Manhattan Noir 2, The Classics
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I: THE OLD SCHOOL
EDITH WHARTON, Greenwich Village, Mrs. Mansteys View, 1891
STEPHEN CRANE, East 40s, A Poker Game, 1902
O. HENRY, Lower West Side, The Furnished Room, 1906
IRWIN SHAW, West Village, Sailor off the Bremen, 1939
CORNELL WOOLRICH, East 37th Street, New York Blues, 1970
PART II: THE POETS
EDGAR ALLAN POE, West 84th Street, The Raven, 1845
HORACE GREGORY, Chelsea, Selections from Chelsea Rooming House, 1930
GEOFFREY BARTHOLOMEW, East Village, Selections from The McSorley Poems, 2001
PART III: DARKNESS VISIBLE
JERROLD MUNDIS, Central Park, The Luger Is a 9mm Automatic Handgun with a Parabellum Action, 1969
BARRY N. MALZBERG, Upper West Side, The Interceptor, 1972
CLARK HOWARD, Sixth Avenue, Crowded Lives, 1989
JEROME CHARYN, Lower East Side, Young Isaac, 1990
DONALD E. WESTLAKE, Wall Street, Love in the Lean Years, 1992
JOYCE CAROL OATES, Central Park South, A Manhattan Romance, 1997
LAWRENCE BLOCK, Eighth Avenue, In for a Penny, 1999
SUSAN ISAACS, Murray Hill, Two Over Easy, 2008
Lawrence Block has won most of the major mystery awards and has been called the quintessential New York writer. His series charactersMatthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, Chip Harrison, and Kellerall live in Manhattan; like their creator, they would not really be happy anywhere else.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. While Akashic's original city-themed anthologies tend to be hit or miss, its third reprint volume (after Brooklyn Noir 2 and D.C. Noir 2) offers 17 sure winners by such literary heavyweights as Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Damon Runyon, Donald E. Westlake and Joyce Carol Oates. The tales range in time from 1891 to 2008, giving the book a variety some others in the series have lacked. Block makes a persuasive case in his introduction for including Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, written in 1845 on what would become Manhattan's Upper West Side, as well as poetic selections by Horace Gregory and Geoffrey Bartholomew, whose works are set respectively in a Chelsea rooming house and McSorley's bar in the East Village. If one had to choose the single story that epitomizes noir, the honors would go to Cornell Woolrich's New York Blues, a bleak tale of love and loneliness, madness and death. (Sept.)
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