Dallas Noir, Edited by David Hale Smith
Dallas Noir, Edited by David Hale Smith
My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: "Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete would in a warm-hearted love disguise." The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune "Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down?
In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked -- except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a dark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It's a real city. And for the past forty years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too.
David Hale Smith, from the Introduction
Akashic Books, Softcover, 2013
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.