Items related to Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir)
Synopsis
The sequel to Los Angeles Noir, an award-winning Los Angeles Times best-seller, this volume explores the history of the noir literary tradition on its home turf.
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: Raymond Chandler, Paul Cain, James Ellroy, Leigh Brackett, James M. Cain, Chester Himes, Ross MacDonald, Walter Mosley, Naomi Hirahara, Margaret Millar, Joseph Hansen, William Campbell Gault, Jervey Tervalon, Kate Braverman, and Yxta Maya Murray.
From the introduction by Denise Hamilton:
“Los Angeles is a young city. As recently as the 1860s, it was still a dusty Spanish pueblo where the Zanjero who regulated the water flow from the LA River earned more than the mayor. Unlike the eastern seaboard, whose world of arts and letters predates the American Revolution, Los Angeles literature bloomed late. But our scant history and tradition freed us up to create new myths. We made it up as we went along . . .
"Throughout this anthology, characters will swill bootleg liquor, take bribes, get hooked on morphine, work as grifters, taxi-dancers, and hired guns, hang out at speakeasies and soda fountains, and betray their lovers. Nobody dies naturally . . . Inevitably, some of the earlier stories reflect the racism, homophobia, and religious prejudices of their times. But it’s important that crime fiction was the first to liberate language from the parlors of 'proper' society. As Raymond Chandler told his publisher in explaining his use of barroom vernacular: 'I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks.'"
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About the Author
Edgar Award finalist DENISE HAMILTON is the author of seven crime novels and the editor of the best-selling anthology Los Angeles Noir (which includes the Edgar Award–winning short story “The Golden Gopher” by Susan Straight) and Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics. She is a former Los Angeles Times journalist, a Fulbright Scholar, a noir and sci-fi/fantasy geek, and a proud LA native who refuses to speak only in English. She is the editor of Speculative Los Angeles.
Reviews
Like Manhattan Noir 2 and other previous classics entries in Akashic's noir series, this entry, with its high-quality stories from such genre masters as Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, outshines the typical all-original anthology in the series. Hamilton has been wise to select lesser-known works by legendary writers, guaranteeing that the volume will appeal both to fans unfamiliar with the stories and readers new to their hard-edged prose. The two best come from the pens of husband and wife Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar. Macdonald's Lew Archer looks into an actress's disappearance in his taut Find the Woman, while Millar's The People Across the Canyon, about a young girl who forms an unhealthy attachment to some new neighbors, offers an unconventional look at the darkness in the human soul. With the exception of Walter Mosley's Crimson Shadow, the tales in the final modern section fall short by comparison. (Apr.)
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Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
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Paperback. Condition: Fair. From Hollywood starlets to downtown taxi dancers, from Central Avenue speakeasies to clapboard Venice Beach shacks to Depression-era hobos riding the rails, this volume brings readers the masters of the genre, penning tales of love, lust and loss in the City of Angels. Some, like Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, are literary lions. Others, like screenwriters Paul Cain and Leigh Brackett, whose hard-boiled prose shoots like bullets from a bootlegger's gun, are mainly known by cognoscenti. Sequel to Los Angeles Noir, the bestselling volume in the Akashic Noir series. Seller Inventory # 00107872623
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Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Good. From Hollywood starlets to downtown taxi dancers, from Central Avenue speakeasies to clapboard Venice Beach shacks to Depression-era hobos riding the rails, this volume brings readers the masters of the genre, penning tales of love, lust and loss in the City of Angels. Some, like Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, are literary lions. Others, like screenwriters Paul Cain and Leigh Brackett, whose hard-boiled prose shoots like bullets from a bootlegger's gun, are mainly known by cognoscenti. Sequel to Los Angeles Noir, the bestselling volume in the Akashic Noir series. Seller Inventory # 00103344505
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Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics
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Paperback. Condition: Good. From Hollywood starlets to downtown taxi dancers, from Central Avenue speakeasies to clapboard Venice Beach shacks to Depression-era hobos riding the rails, this volume brings readers the masters of the genre, penning tales of love, lust and loss in the City of Angels. Some, like Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, are literary lions. Others, like screenwriters Paul Cain and Leigh Brackett, whose hard-boiled prose shoots like bullets from a bootlegger's gun, are mainly known by cognoscenti. Sequel to Los Angeles Noir, the bestselling volume in the Akashic Noir series. Seller Inventory # CIN1936070022G