| Atlanta Noir Contributor(s): Jones, Tayari (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1617755370 ISBN-13: 9781617755378 Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. OUR PRICE: $14.36 Product Type: Paperback Published: July 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Mystery & Detective - Collections & Anthologies - Fiction | Noir - Fiction | Anthologies (multiple Authors) |
| Dewey: 813.087 |
| LCCN: 2016953893 |
| Series: Akashic Noir |
| Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.2" W x 8.2" (0.55 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - South Atlantic |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Georgia Center for the Book has chosen Atlanta Noir as one of 2018's Books All Georgians Should Read Kenji Jasper's A Moment of Clarity at the Waffle House nominated for a 2018 Edgar Award for Best Short Story Atlanta has its share, maybe more than its share, of prosperity. But wealth is no safeguard against peril...Creepy as well as dark, grim in outlook...Hints of the supernatural may make these tales...appealing to lovers of ghost stories. These stories, most of them by relative unknowns, offer plenty of human interest...All the tales have a Southern feel. Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta, returns to the South via Akashic's ever-growing city anthology series. The collection features stories from an impressive roster of talent including Jim Grimsley, Sheri Joseph, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms and David James Poissant. The 14 selections each take place in different Atlanta neighborhood. Now comes Atlanta Noir, an anthology that masterfully blends a chorus of voices, both familiar and new, from every corner of Atlanta...The magic of Atlanta Noir is readily apparent, starting with the introduction Jones pens. It doesn't rest solely upon the breadth of writers but on how their words, stories and references are so Atlanta--so very particular, so very familiar and so very readily, for those who know the city, nostalgic. And for those who don't? The sense of place it captures inspires a desire to get to know Atlanta and its stories. 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. This much-anticipated and long-overdue installment in Akashic's Noir Series reveals many sides of Atlanta known only to its residents. Brand-new stories by: Tananarive Due, Kenji Jasper, Tayari Jones, Dallas Hudgens, Jim Grimsley, Brandon Massey, Jennifer Harlow, Sheri Joseph, Alesia Parker, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms, John Holman, Daniel Black, and David James Poissant. From the introduction by Tayari Jones: Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past...These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir...However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself...Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back. |
Contributor Bio(s): Jones, Tayari: - Tayari Jones was born and raised in southwest Atlanta. A graduate of Spelman College, she is the author of three novels, including Silver Sparrow, an NEA Big Read selection. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Radcliffe Insitute for Advanced Study, and the United States Artist Foundation. She is on the MFA faculty at Rutgers-Newark University.Massey, Brandon: - Brandon Massey has lived in Atlanta since 1999. He is the author of several novels, including Dark Corner, The Other Brother, and Don't Ever Tell. Visit www.brandonmassey.com for the latest news on his publications.Joseph, Sheri: - Sheri Joseph is the author of two novels, Where You Can Find Me and Stray, and a cycle of stories, Bear Me Safely Over. She has been awarded an NEA fellowship and the Grub Street National Book Prize in fiction, as well as numerous residency fellowships including MacDowell and Yaddo. She lives in Atlanta, where she teaches in the creative writing program at Georgia State University and serves as fiction editor of Five Points.Grooms, Anthony: - Anthony Grooms has lived in Atlanta's Inman Park neighborhood for nearly thirty years. When he isn't teaching, he writes novels in his spider-ridden cellar. His novel Bombingham, set during the Birmingham civil rights movement, won both a Lillian Smith Book Award and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. His novel The Vain Conversation, about redemption for race crimes, will be published in 2018. For more information, go to anthonygrooms.com.Black, Daniel: - Daniel Black is professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University. He is also the author of several novels, including They Tell Me of a Home, Perfect Peace, The Coming, and Listen to the Lambs. Alice Walker said, "Perfect Peace is a spellbinding novel that kept me reading late into several nights . . . It is a gift to have so much passion, so much love, so much beautiful writing so flawlessly faithful to the language of ancestors . . ."Due, Tananarive: - Tananarive Due's short story collection Ghost Summer won a British Fantasy Award in 2016. The novelist and screenwriter has also won an American Book Award and an NAACP Image Award. She lives in the Los Angeles area, but she spent three years in Atlanta while her mother was ill, where she served as a distinguished visiting scholar at Spelman College. During that time, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.Grimsley, Jim: - Jim Grimsley has lived in Atlanta for over thirty years, having debuted his first play in the city in 1983. He is the author of a dozen books, including Winter Birds and Dream Boy. In 2005 he was awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches at Emory University.Jasper, Kenji: - Kenji Jasper wrote the best-selling novel Dark in Atlanta just after finishing his degree at Morehouse College. His articles for Creative Loafing, Upscale, and Rappages helped to take the careers of groups like Outkast, Goodie Mob, and Arrested Development national. His novel Cake, written under the pseudonym D, takes place on his college stomping grounds. Jasper's next novel, Nostrand Avenue, will be published by Kensington Books in 2018. He lives in Los Angeles.Parker, Alesia: - Alesia Parker, a native Atlantan, is a happy chemist by day and closeted writer by night. She has honed her craft through various writing workshops in the Atlanta area over the past decade. Her story in this volume, "Ma'am," is excerpted from her manuscript-in-progress, Always Watching. This is her first published story.Poissant, David James: - David James Poissant is the author of The Heaven of Animals: Stories and winner of the GLCA New Writers Award and a Florida Book Award. He was long-listed for the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in the Atlantic, Glimmer Train, the New York Times, Playboy, Ploughshares, and the Southern Review. He grew up in Gwinnett County, Georgia.Hudgens, Dallas: - Dallas Hudgens is a native of Atlanta and a graduate of Duluth High School and Georgia State University. He is the author of the novels Drive Like Hell and Season of Gene and the short story collection Wake Up, We're Here. He is the founder of Relegation Books, a small press based in Washington, DC.Royes, Gillian: - Gillian Royes was born in Jamaica and furthered her education in the United States, completing a doctorate in communications at Emory University, where she initiated her love affair with Atlanta. She is the author of the cozy mystery novels in the Shadrack Myers series published by Simon & Schuster, and her film script Preciosa was recently shot in St. Croix. She is currently working on a film adaptation of her novel The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks.Harlow, Jennifer: - Jennifer Harlow earned a BA in psychology from the University of Virginia. She has worked as a bookseller, radio deejay, lab assistant, and government investigator. She is the author of the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation series, the Galilee Falls Trilogy, and the Iris Ballard series. She lives in Atlanta and is hard at work on her next book.Holman, John: - John Holman is the author of Triangle Ray, Luminous Mysteries, and Squabble and Other Stories. His fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Mississippi Review, and Oxford American, along with other journals and several anthologies. He is a Whiting Award recipient, and has taught at Georgia State University in Atlanta since 1993. |