Synopsis "San Francisco Noir (Akashic Noir)"
Brand new stories by: Domenic Stansberry, Barry Gifford, Eddie Muller, Robert Mailer Anderson, Michelle Tea, Peter Plate, Kate Braverman, David Corbett, Alejandro Murguía, Sin Soracco, Alvin Lu, Jon Longhi, Will Christopher Baer, Jim Nesbit, and David Henry Sterry. San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting, all-original tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic Baghdad by the Bay. Virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of S.F.'s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood. At times brutal, darkly humorous, and revelatory--the stories speak of a hidden San Francisco, a town where the fog is but a prelude to darker realities lingering beneath. An entertaining anthology of overheated short stories by local writers...Here the city becomes the central character, the strongest on the page.--San Francisco Chronicle Reflecting changing conditions, multicultural authors are well represented here, and female writers definitely make their mark...There's enough here to cause us to want more.--Library Journal Take an intermission from your Hitchcock marathon, and turn instead to the 15 stories between the covers of San Francisco Noir for the SF-based suspense you crave. Luring you deep into the criminal heritage of your own backyard, each piece of the collection transcends the traditional elements of noir and helps redefine the moody genre.--7×7 Magazine The protagonists of noir fiction have their own agendas, but for readers much of the pleasure is unraveling the mystery and deciphering the clues that constitute a city, and if there is a love story in noir writing it's the passion of writers, readers, and protagonists for the gritty geographical details. As the bodies drop in the strong stories here, steep, fog-wrapped, fratricidal San Francisco comes alive: here are old neighborhoods, bars, bookstores, the famous and then forgotten landlord arson at 16th and Valencia, buried streams, streetcars, parks, a lost city and the new city haunting almost every page of this gorgeous anthology of San Francisco noir.--Rebecca Solnit I was wondering about the city's shadowside that the guides didn't show. These top writers are of the 'As bad as it gets' brand, and then worse. If you like puke, fear & loathing caused by stray bullets, happenstance getting the hero who is an anti-hero really, a male corpse rotting in the bathtub while the woman poops in the garden, the Reverend Christmas shot in the ear by the PO-lice, then this is your good read for a murky, maybe even gritty, weekend.--Janwillem van de Wetering San Francisco has long been a city of back alleys and black figures; this is its romantic map.--Michael Ray, Editor, Zoetrope All-Story
