South Central Noir

edited by Gary Phillips

From the Introduction: “Within these pages you’ll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow — until something untoward happens. Maybe it’s someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they’re planning the grift, the grab . . . whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. You’ll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone — tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype.”

The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue . . . From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology.”

Featuring brand-new stories by: Steph Cha, Nikolas Charles, Tananarive Due, Larry Fondation, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Emory Holmes II, Roberto Lovato, Penny Mickelbury, Eric Stone, Jervey Tervalon, Jeri Westerson, Désirée Zamorano, and Gary Phillips.

“This is noir as mirror. This is noir as lens. This is work that enlarges our sense of what noir is and what it does. South Central Noir wears this intention lightly; most of the stories here observe as much as challenge the conventions of the form. But why not? For noir is nothing if not adaptable, in a world where, Due writes, citing Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, ‘the only lasting truth is Change.’ “

Alta Journal

“If you’re of a certain age, your perception of South Los Angeles might have been formed by riots and rappers. Or maybe you know it through television . . . But Gary Phillips, who grew up there, has a more historically complex point of view . . . For Phillips and the 13 other writers who contributed to his just-published anthology, those narrower, pop-infused renditions are just the tip of the iceberg . . . with the result that their work—and their city—is much richer for the exercise.”

Los Angeles Times

“South Central Noir is another fine collection in the venerable, admirable Akashic Books series. And if the editors are willing to subdivide every city they have already visited, then we lucky readers of all things noir have decades of enjoyment ahead.” 

New York Review of Books

 

 

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