Joe Kessler’s Reviews > Jewish Noir > Status Update

This part from Jonathan Santlofer's The Golem of Jericho hits way too close to my own middle-school experience:

"That night I lie in bed with a question buzzing in my brain: How did they know I was a Jew and why do they hate me for it? The seeds of my self-loathing anti-Semitism inadvertently sown: if those boys wanted to hurt me for being a Jew there had to be something wrong with me, and with being Jewish."

"Blood Diamonds" by Melissa Yi. ★★☆☆☆. I might jump around the book a bit to see if there're anything I like better, but I think this is the end of me reading it straight through.

"The Legacy" by Wendy Hornsby: good up until its abrupt ending. ★★★☆☆

"Lost Pages from the Boom of Judith" by Kenneth Wishnia (editor of this book): ★★☆☆☆. Disjointed and mean-spirited. Also yet another entry from a white author that rather conspicuously features racism and racial slurs. I might just be over this anthology at this point.

"Trajectories" by Marge Pierce. Takes too long to get going and is over before you know it without ever coming to a point. This is a drabble, not a story. ★★☆☆☆

A Simkhe (A Celebration) by Yente Serdatsky. Interesting for the historical context -- first published in a Yiddish newspaper in 1912; translated into English for the first time for this anthology -- but somewhat meh as a story. ★★★☆☆

"Quack and Dwight" by Travis Richardson. Another fairly strong entry, and more along the lines of traditional noir. ★★★★☆

"Living Underwater" by B. K. Stevens: I'm not totally sure I'd call this noir, but I liked it. Nice job making the main character both sympathetic and not -- a jerk in a bad situation, basically. Thank goodness this anthology has at least some winners in it. ★★★★☆

"The Sacrifice of Isaac" by Steven Wishnia: ★★☆☆☆. Better than the first story, but still pretty aimless and racist as hell. This one is by the editor's brother!