by Neal Pollack
For years I'd been putting food on the table by skillfully finding ways to take jobs away from hardworking guys, men just as good as my father, real Grabowskis, and send them to another country. Every time I did that, I knew in some way I was killing those guys. Sometimes, indirectly, not just metaphorically. Analysts at Doolin's firm repeatedly called for corporate America to cut jobs, to "contain" costs, to be a little more nimble. Bill Chait two doors down was a lawyer who fought workers' comp cases. House after well-maintained house in Wilmette was paid for by taking a little bit from the Grabowskis. Of course I could live with accidentally snuffing a landscaper from Lincolnwood. So could any number of my neighbors. We'd all had plenty of practice.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:
Miriam Berkley
JEFFERY RENARD ALLEN is an Associate Professor of English at Queens College of the City University of New York and an instructor in the graduate writing program at New School University. He is the author of two books, Harbors and Spirits, a collection of poems, and the novel Rails Under My Back, which won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction.
Paula Wheeler
JIM ARNDORFER was born and raised in Milwaukee. He now lives on the far North Side of Chicago—in broadcast range of the Packers Radio Network—with his wife and son. He has attended four Packers-Bears games and the teams have split. He is a reporter for Advertising Age and a contributor to The Baffler.
Nathan Mandell
DANIEL BUCKMAN is the author of Water in Darkness, The Names of Rivers, and Morning Dark. His fourth novel, Wet Trees, is forthcoming in 2006. A former paratrooper and journalist, Buckman lives and works in Chicago.
Susannah Felts
TODD DILLS hails originally from Rock Hill, South Carolina, but desertion is sweet release: He has called Chicago his home for these past years. He is editor and publisher of THE2NDHAND, a broadsheet and online magazine (the2ndhand.com) for new writing. His stories, reviews, and erratta have appeared in numerous publications, including the Chicago Reader, where he also works.
Elivi Varga
ANDREW ERVIN lives in downstate Illinois. His stories have appeared in the Prague Literary Review and Night Rally. He has also contributed reviews, articles, and essays to the New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post Book World, Chicago Tribune, The Believer, and other places.
Andy Halpern
ALEXAI GALAVIZ-BUDZISZEWSKI was born and raised in Pilsen on the South Side of Chicago. He has published numerous stories in journals such as Triquarterly, Ploughshares, and the Alaska Quarterly Review. He still lives and works on the South Side of Chicago.
Wayne Geist
LUCIANO GUERRIERO, a contributor to Akashic's Brooklyn Noir, recently completed his first noir novel, The Spin. His fourth play, Fireman's Dance, will be produced in New York City in the fall of 2005. Luciano has acted in or directed seventy-five plays, and has appeared in twenty Hollywood and independent films, and in many television shows.
Bryan Bedell
KEVIN GUILFOILE'S first novel, Cast of Shadows, was published this year by Knopf. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife and son.
Andreas Von Lintel
ADAM LANGER is the author of the novels Crossing California and The Washington Story. He divides his time between New York City and Bloomington, Indiana.
Daniel Sinker
JOE MENO is a fiction writer from Chicago and winner of a Nelson Algren Literary Award. His latest novel, Hairstyles of the Damned, follows the exploits of adolescents as they struggle for belonging on Chicago's South Side. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Punk Planet magazine, another 2nd-city landmark.
Phillip Cantor
MICHAEL K. MEYERS is a writer and performance artist. His fiction has been published in the New Yorker, and his performance work has been presented around the world, including at MoMA, Tel Aviv Museum, and Warsaw Institute of Contemporary Art. He teaches in the M.F.A. Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and lives in Evanston, Illinois. He is the recipient of numerous arts fellowships.
Ovie Carter
ACHY OBEJAS was born in Cuba and grew up in Indiana, looking across Lake Michigan at Chicago and thinking it was her own Emerald City. The author of three books, including the critically acclaimed Days of Awe, she currently lives in Kenwood, on the South Side, and teaches at the University of Chicago.
Allan Landau
BAYO OJIKUTU was born and raised in greater Chicago. He is the son of folks who migrated to the city from West Africa (Lagos, Nigeria) and the Deep South (Shreveport, Louisiana). Ojikutu's first novel, 47th Street Black (Three Rivers Press, 2003), won the Washington Prize for Fiction and the Great American Book Award. His second novel, Free Burning, will be released in 2006. Currently, Ojikutu teaches in the Department of English at DePaul University, Chicago.
Simonetta Bogetti
PETER ORNER was born at Michael Reece Hospital in Chicago. His first book, Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Goldberg Prize for fiction. His novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, will be published in 2006.
Niles Fuller
NEAL POLLACK worked as a reporter for the Chicago Reader from 1993–2000, where he wrote the "Petty Crime" column, among many other assignments. He's the author of three books of satire, including the cult-classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and the rock-n-roll novel Never Mind the Pollacks. He is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and Nerve. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.
Brandon Roberts
AMY SAYRE-ROBERTS lives in Springfield, Illinois with one beautiful husband and two talented Malamutes (both born in Chicago). Her work has appeared in the American Book Review and the Alchemist Review.
Steve Goodman
C.J. SULLIVAN'S idol growing up was Chicago Cub legend Billy Williams. He works by day as a Court Clerk in Brooklyn Supreme and by night as a reporter for the New York Post. The two loves in his life are his twin girls: Luisa Marie and Olivia Kathleen Sullivan. He lives in New York City.
Janice Zulkey
CLAIRE ZULKEY was born in Evanston, Illinois, and lives in Chicago. She has contributed to the Mississippi Review and Chicago Magazine, and published a book of literary humor titled Girls! Girls! Girls! More of her writing can be found on her website, Zulkey.com. Whatever crimes she has committed are not very interesting.
Also available from Akashic Books
BROOKLYN NOIR edited by Tim McLoughlin
350 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-58-0
*Finalist stories for EDGAR AWARD, PUSHCART PRIZE, and SHAMUS AWARD
Twenty brand new crime stories from New York's punchiest borough. Contributors include: Pete Hamill, Arthur Nersesian, Maggie Estep, Nelson George, Neal Pollack, Sidney Offit, Ken Bruen, and others.
"Brooklyn Noir is such a stunningly perfect combination that you can't believe you haven't read an anthology like this before. But trust me—you haven't. Story after story is a revelation, filled with the requisite sense of place, but also the perfect twists that crime stories demand. The writing is flat-out superb, filled with lines that will sing in your head for a long time to come."
—Laura Lippman, winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Shamus awards
BROOKLYN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS edited by Tim McLoughlin
309 pages, trade paperback, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-76-9
Brooklyn Noir is back with a vengeance, this time with masters of yore mixing with the young blood: H.P. Lovecraft, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Irwin Shaw, Carolyn Wheat, Thomas Wolfe, Hubert Selby, Stanley Ellin, Gilbert Sorrentino, Maggie Estep, and Salvatore La Puma.
SAN FRANCISCO NOIR edited by Peter Maravelis
325 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-91-2
Brand new stories by: Domenic Stansberry, Barry Gifford, E
ddie Muller, Robert Mailer Anderson, Michelle Tea, Peter Plate, Kate Braverman, David Corbett, Alejandro Murguía, Sin Soracco, Alvin Lu, Jon Longhi, Will Christopher Baer, Jim Nesbit, and David Henry Sterry.
San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay." Desperation, transgression, and madness fuel these tales celebrating San Francisco's criminal heritage.
SOUTHLAND by Nina Revoyr
348 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-41-6
*Winner of a LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD & FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARD
*EDGAR AWARD finalist
"If Oprah still had her book club, this novel likely would be at the top of her list … With prose that is beautiful, precise, but never pretentious …"
—Booklist
"Southland merges elements of literature and social history with the propulsive drive of a mystery, while evoking Southern California as a character, a key player in the tale. Such aesthetics have motivated other Southland writers, most notably Walter Mosley."
—Los Angeles Times
ADIOS MUCHACHOS by Daniel Chavarría
245 pages, a trade paperback original, $13.95, ISBN: 1-888451-16-5
*Winner of the EDGAR AWARD
"Out of the mystery wrapped in an enigma that, over the last forty years, has been Cuba for the U.S., comes a Uruguayan voice so cheerful, a face so laughing, and a mind so deviously optimistic that we can only hope this is but the beginning of a flood of Latin America's indomitable novelists, playwrights, storytellers. Welcome, Daniel Chavarría."
—Donald Westlake, author of Trust Me on This
HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED by Joe Meno
290 pages, a trade paperback original, $13.95, ISBN: 1-888451-70-X
*PUNK PLANET BOOKS, a BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PROGRAM selection
"Joe Meno writes with the energy, honesty, and emotional impact of the best punk rock. From the opening sentence to the very last word, Hairstyles of the Damned held me in his grip."
These books are available at local bookstores.
They can also be purchased with a credit card online through www.akashicbooks.com. To order by mail send a check or money order to:
AKASHIC BOOKS
PO Box 1456, New York, NY 10009 www.akashicbooks.com, [email protected]
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