Portland Noir (Akashic Noir) [Paperback]

Kevin Sampsell (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Akashic Noir | Publication Date: June 1, 2009

In a city full of police controversies, hippie artist punk houses, and overzealous liberals, Portland, Oregon, is a place where even its fiction blurs with its bizarre realities.

Brand-new stories by: Gigi Little, Justin Hocking, Christopher Bolton, Jess Walter, Monica Drake, Jamie S. Rich (illustrated by Joelle Jones), Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Bill Cameron, Ariel Gore, Floyd Skloot, Megan Kruse, Kimberly Warner-Cohen, and Jonathan Selwood.

Editor Kevin Sampsell is a bookstore employee and writer. He is the author of a short story collection, Creamy Bullets (Chiasmus Press), and the upcoming memoir The Suitcase (HarperPerennial, summer 2009). He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press) and the publisher of the micropress Future Tense Books.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The home of Chuck Palahniuk, Powell's City of Books—and the place with more strip clubs per capita than any other city in America—gets its due in this splendid entry in Akashic's noir series. Portland natives will appreciate shout-outs to lesser-known landmarks, like the weekly showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Clinton Street Theater in Ariel Gore's Water Under the Bridge, while outsiders may recognize some of the city's more famous draws, like the Shanghai Tunnels in Gigi Little's Shanghaied. Standouts include Floyd Skloot's eerily poignant Alzheimer's Noir; Jonathan Selwood's The Wrong House, about a drug deal that goes horribly awry; and Bill Cameron's Coffee, Black, which features not only his series regular, retired detective Thomas Skin Kadash, but also one of the city's most prized commodities: coffee. The 16 stories in this anthology demonstrate that a little rain is never a deterrent to murder. (June)
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About the Author

Kevin Sampsell is a bookstore employee and writer. He is the author of a short story collection, Creamy Bullets (Chiasmus Press) and the upcoming memoir, The Suitcase (HarperPerennial, summer 2009). He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader (Manic D Press) and the publisher of the micropress, Future Tense Books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933354798
• ISBN-13: 978-1933354798
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Noir for summer reading, June 15, 2009

By 

Zakariah Johnson "Zakariah Johnson" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portland Noir (Akashic Noir) (Paperback)

If you live, love or lay-over in PDX, this collection of dark, bitingly funny "noir" mysteries set in America's finest city is the perfect summer read. Copies are sold at "Murder By The Book" on Hawthorne. Each local author's story is contemporary and set in a recognizable neighborhood around PDX: St. John's, the Pearl, 82nd Ave, etc. One even happens in Dot's on Clinton Street (we always knew there was plotting going on there.) Extremely entertaining!

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe I thought I lived in Portland., May 25, 2009

By 

K. Lane - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Portland Noir (Akashic Noir) (Paperback)

It turns out, after reading this collection, that I've taken up residence in only a tiny corner of this complex city. From Skloot's crematorium overlooking nature trail leading to amusement park... to the rats and jewels beneath the streets in Little's "Shanghaied", I felt like I was getting a VIP tour of Portland at the hands of a perverse tour guide - who every so often would treat me to a beer. Dark and sexy, with equally surprising moments of humor and heart, Portland Noir is a refreshingly dimensional look at a city so often flattened by praise.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lame., April 5, 2010

By 

Jonathan Mitchell "earthling" (Portland, OR, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Portland Noir (Akashic Noir) (Paperback)

Only a couple of these stories are actually intriguing, and some of them read like lame introductions to chapter 6 of a Portland travel guide. The little comic book story hardly makes any sense.