Atlanta Noir

by Tayari Jones Narrated by Bahni Turpin, Ron Butler

Overview

Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past . . .



These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir . . . However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself . . . Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back.



Contains mature themes.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/05/2017
In the introduction to the Atlanta volume in Akashic’s groundbreaking noir series, Jones admits that several of the 14 entries “are not, by any stretch, crime fiction.” Still, these stories, most of them by relative unknowns, offer plenty of human interest. David James Poissant’s “Comet” effectively uses Stone Mountain as the setting for a boy and his father’s climb to see Halley’s Comet. In Brandon Masey’s “The Prisoner,” a parolee finds staying clean comes at a very heavy price. The plight of the homeless and the shortcomings of shelters are poignantly explored in Anthony Grooms’s “Selah.” In Jennifer Harlow’s unsettling “The Bubble,” two rich, bored high school girls plan a thrill murder that will bind them forever. A mentally disturbed neighbor’s actions become more and more troublesome for an out-of-work school teacher in Sheri Joseph’s edgy “Kill Joy.” Oddly, while all the tales have a Southern feel, none evokes Atlanta’s past, such as the Civil War period. (Aug.)

New York Journal of Books

"Atlanta is one of America’s most dynamic and fastest growing cities, with an increasingly diverse population. This volume honors the city’s transformation—albeit in a chilling manner—with a highly talented crew of 14 respected contributors who know the city inside and out, from its souls to its heart . . . Once again, Akashic shows us why it is king of noir and especially anthologies with such high-quality writers and storytellers. We’ve waited long for this beautiful collection of all things dark and murderous, but the wait was well worth it. Atlanta Noir could well turn out to be Akashic’s best work to date."

Atlanta Studies

"The stories in Atlanta Noir are connected, as Jones suggests in her introduction . . . In particular, the ‘rot’ these narratives expose are specifically Atlanta versions of gentrification, the suburbs, traffic, and inequality. At their best, the stories reveal and complicate a post–civil rights, but far from post-racial, Atlanta . . . This collection is noteworthy in terms of its multiple contemporary literary representations of our city, particularly considering the general lack of them otherwise."

ArtsATL

"Now comes Atlanta Noir, an anthology that masterfully blends a chorus of voices, both familiar and new, from every corner of Atlanta . . . The magic of Atlanta Noir is readily apparent, starting with the introduction Jones pens. It doesn’t rest solely upon the breadth of writers but on how their words, stories and references are so Atlanta—so very particular, so very familiar and so very readily, for those who know the city, nostalgic. And for those who don’t? The sense of place it captures inspires a desire to get to know Atlanta and its stories."

From the Publisher

"Akashic Books has published more than 50 volumes of its 'Noir' anthologies, each set in a different city, from Manhattan to Manila. This month welcomes the release of Atlanta Noir, a collection of 14 short stories by mostly Southern writers, including locals Jim Grimsley and John Holman. Another notable contributor: the book’s editor, award-winning novelist and Spelman alum Tayari Jones. She calls Atlanta—with its gentility, urban grit, and history that ranges from stirring to grotesque—'the noirest town in the nation.'"
—Atlanta Magazine, Top Atlanta Event pick for August

"The book holds 14 chilling tales of urban grit and moral ambiguity, each one written by an author with an intimate knowledge of the city and edited by Jones, whose own writing appears in the collection...The range of stories provided in the collection provides an almost perfect snapshot of the city in which we live, written by people who know it best."
—Creative Loafing

"Atlanta is one of America's most dynamic and fastest growing cities, with an increasingly diverse population. This volume honors the city's transformation—albeit in a chilling manner—with a highly talented crew of 14 respected contributors who know the city inside and out, from its souls to its heart...Once again, Akashic shows us why it is king of noir and especially anthologies with such high-quality writers and storytellers. We've waited long for this beautiful collection of all things dark and murderous, but the wait was well worth it. Atlanta Noir could well turn out to be Akashic's best work to date."
—New York Journal of Books"

Kirkus Reviews

2017-06-20
The 14 new stories Jones (Silver Sparrow, 2011, etc.) gathers seek to expose "the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine" in thoroughly modern but oh-so-Southern Atlanta.Atlanta has its share, maybe more than its share, of prosperity. But wealth is no safeguard against peril. A Hollywood transplant finds that a mansion in Buckhead is far from a safe haven in Tananarive Due's "Snowbound." Neither is a high-rise condo next to Phipps Plaza in Kenji Jasper's "A Moment of Clarity at the Waffle House." Being married to a city councilman doesn't guarantee happiness in Alesia Parker's "Ma'am." And Jennifer Harlow's baby-faced killers reveal the evil that lurks even in serene, suburban Peachtree City in "The Bubble." Poverty, on the other hand, is a surefire path to misery. No one knows that better than the Jamaican transplant whose life in the United States has been a steady path downward in Gillian Royes' "One-Eyed Woman." Working in a no-tell motel is no bed of roses, as editor Jones demonstrates in "Caramel." Nor is selling beer in your backyard a path to glory in John Holman's "The Fuck Out." Social service agencies offer no help to the downtrodden in Anthony Grooms' "Selah." And turning a new leaf after your release from prison is a waste of time for the soiled hero of Brandon Massey's "The Prisoner." Better to seek salvation on the corner of McDaniel and Abernathy streets, like the hero of Daniel Black's "Come Ye, Disconsolate." Creepy as well as dark, grim in outlook, and murky of prose. Hints of the supernatural may make these tales more appealing to lovers of ghost stories than to the hard-boiled crowd.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170606122
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/24/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

Underneath the Scent of Magnolia and Pine

Atlanta, the "city too busy to hate," may be the noirest town in the nation. When I say "noir" I don't mean that we are the murder capital, nor do we strive to be. We are the ninth-largest city in the United States. Our airport is the busiest on earth, hosting over 100 million passengers in recent calendar years. (It is said that even on your way to heaven, you must change planes at Hartsfield-Jackson.) An entire school of hip-hop was born here too. But it is not our urbanity alone that makes us noir. We are a Southern city. Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind both in and about Atlanta. Martin Luther King's Ebeneezer still stands proud on the northeast side of town. Just after the Civil War, six colleges were founded to lift the recently emancipated, and these institutions promote black (Southern) excellence to this day.

Atlanta is rife with contradictions. Priding ourselves on not putting all our business in the street, we shelter secrets for generations. At the same time, we have somehow managed to become a reality television hub. TV personality Todd Chrisley serves up his own brand of "bless your heart" backhandedness and family dysfunction for millions of viewers all over the country, yet gossip magazines hint at a scandal hidden in full view. Most of the "Real" Housewives of Atlanta are not even from Atlanta, nor are they housewives, but they have taken our hometown as their own — and housewifery is a state of mind, not a marital status. These ladies fight at baby showers, marry with the cameras rolling, and divorce in the same fashion. T.I. and Tiny of The Family Hustle are ATLiens for sure, and they allow us to be spectators as they negotiate what it means to be recently rich, famous, and black. Kim Zolciak used to be a Real Housewife of Atlanta, sharing the most intimate details of her love life, but drawing the line at being filmed without her blond wig. After the racial tensions on set bubbled over, she moved to her own show, the programming equivalent of white flight — and actually became a housewife.

Atlanta Noir is not a citified version of Southern Gothic. These authors delve deep into the grotesquerie that is embedded in every narrative and character. When we write noir, we don't shine a light into darkness, we lower the shades. There are no secrets like Southern secrets and no lies like Southern lies.

Keep in mind that there are those who still speak of the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression," perhaps the biggest lie of all. Bronze markers dot the landscape, lamenting the loss, never allowing the past to pass. Yet, in the early 1980s, a serial killer terrorized the city for two years, murdering at least twenty-eight African American children, but this recent history has been put to bed. No memorial stands in honor of the fallen. No one has forgotten, but nobody talks about it, because this is Atlanta and this is how we do things.

This city itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past.

*
In this anthology, I am excited to share fourteen writers' take on the B-side of the ATL. These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir as several of them are not, by any stretch, crime fiction. However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself.

They call it the "Dirty South" for a reason. Here, Waffle House is more than a marker of Southern charm and cholesterol. Yes, the hash browns are scattered, smothered, and chunked, but narcotics, sex, and cash are available, if not on the menu. Just on the outskirts of the East Lake Golf Club is a neighborhood that is not mentioned on the real estate brochures. Perhaps it's true that servants are just like family, but this is not necessarily an upgrade. Megachurches may save you from sin, but not from the wrath of the past.

That said, this book also engages noir in the old-fashioned sense of the word, hard-boiled and criminal. Judges put hits on citizens, crazy neighbors turn out to be homicidal — and victims of homicide. Drug dealers double-cross each other, and sometimes sweet little girls murder just for the hell of it.

But don't forget that this is the Peach State, and down here, we like to take our poison with a side of humor. Behind every murder, under every drug deal, beneath each church pew, and tucked into the working girls' purses is a moment of the absurd and a laugh to be had at the expense of those who can't handle the truth.

Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back.

Tayari Jones May 2017

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Atlanta Noir"
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Copyright © 2017 Akashic Books.
Excerpted by permission of Akashic Books.
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