Paris Noir: The Suburbs

by Herv Delouche (Editor)

Overview

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.

“A treasure chest of resources for any noir author seeking a more gruesome approach or a more relentless destruction of the soul. One might hope the real Paris suburbs are not so dark and blood drenched. But by the end of the collection, that hope seems almost foolish, and the body found on the quay seems to be the lucky guy in the story.” —New York Journal of Books

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.

Featuring brand-new stories by: Cloé Mehdi, Karim Madani, Insa Sané, Christian Roux, Marc Villard, Jean-Pierre Rumeau, Timothée Demeillers, Rachid Santaki, Marc Fernandez, Guillaume Balsamo, Anne Secret, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, and Patrick Pécherot. (All stories were written in French and translated into English by Katie Shireen Assef, David Ball, Nicole Ball, and Paul Curtis Daw.)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617757556
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Series:	Akashic Noir Series
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

HERVÉ DELOUCHE is a noir literature specialist, columnist, conference moderator, and noir festival coordinator. He was in charge of the full reissue of Jean Meckert’s work for Éditions Joëlle Losfeld, and he works as a copy editor for the French publishers Gallmeister, Rivages, and le Seuil. From 2007 to 2016 he was the president of 813, the first French association of noir literature lovers. He is the editor of Paris Noir: The Suburbs.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: The Insulted and the Rebellious

 “I Am Not Paris” by Cloé Mehdi (Fleury-Mérogis)

“The Morillon Houses” by Karim Madani (Montreuil)

“Seeing Is Believing” by Insa Sané (Sarcelles)

“The Metamorphosis of Emma F.” by Christian Roux (Mantes-la-Jolie)

Part II: Attempts at Escape

“Beneath the Périphérique” by Marc Villard (Saint-Ouen)

“The Donkey Cemetery” by Jean-Pierre Rumeau (Fontainebleau)

“Pantin, Really” by Timothée Demeillers (Pantin)

Part III: Scarfaces of the Suburbs

“To My Last Breath” by Rachid Santaki (Saint-Denis)

“The Baroness” by Marc Fernandez (Neuilly-sur-Seine)

“Men at Work: Date of Completion, February 2027” by Guillaume Balsamo (Ivry-sur-Seine)

Part IV: Ghosts from the Past

 “The Shadows of the Trapèze” by Anne Secret (Boulogne-Billancourt)

“Strange Martyrs” by Anne-Sylvie Salzman (Arcueil)

“The Day Johnny Died” by Patrick Pécherot (Nanterre)

Editorial Reviews

12/13/2021

Paris’s suburbs—a mix of slums, posh neighborhoods, fading industrial centers, and the city’s notorious housing projects that lie out of the sight of most tourists—provide the setting for the 13 tales in this uneven noir anthology. Highlights include Chloé Mehdi’s angry “I Am Not Paris,” in which relentless anti-Muslim prejudice drives a once peaceful Muslim woman to resort to political violence, and Marc Villard’s bleak “Beneath the Périphérique,” in which a 15-year-old runaway living on the street makes a desperate but doomed attempt to escape her life after witnessing a police murder. Marc Fernandez’s whimsical “The Baroness” shows how when an elderly dowager, infatuated with a charming younger Colombian drug lord, is arrested for drug smuggling, things may turn out to not be what they seem. In Jean-Pierre Rumeau’s memorable “The Donkey Cemetery,” a young couple’s plans to spend a romantic night in a moonlit forest turn into a survivalist’s nightmare that provides each with unexpected insights into the other. Unfortunately, some stories, because of their brevity and lack of development, are forgettable. This entry in this acclaimed series is only average at best. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"The newest addition to the simply outstanding Akashic Noir series, Paris Noir: The Suburbs showcases memorable and literate short stories by some of the best writer’s in the noir thriller/mystery genre that France has ever produced."

Midwest Book Review

02/01/2022

The latest in Akashic Books' seemingly endless series of place-based crime noir fiction. This time, the short stories center on the suburbs of Paris, fertile soil for all sorts of resentment and violence. The dozen stories in the collection are all by writers fresh to American readers. In Cloé Mehdi's "I Am Not Paris," a young Arab reacts to the anti-Muslim witch hunt that followed the Charlie Hebdo massacre. In Christian Roux's "The Metamorphosis of Emma F.," a man abducts a movie star, force-feeds her, then kills her and tosses her body away. In Marc Villard's "Beneath the Péripherique," a 15-year-old living on the streets witnesses a murder but can't do anything about it because people like him are unprotected in Paris. In Timothée Demeillers's "Pantin, Really," an Albanian hides in Paris to escape a blood feud in Kosovo, but it finds him anyway. Marc Fernandez's "The Baroness" tracks the police closing in on a bored baroness and her drug-dealing lover. VERDICT For lovers of crime noir short fiction, these are 12 stories of life lived in the raw.—David Keymer

Library Journal

2021-11-17
Noir afficionado Delouche offers 13 stories that show how far from Paris those who live just outside the French capital really are.

Chloe Mehde lays out the premise in the very first entry, "I Am Not Paris." A young Muslim woman realizes how little French her family is seen as when her cousin is imprisoned for making a rude comment about Charlie Hebdo. One tale of marginalization follows another. In "Beneath the Peripherique," a runaway scraping by selling knock-offs at the Saint Ouen flea market is imperiled when she witnesses a crime. An Albanian escaping an honor killing rarely sees the light of day in Timothee Demeillers' "Pantin, Really." Even the community centers, built largely to serve immigrant communities, fail in their purpose, as Insa Sane shows in "Seeing Is Believing" and Karim Madani, in "The Morillon Houses." The drug trade flourishes in Rachid Santaki's "To My Last Breath." Even the wealthier enclaves, like Neuilly-sur-Seine, have their share of drug trafficking, as Marc Fernandes reveals in "The Baroness." Urban (or suburban) renewal schemes fail in Guillaume Balsamo's "Men at Work: Date of Completion, February 2027." And in some ways, as Anne Secret in "Shadows of the Trapeze" and Patrick Pcherot in "The Day Johnny Died" suggest, attempts to repurpose disused industrial sites are the root of the problem themselves.

Dark tales shine a bright light on some little-seen parts of greater Paris.

Kirkus Reviews