Mississippi Noir

(Paperback)

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Description

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. The Mississippi Delta is a region ripe and long overdue for a volume in the Akashic Noir Series. Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal collection of stories spread across the state that provide a mesmerizing diversity of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon the Mississippi's past and present.

Reviews

With the most corrupt government, the highest rate of preventable diseases, and the highest poverty rate in the country, Mississippi is a natural fit for Akashic's noir anthology series.
--Publishers Weekly, Fall 2016 Announcements

Long-listed for The Morning News 2017 Tournament of Books

Mississippi boasts a notably corrupt state government and the highest rate of poverty in the country. No wonder, then, that area writers have found some pretty nasty stories to tell, several of which are included here: stories about a girl who murders her mother's live-in boyfriend; a drug dealer who goes to extreme lengths to repay his source; a jilted lover who kills her exlover's wife; college students who are having their fingers removed. And, of course, stories about sex and rage and white trash. Some of the 16 contributors are appearing in print for the first time, and some big names--Megan Abbott and Ace Atkins, for example--offer fine stories.
--Booklist

The prose reflects the striking, albeit morbid, writing that has been associated with Southern fiction since Faulkner dreamed up Yoknapatawpha County...This collection provides readers with well-crafted, dark stories of Mississippi mistakes and misdeeds that are told in such a way that allow for each individual contributor's voice to shine through...The latest addition to dark Mississippi fiction is not one to be missed.
--Oxford Citizen

But in Mississippi, darkness falls on both sides of the tracks. And that's what makes this particular anthology, one of many "Noirs" published by Akashic Books, so unnerving. These could be your neighbors.
--Sun Herald

Ace Atkins. Michael Farris Smith. Megan Abbott. Jack Pendarvis. Mary Miller. William Boyle. All your favorite writers are there in the latest noir anthology from Akashic Books, many of them presenting brand-new stories. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location of Mississippi, and among the 16 pieces you'll find seasoned noir writers but also first-time published authors. Book editor Tom Franklin writes in the introduction: This isn't, and hasn't ever been, a land purely of moonlight and magnolias. Because in that moonlight, terrible things happen.
--Deep South Magazine

Mississippi as a state is a fount of great literature . . . It is also a state rich in the mystery genre with settings perfect for suspense. It's not wonder, then, that this anthology is a standout in an excellent series.
--Tonstant Weader Reviews

Some of my favorite writers have woven their webs between these covers. So kick back, pour yourself a drink, and find out why Mississippi Noir may be the darkest of them all.
--Greg Iles, author of The Bone Tree

All these stories drag you in and don't let go until the last sentence...i highly recommend this book.
-- Dew on the Kudzu

Author Bio

Tom Franklin is the author of Poachers: Stories and three novels, Hell at the Breech, Smonk, and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller, the Willie Morris Prize in Southern Fiction, and the UK's Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel. His latest novel, The Tilted World, was cowritten with his wife, Beth Ann Fennelly. They live in Oxford, Mississippi, where they teach in the University of Mississippi's MFA program.