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    Chicago Noir: The Classics
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    Chicago Noir: The Classics
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    Chicago Noir: The Classics
    Ebook317 pages4 hours

    Chicago Noir: The Classics

    By Harry Stephen Keeler, Sherwood Anderson, Max Allan Collins and

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

  • The original Chicago Noir has been a perennial seller for Akashic.
  • This volume comprises classic reprints from: Harry S. Keeler, Sherwood Anderson, Max Allan Collins, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Fredric Brown, Patricia Highsmith, Barry Gifford, Stuart Kaminsky, Libby Fischer Hellman, Sarah Paretsky, Percy Spurlark Parker, Sandra Cisneros, Hugh Holton, and Stuart Dybek.
  • Major media coverage expected--print, broadcast, online.
  • To be published simultaneously with Joe Meno's new novel, Hark from the Tombs.
  • Giveaways on Goodreads, LibraryThing, and through Advance Access.
  • Galleys (and e-galleys via Edelweiss) available 4-6 months in advance of publication.
  • Displays, giveaways at select mystery conferences (Bouchercon, NoirCon, etc.)
  • Focused outreach to mystery publications, mystery stores, and book clubs.
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAkashic Books
    Release dateAug 10, 2015
    ISBN9781617754180
    Unavailable
    Chicago Noir: The Classics

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    Reviews for Chicago Noir

    3.5/5

    9 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      YA Hipster Novelist Joe "Fanboy" Meno edited this collection with a bad sense of what noir actually is and a really limited knowledge of US history. In the Wiki copy and pasted introduction he muses that Chicago "only in Chicago do instituted color lines offer generation after generation of (sic) poverty and violence." Really? Detroit? New Orleans? D.C.? This guy is a professor? People really cannot vote twice anymore either.Sandra Cisneros is noir? Richard Wright? C'mon ass hat, do your homework. I know suburbanites pay you lots of money for "writin' college" but for Christ's sake do your research...
    • 3/5
      a mixed group of stories, some pretty good, but sadly, more that are not.
    • 4/5
      A very good collection of 15 short stories set in various times and in various locations around Chicago. Most of these stories give the reader a real feel for Chicago and its many neighborhoods.My only gripe is that, while most of the stories focus on the city, some barely have a connection.Even so, this is the first of the "city noir" book collections I've read and it certainly won' be my last. The hard part might be trying to figure out which one to read next.Recommended to fans of mystery short stories.
    • 4/5
      Although "noir" is apparently intended only in the broadest and generalized sense imaginable, and I don't know what qualifies every story as "classic"--the 15 stories here are divided into three chapters: Jazz Age; Noir & Neo-Noir; and Modern Crime, so maybe they weren't intended to be genre exclusive--this is a mostly excellent collection of Chicago or Chicagophile writers from the last 100 years. While the true "classic" stories, by Sherwood Anderson, Richard Wright, and Fredric Brown, were my favorites, I enjoyed reading all of them. Reading the liner notes, it appears Akashic Books intends to eventually publish "Noir" stories specific to every major metropolis in the world! I'll likely be looking to read many more of them after finishing Chicago.
    • 4/5
      Another lovely collection of noir fiction from Akashic Books. I really enjoyed the breadth and quality of the stories included. The stories included cover a wider variety of textures and experiences than you might expect from a more traditional, hard-boiled "noir" compilation. This allows the stories, taken together, to paint a picture of Chicago as a dark and nuanced landscape of experience that is quite effective (even including an excerpt from "The Price of Salt", which is not that hard-boiled at all, showing the experience in Chicago of lovers passing through).
    • 3/5
      chicago noir ~ the classicsEdited by Joe MenoFifteen stories, an introductory essay, pictures and brief biographies of the authors....this is the latest of a series from Akashic Books.In his introduction Meno says Chicago is "more corrupt than New York, less glamorous than L. A."As with any anthology readers will pick favorites. Mine are:~~"The Man Who Went to Chicago,"a powerful excerpt from Richard Wright's book of that title.~~"I'll Cut Your Throat Again, Kathleen," by Fredric Brown~~"The Whole World Is Watching" by Libby Fischer Hellmann I have read and reviewed several of the current Noir series and was surprised/pleased to find that today's writers equal their predecessors.
    • 4/5
      I like the mixture of stories. Some were better than others. I think maybe the "noir" genre is growing on me.
    • 5/5
      Chicago is the perfect host for a collection of classic noir tales — a city with as much character as New York or LA, with twice the crime. Gangsters, con men, corrupt politicos and lost souls on a final bender congregated on its wind-swept streets and late night dives. Chicago Noir: The Classics, from Akashic Press, edited by Joe Meno, is a wonderful collection in the best noir tradition.The fun starts with a Raffles-like tale from 1916 by Harry Stephen Keeler about a couple of crazy jazz age layabouts planning the perfect heist. There’s a classic hard-nosed shamus in Max Allan Collins “Kaddish for the Kid”. Nelsen Algren dishes up a beautiful sad tale of a proto-Rocky — a tired old boxer who won’t take a fall. A highlight for me is a beautiful excerpt from a 1945 Richard Wright tale called The Man Who Went to Chicago — illustrating with a powerful lyric beauty, the vast chasm between blacks and whites in mid-century America. Fredric Brown is represented in a masterful story from 1948 about a mentally damaged jazz musician who can no longer play. Patricia Highsmith, Barry Gifford, Sara Paretsky and Stuart Dybek all bring great stories to the party. Chicago Noir is one of the more successful volumes in this huge (and growing) series, brilliantly edited by Joe Meno and well worth a look.
    • 3/5
      Chicago Noir: The Classics is my ninth experience with the wonderful Akashic Books series of noir short stories since I discovered them a while back. In addition to this Chicago collection, I have enjoyed the books set in Manila, Belfast, Long Island, Boston, Mexico City, the Lone Star state of Texas, Providence, and one set entirely inside prisons. I was particularly interested in getting my hands on Chicago Noir because that city’s reputation for political corruptness is the first thing that many people think when they hear the word “Chicago.” Even the book’s editor, Joe Meno, stressed that reputation in his introductory comments:“Only in Chicago do instituted color lines offer generation after generation of poverty and violence, only in Chicago do the majority of recent governors do prison time, only in Chicago do the dead actually vote twice. With its public record of bribery, cronyism, and fraud, this is a metropolis so deeply divided – by race, ethnicity, and class – that sociologists had to develop a new term to describe this unfortunate bifurcation. As Nelson Algren best put it, Chicago is and has always been a ‘city on the make.”’But all that said, the stories in Chicago Noir seem to stretch the definition of “noir” to a greater degree than any of the other collections I’m familiar with. Granted, these stories are labeled as “The Classics,” and some of them are decades old, but I found myself wondering several times whether they really fit in this particular collection. There is, for instance, a wonderful story from 1945 by Richard Wright called “The Man Who Went to Chicago.” While this is one of my two favorite stories from the entire collection, I struggle to fit it within the confines of my personal definition of the term “noir.” It takes place entirely within a Chicago Medical District research lab, and the only crimes committed are an aborted knife fight that causes damage to the lab and the workers’ decision to cover up the fact that the resulting damage ruined the research studies being conducted there. It is “dark” only in the sense that it exposes the horrible racial discrimination so common to those times.Now, my other favorite story from Chicago Noir: The Classics leaves no room to doubt that it belongs in any collection of noir fiction. This one is called “I’ll Cut Your Throat Again, Kathleen,” and it was written by Fredric Brown way back in 1948. The story is brutal, has a couple of unforgettably duplicitous characters in it, and the most shocking ending of any story in the entire collection. It is only the second time I have read Fredric Brown and it is enough to make me search for more of his work.As in most short story collections, the stories in Chicago Noir: The Classics are a bit uneven. Perhaps that is purposeful and done in hopes that there is something in the collection that will appeal to everyone who picks it up. If so, that might be a legitimate reason for packaging them together. But a couple of stories were so formulaic that I wished I had not bothered with them at all. It’s as if they were written to “spec” even though they were from 1995 and 2009. But overall, this is a worthy addition to the Akashic Books noir series, and I am happy to add it to my collection.
    • 4/5
      It is really difficult to know how to rate this book. On a story-by-story basis, it averages out at about ***1/2 stars. But I'd like to give the editor zero stars and maybe a knock on the head. What on earth was he thinking? This is no more a collection of noir stories than it is a Harlequin Romance. I'm just dumbfounded. The definition of noir can be stretched a bit, but this idiot of an editor has just decided, apparently, to pick a few stories he likes that have some (often tenuous) connection with the city of Chicago. There is a good deal of nice writing here, and one or two dashes of noir, but overall I feel like I bought a Ferrari and went home and found a Toyota under the hood--a good car, but not what I expected. If I had paid for this book, rather than getting it as a LibraryThing reviewer, I would have asked for my money back on principle.Story by story review:30 Seconds of Darkness by Harry Stephen Keeler ***1/2 - Keeler was one of the most reliable pulp writers and this is a good tale of the theft of a necklace at a dinner party. However, although well told, the ending is no surprise, so the enjoyment is in the telling and not the mystery. It is also not even remotely a noir story. I have no idea why the editors included it.Brothers by Sherwood Anderson **** - This is an atmospheric, eerie story that pretty much defies description, but it will leave you uneasy. It will also leave you wanting to read more of Anderson's short stories. I read parts of Winesburg, Ohio a long time ago, and I remember it having the same sort of effect on me. This story is a little too poetic (rather than hardboiled) to be true noir, but it is definitely noirish.Kaddish for the Kid by Max Allan Collins **** - As could be expected from Collins, who is a pro if there ever was one, this is a nice, dark Nathan Heller story with murder and a crooked union at the center. A bit telescoped to fit into 29 pages, but satisfying, nevertheless.The Man Who Went to Chicago (excerpt) by Richard Wright **** - Wright's tale of working in a hospital basement in the midst of laboratory animals reads like non-fiction. It is great writing, but again I can't figure out how the editors thought it fit in this collection. If they just left "Noir" out of the title, it wouldn't matter.He Swung and He Missed by Nelson Algren **** - Nice story about a fading boxer with one last fight in him, with an O. Henry twist and a grasp on what's really important.I'll Cut Your Throat Again, Kathleen by Fredric Brown ***** - Finally, a story that truly fits the title Chicago Noir. This is one of Brown's most perfect creations, a story about a jazz musician being released from an asylum and returning the the wife whose throat he tried to cut 11 months before. There have been few American writers as good as Brown, and though he seems to be mostly remembered for his science fiction, it is his noir novels and short stories that should form the most important part of his legacy.The Price of Salt (excerpt) by Patricia Highsmith ***1/2 - Nicely written erotic story - nothing in the least having to do with the supposed theme of this book, but what the hey....The Starving Dogs of Little Croatia by Barry Gifford ***1/2 - Nice atmosphere of a Chicago snowstorm - but again, this isn't a noir story.Blue Note by Stuart M. Kaminsky ****1/2 - Gambler plays high stakes poker with something pretty important at stake. A nicely told story with a jazz background.The Whole World is Watching by Libby Fischer Hellman **1/2 - Policeman has to make a choice during the Chicago riots of 1968. Too didactic to be very enjoyable, although Hellman is a pretty good writer.Skin Deep by Sarah Paretsky ***1/2 - Salon worker is falsely accused of murder and a private detective has only a few hours to clear her. This is a good, well-written story, but relies too much on a hard-to-believe coincidence for its resolution.Death and the Point Spread by Percy Spurlock Parker **1/2 - Hit and run deaths may be linked to the fix being in on a college bowl game. Enjoyable, but never believable.One Holy Night by Sandra Cisneros *** - Young girl meets a strange older man. Different, and weird, but what it's doing here, I have no idea.The Thirtieth Amendment by Hugh Holton * - Interesting idea, but also just plain stupid. This belongs in a book of (bad) dystopian science fiction.We Didn't by Stuart Dybek **** - Nice story about sexual longing and the fumblings of young lovers, interrupted by a gruesome sight on a Chicago beach.

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