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Jonathan Safran Foer and Robert Pinsky join Joyce Carol Oates and other illustrious writers to explore Jersey noir.Tags
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An anthology of dark-themed stories (as well as a few poems) set in various parts of New Jersey, from the manicured campus of Princeton to the desperate slums of Camden.
This is actually one of a long-running series of "noir" collections set in different cities, states, and regions. I'd previously read USA Noir, a compilation of some of the best stories from the installments set in the United States, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, so I figured I'd check out one of the others. Sadly, there isn't one for my home state of New Mexico -- which seems like a real oversight! -- so I settled for the New Jersey one, since that's where I spent most of my childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the quality of the stories in this one is a lot more show more variable than those in the best-of collection. The best of them are very good indeed -- I was particularly impressed by Bradford Morrow's "The Enigma of Grover's Mill" -- while others just kind of left me cold. I'm also left slightly bemused by how many writers seem to have equated "noir" with "characters who smoke immense quantities of pot." show less
This is actually one of a long-running series of "noir" collections set in different cities, states, and regions. I'd previously read USA Noir, a compilation of some of the best stories from the installments set in the United States, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, so I figured I'd check out one of the others. Sadly, there isn't one for my home state of New Mexico -- which seems like a real oversight! -- so I settled for the New Jersey one, since that's where I spent most of my childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the quality of the stories in this one is a lot more show more variable than those in the best-of collection. The best of them are very good indeed -- I was particularly impressed by Bradford Morrow's "The Enigma of Grover's Mill" -- while others just kind of left me cold. I'm also left slightly bemused by how many writers seem to have equated "noir" with "characters who smoke immense quantities of pot." show less
Overall quite unremarkable, with rather disappointing poetry and stories that only achieved importance through an upsettingly humanistic bleakness. Some of the stories held promise - "The Enigma of Grover's Mill", by Bradford Morrow, with an interesting take on insanity and Orson Wells' broadcast of "The War of the Worlds", or Jonathan Safran Foer's "Too Near Real", which contained the brilliant line "We are happy with the fake, and happy with the real, but the near real - the too near real - unnerves us." - but for the most part, none of them lived up to their potential, either feeling stretched thin or merely incomplete.
The sole exception, and indeed the sole reason to read any part of this volume, was the brilliant "New Day Newark" show more by S.J. Rozan, which features the trope of an awesome little old lady taking matters into her own hands, and using a sharp tongue and clever wit to engineer the fall of two drug gangs who threaten her neighborhood. Incidentally, that's on pages 61-75; go find it in the library, read that story, and put it back on the shelf. show less
The sole exception, and indeed the sole reason to read any part of this volume, was the brilliant "New Day Newark" show more by S.J. Rozan, which features the trope of an awesome little old lady taking matters into her own hands, and using a sharp tongue and clever wit to engineer the fall of two drug gangs who threaten her neighborhood. Incidentally, that's on pages 61-75; go find it in the library, read that story, and put it back on the shelf. show less
I most enjoyed the Santlofer, Morrow, and Arellano stories.
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Noirvember: The Best Noir
113 works; 56 members
Author Information
Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of numerous novels and collections of short stories. Her works include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Bellefleur, You Must show more Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, Solstice, Marya : A Life, and Give Me Your Heart. She has received numerous awards including the National Book Award for Them, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her title Lovely, Dark, Deep. She also wrote a series of suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. In 2015, her novel The Accursed became listed as a bestseller on the iBooks chart. She worked as a professor of English at the University of Windsor, before becoming the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She and her late husband Raymond J. Smith operated a small press and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review. (Bowker Author Biography) Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most eminent and prolific literary figures and social critics of our times. She has won the National Book Award and several O. Henry and Pushcart prizes. Among her other awards are an NEA grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Lifetime Achievement Award, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. (Publisher Provided) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- New Jersey Noir
- Important places
- New Jersey, USA
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Mystery
- DDC/MDS
- 813.087208 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Mystery fiction Collections
- LCC
- PS548 .N5 .N34 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Collections of American literature By region North
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 73
- Popularity
- 431,411
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
