San Francisco Noir

August 1, 2005
A roster of Bay Area authors lends solid street cred to 15 original stories, but few deliver on the elusive noir premise of this new series. Following the success of Brooklyn Noir
(2004), Akashic has launched a set of anthologies in which each story takes place in a distinct neighborhood in a different city. In his introduction, Maravelis perhaps overcomplicates the idea when he asks, "What happens when the history of a city begins to disappear? What happens to literature when it feeds upon the ruins of amnesia?" Most of the stories—by Alejandro Murguía, Kate Braverman and others—feel as if they were written for a general literary anthology, all good enough but hardly satisfying as noir. Contemporary noir titan Jim Nisbet especially disappoints, with a vaguely science fictional vignette about a futuristic suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. Saving the day, Domenic Stansberry and Eddie Muller deliver genuinely haunting noir fiction, Michelle Tea does a nice modern-day homage to the form, and Peter Plate nails down the violently absurd Willefordian side of the genre with a tale about a Bad Santa knocking over a pot club.

September 15, 2005
Dust off those black-and-white TVs. The success of Akashic Books's "Brooklyn Noir" anthology has spawned a series of successors, of which these are just two. Both are geographically focused and contain original stories by emerging writers. Of the two, "San Francisco Noir" gets the nod, if only because it seems closer to its noir roots. David Corbett's "It Can Happen" delivers a tightly plotted story of family inheritance that would fit neatly into the pages of "Black Mask". Reflecting changing conditions, multicultural authors are well represented here, and female writers definitely make their mark. Kate Braverman's wittily observed tale of the love/hate relationship between two "Sex and the City" types is topped only by Michelle Tea's story of a prostitute who just can't say enough about her Bernal Heights hideaway. Eddie Muller shows off his noir bona fides in a pitch-perfect story of a long day that ends on a lucky note. The Chicago volume pays homage to the city's musical, criminal, and gritty past, with strong efforts by Joe Meno, Kevin Guilfoile, and Neal Pollack. Each might have served as the basis for a "Twilight Zone" episode. Promised future volumes include one on Washington, DC, edited by George Pelacanos, and one on Dublin, edited by Ken Bruen. There's enough here to cause us to want more. For all larger public libraries. -Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.