Oakland Noir

by Jerry Thompson (Editor), Eddie Muller (Editor)

Overview

California's noir quotient continues to rise with Oakland Noir, which reveals all the dark complexities of this increasingly prominent city.

“The legendarily tough California city of Oakland finally gets an entry in the Akashic noir series.” —Publishers Weekly

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

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.

Brand-new 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617755309
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Series:	Akashic Noir Series
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

JERRY THOMPSON is a bookseller, poet, playwright, and musician. His work has appeared in ZYZZYVA and the James White Review. He is the coauthor of Images of America: Black Artists in Oakland. His fiction and prose have appeared in various anthologies including Voices Rising, edited by G. Winston James, and Freedom in this Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men’s Writing, edited by E. Lynn Harris. He is the coeditor of Oakland Noir and Berkeley Noir.

EDDIE MULLER, a.k.a. the “Czar of Noir,” has been nominated for several Edgar and Anthony awards, and his novel The Distance won a Shamus Award. He produces the San Francisco Noir City Film Festival, the largest annual film noir retrospective in the world, and is a frequent host on Turner Classic Movies. He is the coeditor of Oakland Noir.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Not A Soft City

“The Bridge Tender” by Nick Petrulakis (Fruitvale Bridge)

“The Wishing Well” by Kim Addonizio (Pill Hill)

“A Murder of Saviors” by Keenan Norris (Toler Heights)

“Divine Singularity” by Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder (Piedmont Avenue)

“White Horse” by Katie Gilmartin (Bushrod Park)

Part II: What They Call A Clusterfuck

“A Town Made of Hustle” by Dorothy Lazard (Downtown)

“The Streets Don’t Love Nobody” by Harry Louis Williams II (Brookfield Village)

“Bulletproof” by Carolyn Alexander (McClymonds)

“The Three Stooges” by Phil Canalin (Sausal Creek)

“Cabbie” by Judy Juanita (Eastmont)

“Two to Tango” by Jamie DeWolf (Oakland Hills)

Part III: A View of The Lake

“Survivors of Heartache” by Nayomi Munaweera (Montclair)

“Prophets and Spies” by Mahmud Rahman (Mills College)

“Black and Borax” by Tom McElravey (Haddon Hill)

“Waiting for Gordo” by Joe Loya (Hegenberger Road)

“The Handyman” by Eddie Muller (Alameda)

Editorial Reviews

02/13/2017
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. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"From the Oakland hills to the heart of downtown, each story brings Oakland to life."

The Mercury News

"Oakland is a natural for the series, with its shadowy crimes and disgruntled cops."

Zoom Street Magazine

"Wonderfully, in Akashic’s Oakland Noir, the stereotypes about the city suffer the fate of your average noir character — they die brutally. Kudos to the editors, Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, for getting Oakland right. All those outsize statistics don’t reveal a real city, but this collection of local voices — both established and new — brings it thrumming to life . . . Readers who know the city will relish its sense of place, and those who only know the stereotypes will be in for a pleasing eye-opener."

San Francisco Chronicle

2017-02-02
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. There's booze and drugs, as Katie Gilmartin's "White Horse" and Phil Canalin's "The Three Stooges" demonstrate. There's prostitution, as Carolyn Alexander shows in "Bulletproof." And there's always red-meat murder, the kind Harry Louis Williams II depicts in "The Streets Don't Love Nobody." But Thompson and Muller also take pains to reveal the blue-collar heart of the city. Nick Petrulakis' "The Bridge Tender," Judy Juanita's "Cabbie," Dorothy Lazard's "A Town Made of Hustle," and Tom McElravey's "Black and Borax" all show the fates of working stiffs who can't seem to catch a break. Contributors tip their hats to Oakland's political action pedigree in Kim Addonizio's "The Wishing Well," Mahmud Rahman's "Prophets and Spies," and Keenan Norris' "A Murder of Saviors," which treats the thorny issue of public vs. charter schools. And Nayomi Munaweera in "Survivors of Heartache" and co-editor Muller in "The Handyman" suggest that Oakland may just provide an alternative to the skyrocketing cost of housing across the bay—for the right people, of course, and at a price not calculated in dollars and cents. 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