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The Best American Noir of the Century

James Ellroy (Editor),

Otto Penzler (Goodreads Author) (Editor)

4.07 · Rating details · 1,184 ratings · 155 reviews

In his introduction to the The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, “noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It’s the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that ...more

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Hardcover, 624 pages

Published October 5th 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Nov 30, 2011 James Thane rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-fiction, noir

James Ellroy and Otto Penzler have collected in this volume a large number of very dark crime stories spanning the years from 1910 to 2010. Included are stories by a number of very familiar writers like Mickey Spillane, Gil Brewer, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, James Ellroy, Lawrence Block, and Elmore Leonard. There are also works by a number of lesser-known writers, but the stories are uniformly good and most of them won awards of one kind or another.

My personal favorites are probably James Crum ...more

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Feb 08, 2021 Jamie rated it really liked it

Though one can quibble over whether all of these are actually noir or not, on the whole this is an excellent collection by some of the most revered writers in the genre as well as a whole bunch that are new to me.

As another reviewer so aptly put it: "If I had to define "noir" just based on reading this anthology, it would be this: Hopeless or hapless people living hopeless or hapless lives inevitably ruined by crime or defying taboos (or in just two or three cases, lives painfully redeemed, but ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 Abel rated it it was amazing

will read this book off and on for some time to come. a good cross section of the genre. of particular interest is the James M. Cain story which is one of the more perfect stories I've read, tailor made for my aesthetics ...more

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Jan 12, 2020 robin friedman rated it really liked it

An Anthology Of Noir Stories

I needed a wedge to get into this lengthy anthology "Best American Noir of the Century", which consists of 39 stories and over 730 pages. My wedge was David Goodis (1917 -- 1969), a writer I have come to know through the Library of America: "David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and 50s (Library of America)". A 1953 Goodis short story unknown to me, "Professional Man", is included in this volume, and I was hooked. Set in his native Philadelphia, Goodis' story te An Anthology Of Noir Stories

I needed a wedge to get into this lengthy anthology "Best American Noir of the Century", which consists of 39 stories and over 730 pages. My wedge was David Goodis (1917 -- 1969), a writer I have come to know through the Library of America: "David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and 50s (Library of America)". A 1953 Goodis short story unknown to me, "Professional Man", is included in this volume, and I was hooked. Set in his native Philadelphia, Goodis' story tells the story of Freddy Lamb, who holds down a job as an elevator operator during the day and works a job as a killer for the mob during the night shift. As with so much of Goodis, Lamb, is lonely and vulnerable. The story describes his relationship to his boss and to a stripper, Pearl, whom he loves. It does not end happily. I was glad of the opportunity to read this story which became an episode in Showtime's "Fallen Angels" in 1995.

Not all of this volume is on the level of the Goodis, but the book offers the reader the opportunity to read a great deal of short noir fiction written between 1923 and 2007. The volume is edited by novelist James Elroy, whose story "Since I don't have you" appears in the book and by Otto Penzler, the founder of the Mysterious Bookshop and the Mysterious Press. Elroy and Penzler each wrote introductions to the book which describe the nature of noir fiction and its relationship to film and to other forms of genre writing such as detective or crime stories. Penzler, for example, writes, "[n]oir works, whether films, novels, or short stories, are existential, pessimistic tales about people, including (or especially) protagonists, who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry." He writes further that the "lost characters of noir" are "caught in the inescapable prisons of their own construction, forever trapped by their isolation from their own souls, as well as from society and the moral restrictions that permit it to be regarded as civilized."

Most of the stories in this volume were published initially in the pulp or detective magazines that flourished until the early 1960s. But much of the volume includes recent noir stories from the 1990s and beyond. The only story in the book that I had read earlier was "Pastorale", a 1928 work by James Cain. Many of the writers, however, will be familiar to readers of noir. Besides Cain and Goodis, the authors in this collection included Evan Hunter, Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, and, even, Mickey Spillane. There are stories by famous writers who made their reputations in writings other than noir, including MacKinlay Kantor, and Joyce Carol Oates. Many of the other stories in the book are by authors that had earlier been unfamiliar to me.

Ellroy and Penzler have written short introductions to each of the stories in the volume which are useful in learning more about the authors and their works. For example, I learned about Scott Wolven whose fine story "Controlled Burn" appears in this book, taken from Wolven's acclaimed volume of short stories of the same name. I learned as well about Lorenzo Carcaterra, whose 2007 story "Missing the Morning Bus" concludes the anthology. Oddly enough, David Goodis is treated critically in the introduction to "Professional Man" as the editors write: "[a]lthough his early novels and some short stories are powerful and memorable, his later work is so hopelessly dark that he has failed to maintain his place among the top rank of noir or hard-boiled writers." This is a dubious verdict, given the publication of the LOA volume of Goodis novels in 2012, two years after the publication of Ellroy's and Penzler's anthology.

Besides the Goodis and the Cain stories, I enjoyed the first story in the collection, Tom Robbins' 1923 "Spurs", which became the basis for an early noir movie about carnival life titled "Freaks". Other strongly noir and disturbing stories include Kantor's "Gun Crazy", "A Ticket Out" by Brendan DuBois, James Lee Burke's "Texas City, 1947", and Andrew Klavan's "Her Lord and Master."

The length of this collection and the unfamiliarity of many of the titles will make this book more appealing to readers familiar with noir rather than to those new to the genre. The book is valuable not only for its contents but also because it gathers together magazine stories that would otherwise be difficult to find. Readers wanting an introduction to the noir genre through novels rather than short stories might well be interested in the Library of America's two-volume collection of noir novels from the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. American Noir: 11 Classic Crime Novels of the 1930s, 40s, & 50s (Library of America).

Robin Friedman ...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Jeanne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Other reviews of this collection often debated if all the stories selected for this book can truly be called “noir”. Since I struggle to even pronounce “noir” correctly, I will avoid that debate completely. These stories were dark and gritty and could I read no more than one or two a week often accompanied by a glass of wine for the nerves. Everyone will have their own favorites and their own dogs. I jumped around throughout the collection rather than reading in chronicnoligcal order but I found ...more

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Nov 11, 2019 Aditya rated it liked it · review of another edition

The most interesting part of this noir collection is editor Otto Penzler's foreword. He insists that the hard-boiled PI and true noir stories are fundamentally different. The former will always star a hero while the latter an antihero. This belief impacts the book a lot. The best and most recognizable writers of the genre - Hammett and Chandler does not show up, nor does anybody who follow their template. Interestingly Penzler also cites Taxi Driver as one of the best noirs after Hollywood golde ...more

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Mar 24, 2012 Lou added it

Shelves: short-stories, noir, mystery-thriller, april-2012

Spurs by Tod Robbins
A circus story from 1930s a tale of a small man, part of the freak show side the circus, with a big heart for a beautiful horseback rider. A match not possibly made in heaven as the bride to be has other plans for her new husband. Her heart is cold for him but warm for wealth, she plots and advises of her plans to a different person she wishes to be married to in the future also a performer in their circus. The small man turns out to be harder to crack than she thought and sh ...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Joe Murray rated it it was amazing

When a book boasts the monumental declaration, The Best American Noir of the Century, it damn well better stand up to scrutiny—all prodigious 752 pages of it. And so it was with relish that I tucked into this meaty and bloody feast from arguably the finest literary writers of noir America has ever produced, hoping for some tasty morsels. The Best American Noir of the Century is a colossal collection of 39 short stories dating from as far back as 1923, right up to 2007, and selected by James Ellr When a book boasts the monumental declaration, The Best American Noir of the Century, it damn well better stand up to scrutiny—all prodigious 752 pages of it. And so it was with relish that I tucked into this meaty and bloody feast from arguably the finest literary writers of noir America has ever produced, hoping for some tasty morsels. The Best American Noir of the Century is a colossal collection of 39 short stories dating from as far back as 1923, right up to 2007, and selected by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, neither of whom need an introduction to any noir/crime aficionado. They are all there in this anthology, the greats synonymous with noir: James M. Cain to James Lee Burke, alongside Dorothy B. Hughes and Joyce Carol Oates—each giving us their different web-like spin on the dark worlds they weave so proficiently. In his introduction, Ellroy writes: “Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction. It’s the long drop off the short pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfect misalliance. It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” And that’s noir in a nutshell: flawed souls and sure things going bad, usually in the shape of a PI spinning too many plates for his own good, or a hard-working detective keeping his cards too close to his chest and ending up bad. Surprisingly though, The Best American Noir of the Century has few if any PIs and detectives gracing the pages. Penzler gives reasoning, of sorts, behind this salient omission by drawing a clear line in his definition of noir, explaining in the foreword that he considers private detective fiction and noir fiction to have “mutually exclusive philosophical premises.” Not every noir fan will agree with that premise. No doubt that was the argument for excluding such greats as Dashiell Hammett, the father of hardboiled noir, as well as Raymond Chandler, the king of gunshots in dark and smoky rooms. To their credit, however, Penzler and Ellroy have included stories and writers not normally associated with noir—or at least noir in its purest form. David Morrell’s “The Dripping” is an intense horror story, and the proficient Harlan Ellison gives us the terrifically titled, “Mefisto in Onyx,” a science fiction tale, which, in fact is more a novella than a short story. Most of the 39 tales in this collection appeared originally in magazines and pulps such as Manhunt and Black Mask, but also in the more literary American Mercury, Southern Review, and Omni. This compilation intelligently provides brief bios about each author before delving into their contributions. It is interesting to see how the genre has evolved over the long dark years of noir, and The Best American Noir of the Century acts as a de facto stepping-stone in explaining its evolution. Spoilt for choice is an understatement when trying to pick a favorite story from all the gems on offer. The selection is uniformly impressive. Brendan DuBois’ brilliant “A Ticket Out,” James W. Hall’s “Crack,” Stephen Greenleaf’s, “Iris,” Evan Hunter’s totally absorbing “The Last Spin,” F. X. Toole (Jerry Boyd) delivers another knockout punch with “Midnight Emissions,” and Ed Gorman’s, “Out There in the Darkness”—all top my own list for originality and terrific writing. But each reader will have their own and for entirely different reasons. These are gritty, dark stories with leading characters full of flaws with little redemption waiting for them in their future. Everything about The Best American Noir of the Century oozes class, and not just from the authors and editors. The publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is to be commended for pulling out all the stops and not skimping on the costs on this edition, giving us a beautifully designed book with a translucent cover. Once the cover is removed, it reveals a classic noir scene of bloody interrogation being noted by an observing scribe. Well worth its impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal masterpiece in your collection. ...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Jayaprakash Satyamurthy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, short-stories, noir

This book is wrongly named. It claims to contain the best American noir of the century - but which century is that? The collection covers the years 1923 to 2007, which is 84 years from two different centuries. Also, a lot of the best American noir is found in novel form. So this book should really have been called 'The Best American Noir Short Stories from an 84-year period' except that doesn't have the same ring, does it?

Ah well. This will be another of those story-by-story reviews that I keep This book is wrongly named. It claims to contain the best American noir of the century - but which century is that? The collection covers the years 1923 to 2007, which is 84 years from two different centuries. Also, a lot of the best American noir is found in novel form. So this book should really have been called 'The Best American Noir Short Stories from an 84-year period' except that doesn't have the same ring, does it?

Ah well. This will be another of those story-by-story reviews that I keep updating until I finish the book in question. So here goes.

Todd Robbins - 'Spurs': Apparently this is the story that inspired the movie 'Freaks', which I haven't seen and would like too. Anyway, this is a dark little tale that is told in an initially whimsical style that, together with the French travelling-entertainers setting reminded me of Paul Gallico's Love Of Seven Dolls - but boy, did this story ever choose to travel down a much, much darker route. There's a great scene where all the freaks are at a party, and each of them is preening, thinking he or she is the superfreak, the one that draws the crowds in at their shows, and then someone gets mad at someone else and all their seething resentment of each other erupts in one big brawl. No community among freaks, then, and why should there be, they're all dependent upon what little income they can generate from the straights, so they're naturally pitted against each other. That's hellish. Even more hellish is the fate that awaits the character that you initially fancy will come out of this pretty well. Very dark and effective stuff.

James M. Cain - 'Pastorale': Very different from the urban noir he would become famous for, but this little rural sonata transforms quite rapidly into a funeral march that's as grim and bitter as anything he wrote later on. The tone of voice is a bit of a surprise - I've read Ring Lardner and I never really warmed up to that sort of hick-dialect storytelling - but for once it goes really well with the story of a backwoods loser who just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. It's a nice curiosity, but Cain would go on to do better stuff.

Steve Fisher - 'You'll Always Remember Me': This is a tale about a very young psychopath. It's effective, but that animal cruelty scene really got under my skin. Your mileage will vary of course, but I work with abandoned and injured kittens a lot and even as a piece of fiction that one particular scene just made me feel sick. Other than that, this story is nothing especially new and not exceptionally well-written. Jim Thompson could have really run with this material, if he didn't happen to run it into the ground.
-------------------- ...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Nicolas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Favourite Stories:
Tod Robbins "Spurs" - Dark and funny
Steve Fisher "You'll Always Remember Me" - Salinger-esque
Day Keene "Nothing to Worry About" - Dark and funny
Howard Browne "Man in the Dark" - Classic Noir
David Goodis "Professional Man" - Good ending
Charles Beaumont "The Hunger" - Creepy
Evan Hunter "The Last Spin" - Cute
Cornell Woolrich "For the Rest of Her Life" - Really dark
David Morell "The Dripping" - Really creepy
Patricia Highsmith "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" - Dark and funny
James Lee B ...more

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Sep 26, 2019 Paul Ataua rated it it was amazing

This is one is awesome. Yes, there are great , good, ok, and not so good stories, but it is just such a well put together collection. The kindle edition has a contents page; you click on a story, get a short bio followed by what more often than not is a coffee time read, and when you finish the story, there is a link that takes you right back to the contents. Some great stories and a fantastic James Ellroy introduction that I think really nails the concept of noir.

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Dec 11, 2018 Brad Hodges rated it it was amazing

The first thing we usually talk about when we talk about noir is what is it? I belong to a Facebook group on film noir and much of the discussion is whether a particular film is noir or not. Most of the time I have a "I know it when I see it" attitude about it, but film noir should concern both a crime and a protagonist of dubious morality, who is destroyed by his greed, a woman, or both. They should not have happy endings.

The term was coined by a French critic in 1946 to characterize Hollywood The first thing we usually talk about when we talk about noir is what is it? I belong to a Facebook group on film noir and much of the discussion is whether a particular film is noir or not. Most of the time I have a "I know it when I see it" attitude about it, but film noir should concern both a crime and a protagonist of dubious morality, who is destroyed by his greed, a woman, or both. They should not have happy endings.

The term was coined by a French critic in 1946 to characterize Hollywood crime dramas that were influenced by German expressionism, especially the use of shadows and chiaroscuro. The makers of these films had no idea that they were making anything called "noir."

Noir has, by extension, become a category of literature, and again, there were noir stories before there was a word for it. James Ellroy, a crackerjack noir writer himself, and Otto Penzler, who owns the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, teamed up to compile a huge book called The Best American Noir of the Century. This title is a little misleading, as it covers 84 years, from 1923 to 2007. The stories are in chronological order, but are heavily weighted to the present.

So what do Ellroy and Penzler consider noir? Penzler divorces the private eye story from noir: "Noir works...are existential, pessimistic tales about people...who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry.

"The private detective story is a different matter entirely. Raymond Chandler famously likened the private eye to a knight, a man who could walk mean streets but not himself be mean, and this is true of the overwhelming majority of those heroic figures." Thus, this collection has no Chandler, no Dashiell Hammet, or Ross McDonald. Instead they are stories that make you rethink your love the humanity. As Penzler closes his foreword, "If you find light and hilarity in these pages, I strongly recommend a visit to a mental health professional."

I honestly didn't dislike any of the stories in this collection, though some are much better than others. The collection kicks off with "Spurs," by Tod Robbins, which was the basis for Tod Browning's film Freaks. Other early stories are by James M. Cain, McKinlay Kantor ("Gun Crazy," the basis for the groundbreaking film), Mickey Spillane, David Goodis, Evan Hunter, and Jim Thompson. Giddis' story, "Professional Man," is one of my favorites, about a cold-blooded hit man who is ordered to whack his own girlfriend. Another favorite is "Texas City, 1947," by James Lee Burke, about some boys, an errant father, and a mean stepmother.

Harlan Ellison contributes "sci-fi noir" with "Mefisto in Onyx," about a man who can jump into other's people's minds, and James Crumley writes a particularly nasty story called "Hot Springs," in which a man runs off with the very young wife of a hillbilly crime boss. I also especially liked "Poachers," by Tom Franklin, about a couple of brothers who live in the swamp and the game warden who tries to catch them.

Among the later stories are pieces by Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jeffrey Deaver. Andrew Klavan writes a story redolent with S&M that his own agent wouldn't try to sell ("Her Lord and Master") and Chris Adrian has "Stab," a disturbing story about a young boy who tags along with a girl who has a passion for killing neighborhood pets. Thomas H. Cook writes a story ("What She Offered") about perhaps the ultimate femme fatale, a woman who offers a suicide pact to the man she picks up in a bar. It contains some quintessential noir prose:

"To black, she offered one concession. A string of small white pearls. Everything else, the hat, the dress, the stockings, the shoes, the little purse...everything else was black. And so, what she offered at that first glimpse was just the old B movie stereotype of the dangerous woman, the broad-billed that discreetly covers one eye, high heels tapping on rain-slicked streets, foreign currency in the small black purse. She offered the spy, the murderess, the lure of a secret past, and, of course, that little hint of erotic peril."

Noir is easily parodied, as Garrison Keillor has done for years, but when it is done right, it escapes the bounds of parody and shakes the heart. For any fan of the genre, this volume is a must. ...more

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Nov 18, 2018 Greg rated it liked it

Shelves: mid-20th-century-american-crime, short-story, reviewed, 20th-century, noir

COUNTDOWN: Mid-Century North American Crime
BOOK/Short 176 (0f 250) - And a huge Shout Out to the many excellent Otto Penzler collections!
The Homecoming" is my focus from this collection, and it's an important work for many reasons.
First, it's post-war 1946. Second, Otto Penzler, editor of the entire collection, tells us that Dorothy Hughes is the first female "to fall squarely in the hard-boiled school." This story, Penzler goes on to say, first appeared in "Murder Calvacade", the first 'Writers COUNTDOWN: Mid-Century North American Crime
BOOK/Short 176 (0f 250) - And a huge Shout Out to the many excellent Otto Penzler collections!
The Homecoming" is my focus from this collection, and it's an important work for many reasons.
First, it's post-war 1946. Second, Otto Penzler, editor of the entire collection, tells us that Dorothy Hughes is the first female "to fall squarely in the hard-boiled school." This story, Penzler goes on to say, first appeared in "Murder Calvacade", the first 'Writers of America' crime anthology. And third, the POV is not from a man returning from war (as expected), wounded in many ways, but the narrator is a man who stayed at home, never having a clue as to the torment of that conflict.
HOOK=1 star: "It was a dark night, a small wind night, the night on which evil things could happen, might happen," opens the story. The cliched opening (of "it was a dark and stormy night" fame) was barely good enough to keep me reading. If this had been a novel, I'd have set it aside.
PACE=3: Just right for this short story.
PLOT=3: One wonders how many times this plot played out post-WW2: A man is jealous his girl has left him for the home-town returning war hero and he walks to her house with a gun. (But as I said, this story has been told many times by the hero, but not by the man who stayed at home.)
CHARACTERS=3: Benny, the jilted boyfriend, is overcome with jealousy. His ex-girl, Nan, is "such a little thing" and is now paired with Jim, who is not only a war hero, but had been the most popular guy in high school (naturally, a second cliche comes into play).
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE = 4: The highlight of this short. "Brown leaves shriveled and fallen, blown in small worldpools by the small wind." Is Hughes referring to the global deaths, of fallen men perishing in unknown places? Does "Warped elm bows scraping together in lonely nakedness.." refer to the upcoming cataclysmic meeting of Benny and Jim? And Benny, on his walk to Nan's: "...she and Jim would be sitting on the couch, sitting close together so they'd both avoid the place where the couch sagged. Her (Nan's) brother, the one in the navy, had busted it when he was a kid." Jan is surrounded and impacted by 3 men: the brother still at war, Jim, and Benny. This atmosphere/perspective is coming from Dorothy Hughes as the unwilling, innocent girl caught up in a war that has returned home, and that's what makes this a stand out example of this story.
SUMMARY: 2.8 for great atmosphere of an oft-told story.
...more

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Nov 20, 2010 Michael rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, noir, anthology, 2010, pulp

It is hard to review a collection of short stories (do you rate based on the average ratings of all the stories or how you felt of the book as a whole?). This collection of Noir short stories, is well worth reading for all Noir and Hard-Boiled fans. Full of grittiness, vengeance, murder and macabre; I loved every minute of this book.

Individual Breakdown of the Short Stories
Spurs by Tod Robbins (1923) -- 3/5
Pastorale by James M. Cain (1928) -- 4/5
You'll Always Remember Me by Steve Fisher (1938) - ...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Abhinav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, i-own-a-copy, the-cj-library, crime-fiction, thriller, noir, love-cum-like-zyada, 2014-reading-saga

I read this compilation as part of the 387 Short Story Challenge - one story a day for the past month or so. There are about 30 out of these 35 stories I really liked, but only a handful of them make the amazing grade.

So after much thought, I'm not going to be tempted into rating it five stars. Given how dark & depressing these stories can be, I'm not gonna take this up even for selective reading anytime soon. That being said, this is not to be missed at any cost by fans of crime fiction & noir. ...more

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Aug 31, 2013 Carrie rated it it was ok

Shelves: short-stories

If I was a horror fan I might have enjoyed these. As a noir far, however, it was a disappointment. Of these stories only one or two of them felt like noir. Most of them felt like horror. SOme of it better than others, and cetianly creepy and atmospheric, but overall, a disappointment. I ultimately gave up halfway through the book because I wanted to read a collection of noir stories and frankly, that's not what I got. ...more

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May 27, 2014 Warren Stalley rated it it was amazing

The Best American Noir of the Century collects together a wide range of crime authors from the U.S. and is a great way to find interesting writers who you may not have come across before. Each story is preceded by a brief yet informative introduction to the author. All the pieces were interesting in one way or another but some of my personal favourites were as follows:

Nothing To Worry About – Day Keene
A teenage boy thinks he’s got away with murder but his homicidal tendencies may yet give him aw ...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Aaron Poorman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: subliminalmaybe

I'm back from my blogging hiatus now that another semester has passed. How long this return will last before I'm pulled entirely back into my studies I can't be sure. Still, it is nice to have time for reading for fun again. The Best American Noir of the Century is a collection compiled by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. It's a massive book with nearly forty stories, and stretches as far back as 1923 (Tom Robbins' "Spurs" and as recently as 2007 (Lorenzo Carcaterra's "Missing The Morning Bus") fo I'm back from my blogging hiatus now that another semester has passed. How long this return will last before I'm pulled entirely back into my studies I can't be sure. Still, it is nice to have time for reading for fun again. The Best American Noir of the Century is a collection compiled by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. It's a massive book with nearly forty stories, and stretches as far back as 1923 (Tom Robbins' "Spurs" and as recently as 2007 (Lorenzo Carcaterra's "Missing The Morning Bus") for it's material. When a collection claims to be the best of the year, I approach it with what can only be described as modest expectations. If the time period expands to larger proportions, such as decades or more my skepticism and hopes rise in rather unequal amounts. Usually in favor of the former, seeing as I am a bit cynical, even around the holidays. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised again and again while reading these stories.

Noir, in literary terms can seem at times to be simple and complex when it comes to classification. It started as a sub-genre within mystery fiction which has since broadened its scope and as such has grown to include a wider array of writing. Perhaps the easiest way to explain noir to those unfamiliar with it, might be to say the stories are well, black. From the settings to the plot lines and characters there is a ever present sense of darkness. Murder happens more often than not in noir fiction. There are ill-fated love affairs, of standard and triangle the variety. There are heists gone right, or wrong, and sometimes there are just psychopaths - who kill, just to kill. What makes almost any character interesting in any genre, is the depth and complexity of their flaws. That, for me, is what makes noir so fun to read. The protagonists aren't who you'd always expect. They are as flawed as anyone and might be called bad guys depending on how one chooses to look at it. Personally I've always been drawn to anti-heroes and so with this collection I found a lot to appreciate.

I've read countless collections and anthologies throughout the years - but never, and I mean never, have I been introduced to so many interesting authors as I have with this. Many of those authors are well-known and so I knew of them going in, but still hadn't read any of their work. This short list includes James Ellroy, who helped compile the volume and is regarded as one of America's finest crime writers. ( L.A. Confidential, The Black Dalia ) Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) is another prime example. I'd been intending to check her out ever since I read and reviewed Thieves of Manhattan - the story she wrote in this case was actually inspired by a Ronald Regan quote, scary right? "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" is just so memorable and creepy that I had to reference it by name. ( it is also the title to a short story collection by Highsmith) Lastly among these well known but, new to me writers was Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island) You may have noticed by now that all the larger works I've mentioned were made into films, some with greater success than others. But that brings up another intriguing fact about this collection in that many of the stories included have been made into films themselves. Oftentimes re-branded with new names such as the aforementioned opener "Spurs" which was adapted way back in the black and white era into the film Freaks (1932). An example of one story that kept the original title when it was adapted would be MacKinly Kantor's Gun Crazy (1950). I plan on trying to track down a number of these movies sometime "Spurs" with it's midget, murder, anti-hero was one of my favorites from the lot. As for what was my absolute favorite story, right now, I am leaning toward Tom Franklin's "Poachers". I'll leave the details to those curious enough to actually check out the book, as it is one of the longer works included. But what I will say that setting, and the characters are just fantastic. I've always thought there was something extra unsettling about the south, this story and a few others selected only prove that point.

I'm tempted to give more plot specifics to certain stories, but I think that to any serious reader there is something terribly exciting about not being told everything. There is something special in discovering these kinds of stories, and writers on your own so I will leave that reward for you. To readers looking for something new I strongly recommend giving this a try. Nearly every story is a gem. Maybe not emeralds or sapphires but surely obsidian - black, flawed and still beautiful. Stories of covetous, murderous dreamers who aim for stars because anything less would be inhuman ; or perhaps un-American. The genre, and American talent, could scarcely be better represented than they are in The Best American Noir of the Century.

* Complete version w/ song can be read and heard on my blog

http://subliminalmaybe.blogspot.com/ ...more

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Dec 10, 2017 Ed rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Some short stories are better than others in this collection but James Lee Burke's "Texas City, 1947" is by itself, worth the price of the book. Billy Bob is a young Cajun boy growing up in very tough family circumstances in 1947 South Texas. His teacher is a wonderfully drawn Catholic Nun who becomes a kind of surrogate mother. The boy's name is Billy Bob but it could just as well be Dave, as in Dave Robicheaux. All the characters gut wrenching emotions jump off the pages like a punch in the th ...more

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Sep 20, 2010 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, skeletons-in-the-closet, short-stories, mood-dark-and-twisted, secret-identities, sense-of-place, noir, better-than-the-movie

Did... I feel "repulsed and titillated" while reading this, as James Ellroy claimed I would?: YES. Forget horror, noir is the best way to get a chill up one's spine!

Did... I find myself crushing on all the wrong people?: YES. There's something so deadly sexy about a good femme fatale!

Did... I feel very grateful that I had this as an e-book edition?: YES, mostly. At 731 pages, I wouldn't have been able to carry a hard copy around on my commute, but this is the kind of book that begs to be he ...more

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Sep 23, 2010 J.R. rated it really liked it

Shelves: anthologies

If you’re already a fan of the genre, you’ll be pleased with this magnificent edition. If you don’t know what noir is, then this is a splendid introduction.

In fact, if you’re a novice, the editors James Ellroy and Otto Penzler each provide a brief introduction offering their interpretations of the term. Penzler contends noir is a “…prodigiously overused term to describe a certain type of film or literary work” which is actually “…virtually impossible to define, but everyone thinks they know it w ...more

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Jul 16, 2017 Jeff Lanter rated it really liked it

It can be hard to find good noir and for me anyway, noir scratches a reading itch that no other story can touch. There's something about a flawed character meeting their doomed fate that speaks to this overly pragmatic and cynical person. Life all too often feels like a noir setting and I think that is why I relish noir so much (well that and it probably confirms my world view to a certain extent too).

This huge collection is full of noir stories going back quite a ways in the 1900's. It is impre ...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Judi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

Since this is a rather thick book (800 pages) of short stories, I suspect that I'll be reading it for awhile. But it is worth the read, especially if you really want to learn what the Noir genre is. Guy Savage reviewed this book for MostlyFiction (http://bookreview.mostlyfiction.com/2...) and one of things he points out is to read Otto Penzler's introduction for a better understanding of the delineations under the umbrella of crime fiction, especially when it comes to the term "Noir." This is go ...more

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Mar 15, 2019 Nancy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: anthologies-collections, best-american-compilations, short-stories, all-time-favorites, classics, best-books-read-2019, fiction, mystery, noir-dark

As this is my year of reading primarily short story/essays/anthologies/collections, I was surprised at how much I loved this compilation. My favorite was Harlan Ellison’s “Mefisto in Onyx”. Outstanding!!!!! Out of the 39 stories, with publication dates spanning from 1923-2007, I did not finish only three of them and of the remaining 36 I would have given most all of them four or five stars. A must-read for fans of this genre.

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Apr 28, 2012 Jeremy Good added it

Shelves: noir, 2012-challenge-books

Like most anthologies, it's a bit hit and miss. Most intriguing was the editorial take on noir, a bit idiosyncratic perhaps challenging traditional notions of noir. Maybe half the collection started around the 90s and took us into the new millenium. So we seem to have here an ambitious attempt to keep noir relevant today and I guess it always has been, even in "pre-noir" times?!

If I had to define "noir" just based on reading this anthology, it would be this: Hopeless or hapless people living hop ...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Mary rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Avid noir fans and short story fans.

Recommended to Mary by: No one- it leapt off the library shelf into my hands.

I still find great joy in 'discovering' writers I have never heard of who have managed to make their way into the canon despite all odds, such as the fellow who tried for forty years (FORTY YEARS!) to get published, and when at last he made it, his work became part of the Oscar inner circle as well. The little bios before each piece help place the writers in context. All in all a terrific collection edited by an author I discovered "backwards" -- I saw L.A. Confidential and fell in love, and now ...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Bryan Alexander rated it it was amazing

Shelves: crime

A delightful romp though literary noir. The selection ranges through the 20th century, emphasizing the later decades more than the earlier.

Stories cover a lot of ground within the introduction's fairly specific genre definition. Tales work with other domains and genres, including crime, mystery, sex, science fiction, and horror.

Interesting to see so much rural, rather than urban noir. We often associate the genre with hard-bitten city streets. ...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Sarah Delacueva added it

Shelves: not-for-me

I enjoy noir film, so I thought I would like these stories, but just couldn't get into it. What I did read was pretty uneven. A couple I read were good, and others I just didn't enjoy at all. Eventually I put it down and never found my way back... ...more

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Jun 27, 2020 Larry Carr rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A great wide ranging collection of short stories. Editors Penzler and Ellroy know their writers and subject. The bio synopsis proceeding each story is a perfect introduction, plus a valuable reference for readers seeking more from these authors. Job very well done, noir on....

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Mar 24, 2014 DeAnna Knippling rated it it was amazing

A much broader selection than I was expecting. Highly recommend for horror readers.

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About James Ellroy

James Ellroy

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James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international best sellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York ...more

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“Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is.” — 30 likes

“Like art, love, and pornography, noir is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For the purposes of the book and my longtime working understanding and definition of it, noir stories are bleak, existential, alienated, pessimistic tales about losers--people who are so morally challenged that they cannot help but bring about their own ruin.” — 11 likes

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