{"product_id":"chicago-noir-9781888451894","title":"Chicago Noir","description":"Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with \u003cem\u003eBrooklyn Noir\u003c\/em\u003e. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.\u003cstrong\u003eBrand-new stories by\u003c\/strong\u003e: Neal Pollack, Achy Obejas, Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski, Adam Langer, Joe Meno, Peter Orner, Kevin Guilfoile, Bayo Ojikutu, Jeffery Renard Allen, Luciano Guerriero, Claire Zulkey, Andrew Ervin, M.K. Meyers, Todd Dills, C.J. Sullivan, Daniel Buckman, Amy Sayre-Roberts, and Jim Arndorfer.From the introduction by \u003cstrong\u003eNeal Pollack\u003c\/strong\u003e: \"\u003cem\u003eChicago's literature has rarely concerned itself with the vagaries of the upper and upper-middle classes. The city's best writers-Nelson Algren, James Farrell, Studs Terkel, Richard Wright, and so on-have traditionally used working people as their palette. They accurately captured the rough streets and random cruelty of urban life, but for people living in Chicago, their stories meant something more. They shaped the way Chicagoans think about themselves, and about Chicago.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe excellent new stories I've collected in this volume try to fill the gap between how the world sees Chicago and how Chicago sees itself. Many of the stories take nostalgia as a theme. Some have a yellowing snapshot feel, as though they're trying to archive a city that's just about gone. Adam Langer looks wistfully back at neighborhood life in the 1970s. C.J. Sullivan's protagonist, long past whatever sad prime he once had, also remembers the '70s as a golden age. Peter Orner drifts even further back, to the 1950s, while inhabiting the mind of one of Chicago's most sinister criminals, and Claire Zulkey visits the city 100 years ago, when people were strange and their crimes even stranger. Now \u003c\/em\u003ethat\u003cem\u003e was a city worth writing about.\u003c\/em\u003e\"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNeal Pollack is the author of three books: the cult classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, Beneath the Axis of Evil, and the rock 'n' roll novel Never Mind the Pollacks. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, GQ, and many other magazines, Pollack lives in Austin, Texas.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Akashic Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50363515699474,"sku":"9781888451894","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_97c02446-8290-4c52-b955-21fd1b48cad1.jpg?v=1728417256","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/chicago-noir-9781888451894","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}