Providence Noir

Description

Following the success of Dennis Lehane's best-selling Boston Noir (2010, also available), the Akashic Noir series goes further into the underbelly of New England. Pushcart Prize-winner and fiction/non-fiction bestseller Ann Hood edits this collection of original short stories from some of Rhode Island's top authors. As with all titiles in the Noir series, there are stories to make you shiver, stories to make you think, stories that will show you a new city in a way it's never been highlighted before.

Ann Hood is the author of the best-selling novels The Obituary Writer, The Knitting Circle, and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine. Her memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief was a New York Times Editors' Choice and chosen as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Her essays and short stories have appeared regularly in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Tin House, the Paris Review, Bon Appetit, National Geographic Traveler, and many other newspapers and magazines. Hood has won two Pushcart Prizes, the Paul Bowles Prize in Short Fiction, and her work has been selected for inclusion in three volumes of the Best American Writing anthology series. Hood was born in West Warwick, Rhode Island, and currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She is the editor of Providence Noir.

John Searles's 'The Pig' combines a touching examination of pathos and mystery. Robert Leuci's 'The Vengeance Taker' is a powerful and ultimately creepy story of earned revenge. LaShonda Katrice Barnett's 'Waltz Me Once Again' is a compelling story of violence and tragedy. Thomas Cobb performs the remarkable feat of making a simple round of golf into a surprisingly suspenseful tale, '$1,000 Nassau.' And Peter Farrelly's 'The Saturday Night Before Easter Sunday' closes out the volume with a superb--and hilarious--inside look at the world of novelists, phonies, publishers, and schemers. --Publishers Weekly If you like short stories set in Providence, check out Providence Noir, edited by Ann Hood. --Providence Journal, Bill Reynolds's column The stories are about as diverse and self-destructive cast of characters throughout Providence of varied classes, race, and educational backgrounds....Peppered throughout the book and sometimes even the driving aspect of a story are complex contemporary hot button topics like gentrification and racial profiling with haunting echoes of some of the dark episodes in the past few years....It's a reminder that reality can feel as helplessly tangled as noir films and stories. --New York Daily News It's hard to imagine a better setting for a crime story than Providence....there is no doubt it provides ample backdrop for stories without heroes or happy endings. Thanks to the partnership between Akashic Books, an independent Brooklyn-based publisher, and local writer Ann Hood, we now have Providence Noir--a collection of gritty, hard-boiled short stories that are set within different neighborhoods throughout the city. --Providence Monthly Providence Noir is teeming with muscular, gritty, hard-boiled short stories alongside borderline modern-day gothic tales. Damaged characters, flawed plans of bloody retribution, double-crossing ambitions, and pure murder in mind make it a must-read. You won't find better noir stories this year. --New York Journal of Books This is a perfect summer read. It's Providence with an edge, written by 15 writers who know how to shape stories that lead us down unexpected paths of a city that we love. Out of towners may see it as make believe tales of suspense. To most of us, it's just home. --East Side Monthly You get Alzheimer's, lesbians, Mafia and more as you read along. This is a very good collection of stories that will stay with you after you close the book. They are stories to think about. --Journey of a Bookseller