Tel Aviv Noir
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Israeli crime fiction that “sets the bar high for subsequent Noir offerings. The genre is hot, Tel Aviv is exotic, and this volume is outstanding” (Library Journal, starred review).
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched with the summer ’04 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. For Tel Aviv Noir, Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron have masterfully assembled some of Israel’s top contemporary writers into a compulsively readable collection.
Along with Gon Ben Ari’s story “Clear Recent History”—winner of the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best P.I. Short Story—this anthology includes brand-new stories by: Etgar Keret, Gadi Taub, Lavie Tidhar, Deakla Keydar, Matan Hermoni, Julia Fermentto, Shimon Adaf, Alex Epstein, Antonio Ungar, Gai Ad, Assaf Gavron, Silje Bekeng, and Yoav Katz; translated by Yardenne Greenspan.
Jewish Journal’s Noteworthy Books for the New Year
“There’s a marvelous underlying tension to [the stories], a paranoid tinge, as if some vast monstrous conspiracy is lurking behind every misdeed and bad stroke of luck.” —San Francisco Book Review
“The collection reflects much of the daily reality of the city, but not the sort one is likely to read in tour guides . . . There’s a complexity and virtuosity to plot and prose that leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction and appreciation, despite the typically devastating denouement of the tales . . . Superb.” —PopMatters
“Consistently strong . . . Definitely one of the highlights in the long-running Akashic series.” —Booklist, starred review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion famously stated, "We will know we have become a normal country when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew." That "normality" is certainly evident in the 14 stories in this routine Akashic anthology, which feature murderers, hookers, pimps, drug dealers, and mobsters, both Jewish and Arab, though it's not always clear how they fit the noir label. Some selections could have been transplanted from Tel Aviv to other cities with only minor changes and none deals with politics or the Palestinian situation. The standouts are Gai Ad's "The Expendables" and Antonio Ungar's "Said the Good." James M. Cain would recognize the setup of Ad's story, in which the life of an attractive widow takes a violent turn after her husband's cancer-related death leaves her at loose ends. Ungar's tale of warring organized crime factions would certainly make Ben-Gurion feel , for better or worse, that Israel is now normal.
