New Orleans Noir: The Classics, Edited by Julie Smith
New Orleans Noir: The Classics, Edited by Julie Smith
A glittering constellation of writers has passed through New Orleans -- including Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, O. Henry, and even Walt Whitman to name some of the not-so-usual suspects. Then there are the ones whose sojourns here are better known, the ones on whom we pride ourselves, such as Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Ellen Gilchrist, and James Lee Burke.
It was an anthologist's feast -- just about everybody who came to New Orleans wrote about it. But there were surprises as well.
If you're from New Orleans, the neighborhood theme will resonate like Tibetan temple bells. And yet, surely every city has similar hoods, similar behavior patterns, similar travails -- and has had them forever. "Indeed," wrote Voltaire, "history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
Julie Smith, from the Introduction
Akashic Books, Softcover, 2016
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.