John Dufresne's "The Cross-Eyed Bear," and Don Lee's "The Oriental Hair Poets." Other contributors include Stewart O'Nan, Patricia Powell, Lynne Heitman, Russ Aborn, Itabari Njeri, Jim Fusilli, Brendan DuBois, and Dana Cameron.

The book launch is scheduled at the tail end of the Boston Book Festival, at 6pm on October 24th at the Boston Public Library (apparently there will be a prize for the best femme fatale and hard-boiled private eye costume, so keep that in mind). Akashic Books is offering a signed, limited hardcover edition of the anthology to the first 100 purchasers.

Comments

[Patti Abbott]

I am really surprised Boston was so long in coming in this series. The selected writers sound just great.

[BV Lawson]

I'm looking forward to reading this, too, Patti. Kudos to Akashic for making this series possible.