Santa Cruz Noir

Description

"Bright joins the ranks of Akashic editors to rip the lid off the California coastal town that's never seemed less laid-back." --Kirkus Reviews "A few [stories] spotlight surfing, a few more feature psycho killers on the loose, and others offer magical overtones." --Publishers Weekly "Santa Cruz Noir, an electric, wide-ranging collection of short stories edited by local legend Susie Bright, is a book about the paradox of Santa Cruz, the zen and the gunshots, the perfect waves and their broken riders, the million-dollar houses and the flooded homeless encampments. The book is structured from north to south, beginning with tales of bodies not entirely buried on lonely northern beaches and ending in unforgiving agricultural fields to the south. The stories are also grouped into thematic sections, starting with "Murder Capital of the World"--bloody fever dreams of bad drugs and hitchhiking gone terribly wrong. Fair warning: These stories are as grisly as a good episode of Game of Thrones and just as addictive." --Bookshop Santa Cruz Newsletter Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. this new volume further reveals the seedy underbelly of the Left Coast. Brand-new stories by: Tommy Moore, Jessica Breheny, Naomi Hirahara, Calvin McMillin, Liza Monroy, Elizabeth McKenzie, Jill Wolfson, Ariel Gore, Jon Bailiff, Maceo Montoya, Micah Perks, Seana Graham, Vinnie Hansen, Peggy Townsend, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Lou Mathews, Lee Quarnstrom, Dillon Kaiser, Beth Lisick, and Wallace Baine. From the introduction by Susie Bright: Every town has its noir-ville. It's easy to find in Santa Cruz. We live in what's called "paradise," where you can wake up in a pool of blood with the first pink rays of the sunrise peeking out over our mountain range. The dewy mist lifts from the bay. Don't hate us because we're beautiful--we were made that way, like Venus rising off the foam with a brick in her hand. We can't help it if you fall for it every time... "If I lived in a place like this," visitors often say, "I'd wake up with a smile every day." Oh, we do, thank you for that. There's no beauty like a merciless beauty--and like every crepuscular predator, she thrives at dawn and dusk. You're just the innocent we've been waiting for, with your big paper cone of sugar-shark cotton, whipped out of pure nothing. We have just the ride for you, the longest tunnel ever. Santa Cruz is everything you ever dreamed, and everything you ever screamed, in one long drop you'll never forget.

Susie Bright is a best-selling author and editor who landed in Santa Cruz in 1979. Her previous short story collections include The Best American Erotica, Herotica, Bitten, and X. She is the host of the podcast In Bed with Susie Bright, author of the memoir Big Sex Little Death, and cowrote and choreographed the noir film Bound.

Santa Cruz Noir is teeming with other local details that will make readers do similar double takes. It's divided into three sections, the first of which is called 'Murder Capital of the World, ' as if to put any question of when Santa Cruz's notorious serial killer lore is going to come up immediately to rest. --Good Times Santa Cruz, cover feature Concluding with a serious gutpunch of a story, Santa Cruz Noir is a worthy addition to the series, one that proves no locale is too outre for the Akashic Noir treatment. --San Francisco Book Review Another stellar installment in the marvelous Akashic Noir series of anthologies that take readers around the world...In these stories, you will find struggle and cruelty, madness and kindness, and everything human. I recommend it highly. --Tonstant Weader Reviews In June, Akashic has three of the more exciting recent installments to its wildly popular Noir city series: Santa Cruz, Lagos, and Sao Paolo. The Lagos volume is a standout, with Chris Abani serving as editor and tapping into the city's vibrant literary scene, but Santa Cruz and Sao Paolo both have plenty to be excited about, especially if you're a fan of seaside noir or Brazilian fiction. These are three vibrant, international cities with distinct cultures and social issues best explored through noir. --CrimeReads, included in Summer's Most Anticipated Crime, Mystery, and Thrillers There's also plenty of human-on-human crime. There are intricate plots, sketchier plots, dubious motives, inscrutable movites, downright creepiness, edgy stuff, and wonderful humor. Something for everyone's taste in noir. --Escape Into Life Santa Cruz Noir, an electric, wide-ranging collection of short stories edited by local legend Susie Bright, is a book about the paradox of Santa Cruz, the zen and the gunshots, the perfect waves and their broken riders, the million-dollar houses and the flooded homeless encampments. The book is structured from north to south, beginning with tales of bodies not entirely buried on lonely northern beaches and ending in unforgiving agricultural fields to the south. The stories are also grouped into thematic sections, starting with Murder Capital of the World--bloody fever dreams of bad drugs and hitchhiking gone terribly wrong. Fair warning: These stories are as grisly as a good episode of Game of Thrones and just as addictive. --Bookshop Santa Cruz Newsletter A few [stories] spotlight surfing, a few more feature psycho killers on the loose, and others offer magical overtones. --Publishers Weekly