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Burn, Baby, Burn
Chicago Noir
Edited by Neal Pollack
Edited by Neal Pollack
This much is clear: Akashic Books is on a roll. With
the publishing of their fourth anthology of Noir tales,
the publishing house is quickly securing their
reputation as having a good eye for both desired
topics and authors to supply that demand. How else
does one explain the amazing stories collected in
Chicago Noir, a book that is less about Chicago as it
is about writers who are in tune with the art of true
storytelling.
Chicago Noir follows the tradition of Akashic Books’
Brooklyn Noir and San Francisco Noir in offering
tales of shady characters, double dealings, gun
molls and violent deaths in and around one select
city or location; this time Chicago. But while not all of
the tales have a Chicago flavor even in the least bit,
the stories themselves do manage to live up to the
flavor of noir.
Luciano Guerriero’s Goodnight Chicago and Amen,
while a little bit predictable, is a fantastic confection
of a tale with which to kick off the book. His
language is lithe and satisfying and begs to be read,
and his hit man protagonist is both immediately
doomed and likeable. However, if there is any award
to give on language it would surely be given to
Andrew Ervin’s All Happy Families, a deft stream of
consciousness that incredibly weaves the telling of a
botched bank robbery with humorous musings on a
changed Chicago.
Jeffrey Renard Allen’s The Near Remote, while a
little abstract, also falls into this category of working
language. His protagonist, a bullwhipped-tongued
villain, provides both the humor and the snap-
crackle-pop electric that keeps this story going.
When asked by a cop if it is warm enough for him
during their drive on a frigid, snowy day in Chicago,
our deliciously vile villain lashes out with something
reminiscent of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist:
“No. Have your mother send up a faggot or two from
hell.”
On the storytelling side of things, crowd-pleaser
Achy Obejas does not disappoint with her story
Destiny Returns, about a Cuban immigrant who
becomes something more than a legendary drag
queen, and who is being questioned on her life by a
Cuban-American lesbian reporter and also the death
of a married club owner, who may or may not have
been her secret and tragic lover. The allusion to
another published book is all over this story, but the
tale remains engaging and heartbreaking all the
same.
It is Amy Sayre-Roberts’s Death Mouth which
effortlessly combines both the expert use of
language and storytelling into one entrancing entity.
The story, about a wickedly sharp and witty gay man
who falls for his suicidal ex-boyfriend’s new beau, is
filled with prose that weaves and bobs like a roller
coaster (I can take you from gruel to cool in less time
than it takes to steam milk. Show me the derriere I
can’t make smaller, the thighs I can't camouflage, the
legs I can’t lengthen. They don’t exist. I feel like
Warhol.). What is even more of an amazement is
that Roberts is married and seems to easily conjure
up the lingo of a particular slice of gay culture
without making both the character or the story
stereotypical or patronizing. The surprise ending is
a killer too.
Other notables from this book include Peter Orner’s
Dear Mr. Klezcka, a slow-burn tale that reads like a
poetic coda, and Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski’s
Maximillian, a story whose purpose may escape
some but is well written nonetheless. Bayo Ojikutu’s
The Gospel of Moral Ends, while well intentioned,
belongs in another book altogether, which is to say
that overall Chicago Noir burns as hot and brilliant
as the Chicago Fire–even if editor Neal Pollack, who
does a fantastic job here as editor, no longer lives in
the Windy City. P&A
the publishing of their fourth anthology of Noir tales,
the publishing house is quickly securing their
reputation as having a good eye for both desired
topics and authors to supply that demand. How else
does one explain the amazing stories collected in
Chicago Noir, a book that is less about Chicago as it
is about writers who are in tune with the art of true
storytelling.
Chicago Noir follows the tradition of Akashic Books’
Brooklyn Noir and San Francisco Noir in offering
tales of shady characters, double dealings, gun
molls and violent deaths in and around one select
city or location; this time Chicago. But while not all of
the tales have a Chicago flavor even in the least bit,
the stories themselves do manage to live up to the
flavor of noir.
Luciano Guerriero’s Goodnight Chicago and Amen,
while a little bit predictable, is a fantastic confection
of a tale with which to kick off the book. His
language is lithe and satisfying and begs to be read,
and his hit man protagonist is both immediately
doomed and likeable. However, if there is any award
to give on language it would surely be given to
Andrew Ervin’s All Happy Families, a deft stream of
consciousness that incredibly weaves the telling of a
botched bank robbery with humorous musings on a
changed Chicago.
Jeffrey Renard Allen’s The Near Remote, while a
little abstract, also falls into this category of working
language. His protagonist, a bullwhipped-tongued
villain, provides both the humor and the snap-
crackle-pop electric that keeps this story going.
When asked by a cop if it is warm enough for him
during their drive on a frigid, snowy day in Chicago,
our deliciously vile villain lashes out with something
reminiscent of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist:
“No. Have your mother send up a faggot or two from
hell.”
On the storytelling side of things, crowd-pleaser
Achy Obejas does not disappoint with her story
Destiny Returns, about a Cuban immigrant who
becomes something more than a legendary drag
queen, and who is being questioned on her life by a
Cuban-American lesbian reporter and also the death
of a married club owner, who may or may not have
been her secret and tragic lover. The allusion to
another published book is all over this story, but the
tale remains engaging and heartbreaking all the
same.
It is Amy Sayre-Roberts’s Death Mouth which
effortlessly combines both the expert use of
language and storytelling into one entrancing entity.
The story, about a wickedly sharp and witty gay man
who falls for his suicidal ex-boyfriend’s new beau, is
filled with prose that weaves and bobs like a roller
coaster (I can take you from gruel to cool in less time
than it takes to steam milk. Show me the derriere I
can’t make smaller, the thighs I can't camouflage, the
legs I can’t lengthen. They don’t exist. I feel like
Warhol.). What is even more of an amazement is
that Roberts is married and seems to easily conjure
up the lingo of a particular slice of gay culture
without making both the character or the story
stereotypical or patronizing. The surprise ending is
a killer too.
Other notables from this book include Peter Orner’s
Dear Mr. Klezcka, a slow-burn tale that reads like a
poetic coda, and Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski’s
Maximillian, a story whose purpose may escape
some but is well written nonetheless. Bayo Ojikutu’s
The Gospel of Moral Ends, while well intentioned,
belongs in another book altogether, which is to say
that overall Chicago Noir burns as hot and brilliant
as the Chicago Fire–even if editor Neal Pollack, who
does a fantastic job here as editor, no longer lives in
the Windy City. P&A
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