While real estate developers are gleefully
cackling at the soaring prices and rampant boutique-ification
of Brooklyn, the authors of the short stories in Akashic Books’
new anthology paint a very different picture.
"Brooklyn Noir" is definitely not about the gentrified
Brooklyn with baby boutiques filled with high-priced European
clothing or the made-to-order designs of Smith Street clothiers.
This Brooklyn is cagey and unpredictable. This is about the shadowy
corners, the musty old bars and the sidewalks littered with broken
glass.
In "Brooklyn Noir," you can’t take anything for granted.
The cops are often the bad guys and women are fearsome femme
fatales. And the way people die is as varied as the way they
have sex – which is to say, widely varied.
And it’s selling like hotcakes!
Publisher Johnny Temple said the book, which was officially released
on July 19, has already gone into a second printing.
"We’ve already sold 10,000 copies," said the Fort Greene
resident. "For an independent company like us, that is really
a lot of books. It’s a hit for us."
Temple said that several Italian companies are already in a bidding
war over the book and there is interest from a French publisher,
too.
"The reviews are pouring in and they are outstanding,"
said Temple.
"Brooklyn Noir" is a collection of 20 short stories
– each set in a different Brooklyn neighborhood – by 20 authors.
To aid the geographically challenged, the book even has a map
of Brooklyn, littered with dead bodies for easy neighborhood
identification.
So why the frenzy for a book so loaded with down-and-out underdogs
and gruesome murders set in our own backyards?
The editor of the book, 45-year-old Brooklyn Heights resident
Tim McLoughlin, takes a stab at the question.
"I think that Brooklyn has changed its image a lot in the
last 20 years," he said. "Obviously there’s a whole
new group of young people. It’s become a hip borough to live
in, and yet you still have a really strong, old-time presence.
And the one thing that Brooklyn still has, that Manhattan has
mostly lost, is neighborhoods.
"It is a rare treat if you’re in Manhattan and you find
a neighborhood, but there are precious few, whereas Brooklyn
still has a strong neighborhood sense to it," said McLoughlin.
"If you walk from Cobble Hill to Carroll Gardens, it feels
different. From Sunset Park to Bay Ridge, or Bay Ridge to Bensonhurst,
it feels different. There’s a different vibe. It’s a different
community. People moving here know that. And old-timers have
always known that. And [in ’Brooklyn Noir’] the appeal of old-time
Brooklyn comes through.
"I really wanted it to be all across the borough, representative
of the borough in all of its diversity. And I also wanted it
to be representative in terms of styles, old-fashioned stories
and real, cutting-edge stories that would shock people a little
bit as long as they were well-written."
McLoughlin even photographed the cover of "Brooklyn Noir"
with that duality in mind. In the black-and-white image, a woman’s
leg, tattooed with a rose, is poised over a "BKLYN"
manhole cover.
"I wanted it to feel a little bit contemporary and edgy.
That’s why I liked the tattoo. But I also wanted a ’40s or ’50s
noir feel, that’s why the sepia tone and brownstone kind of look
to the background. I wanted it to be both classic and contemporary.
And I think that’s what appeals to people, why we’re catching
everyone."
McLoughlin’s leggy model was a colleague, Rosemary Christiano,
from his day job as a clerk at Kings County Supreme Court. In
addition to editing the volume, and photographing the cover,
McLoughlin authored one of the more compelling short stories
in the volume, "When All This Was Bay Ridge," set in
Sunset Park.
His story is about a man attempting to get some answers about
a photo of his ex-cop father and an unidentified woman, after
his father’s death. His interrogation of his father’s old NYPD
cronies in their local watering hole rips the lid off an unexpected
Pandora’s box of revelations.
Did McLoughlin find inspiration at his day job in Downtown Brooklyn?
While he says he hasn’t yet culled any plots from the courthouse’s
docket of cases, he admits it helps his technique.
"I’ve been here 20 years and it certainly colors the way
I think," said McLoughlin, who also authored the award-winning
novel, "Heart of the Old Country" (Akashic, 2001).
"Working in an environment where you’re dealing with crime
certainly colors the way you look at the world, but certainly
I was drawn to crime fiction already, before I had this job.
It does help with the writing – it helps keep me up-to-date on
the vernacular of the streets."
Now that McLoughlin’s book is in stores, he has had to jump on
the reading and book-signing wagon.
"It was terrifying at first, but I’m enjoying it,"
he said. "The audiences are very supportive and I’m not
alone – usually there are two or three other [’Brooklyn Noir’]
readers there with me. Once you warm up, people start asking
you questions. It just becomes a Brooklyn thing, where people
start talking about neighborhoods. ’How come you don’t have a
Flatbush story?’ and stuff like that. And I tell them, ’I tried.
I wanted one. Where do you get a good Flatbush story?’"
The good news is that there may be a lot more Brooklyn stories
to come, because McLoughlin says he is in talks with Temple about
publishing a second volume.
"If we do another volume of all originals, we would get
some new blood in there, too," said McLoughlin. "I’m
a big fan of Jonathan Lethem’s. And I would love to get something
from Paul Auster, too."
The current volume has stories by Pete Hamill and Neal Pollack
as well as many exciting newcomers like Kenji Jasper ("Seeking
Salamanca Mitchell," 2004) and Nicole Blackman ("Blood
Sugar," 2002).
"We filled this book so fast it was remarkable to me; it
was about a year," said McLoughlin. "That’s pretty
quick when you’re reading 60 to 70 stories. The publisher originally
wanted 250 pages, and it came in at 360, but I think we’re both
very happy with that. It feels like a substantial volume."
"Brooklyn Noir" (Akashic Books,
$15.95) is edited by Tim McLoughlin. McLoughlin, Pearl Abraham
and Ellen Miller will read from the book at Barnes & Noble
[267 Seventh Ave. at Sixth Street, (718) 832-9066] in Park Slope
on Aug. 5 at 7:30 pm. For a complete list of "Brooklyn Noir"
author readings, visit www.akashicbooks.com.
The book is also available at Barnes & Noble in Downtown
Brooklyn [106 Court Street at State Street,(718) 246-4996], Cobble
Hill’s BookCourt [163 Court St. at Dean Street, (718) 875-3677],
Bay Ridge’s A Novel Idea [8415 Third Ave. at 84th Street, (718)
833-5115] and Williamsburg’s Spoonbill and Sugartown (218 Bedford
Ave. at North Fifth St., (718) 387-7322] and Clovis Books [229
Bedford Ave. at North Fourth St., (718) 302-3751].
