Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics

By Tim McLoughlin

Book Overview

"An assortment of the borough's crime-fiction masterminds get down to the gritty details in this entertaining collection of chilling stories." --BKLYN

"Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin, is the perfect companion to McLoughlin's successful all-original anthology." --Publishers Weekly

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Featuring stories by: H.P. Lovecraft, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Irwin Shaw, Carolyn Wheat, Thomas Wolfe, Hubert Selby, Jr., Stanley Ellin, Gilbert Sorrentino, Maggie Estep, and Salvatore Lapuma.

From the introduction by Tim McLoughlin:

The success of Brooklyn Noir, launched in the summer of 2004, surpassed all expectations. I'm pleased to say . . . Working on this volume has been a different task than the first, in that there was little interaction, from an editorial point of view, with the writers, some of whom are deceased. This time I felt more like an archeologist, mining volumes old and new, looking for treasure. The rule for the first Brooklyn Noir had been that each story had to be previously unpublished. Here, just the opposite. Brooklyn Noir 2 stories had to have been printed somewhere else before they hit the doorstep. That was about the only difference. I tried again to capture the special dread, tension, and solid writing that good dark fiction possesses. The scary feeling of watching the average Joe getting in over his head, or accidentally brushing up against something sinister on the way to work . . .

The tales cross all boundaries of past and present, well-known and unknown neighborhoods, literary and genre traditions. It all goes into that great cocktail shaker that is Brooklyn. As editor, I have the pleasure of picking the ingredients, mixing them, and serving them to you. And that makes me the luckiest bartender in the world. Enjoy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1888451769
• ISBN13: 9781888451764
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Brooklyn Noir 2: the Classics

Interesting concept...a follow-up to the excellent Brooklyn Noir 1 with a collection of "classic" short stories ranging in tone from H.P. Lovecraft's stately "Horror at Red Hook" to Hubert Selby's torrid "Talala" (an excerpt from "Last Exit to Brooklyn"). Something here to please everyone, but not everything to everyone's taste. Not quite as entertaining as the original BN1 but the stories are well chosen and varied in style, a worthy addition to the Noir collections.

Dear, dirty Brooklyn

Superior to Manhattan Noir and Bklyn Noir 1. Ranges from the elegant (and enraged) H. P. Lovecraft (originally from Rhode Island, so what can you expect?) to Selby's dreamy, slick brutalities (a prose style halfway between Henry Miller's and William Burroughs's). Brooklyn (being Brooklyn) allows for the fine-tuning of realism in the canon of American prose styles. Wolfe's attempt to reproduce Brooklyn speech fails pitifully (just as do Hollywood's attempts to suggest Southern speech), but Selby's waterfront Brooklyn of WW 2 succeeds (see the German film production of LAST EXIT: is that Jennifer Jason Leigh as the perky, scrofulous siren of the Bklyn waterfront?). Unfortunately, Flatbush is totally absent (as it is in Bklyn Noir 1). During WW 1, Flatbush was the epitome of middle-class American aspirations ("When it's nesting time in Flatbush..."). Miller's Death of a Salesman comes out of Flatbush, as do portions of Malamud and Edmund Wilson ("Princess with the Golden Hair"). And don't forget Woody Allen. Somehow, both vols of Bklyn Noir omit this fertile enclave. Essential reading for students of American literature.