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New Jersey Noir
"This anthology is a collection of stories from all around New Jersey and is a representation of the richness of experiences with a It's not all glass skyscrapers and clouds. This anthology gives voice to stories that don't make polite society, as most of us urban Jersey kids wouldn't. It's a thrilling read that brings shadows to life."
— Susan Justiniano , included in NPRs Book Picks for All 50 States "Oates's introduction to Akashic's noir volume dedicated to the Garden State, with its evocative definition of the genre, is alone worth the price of the book . . . Poems by C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon, and others--plus photos by Gerald Slota—enhance this distinguished entry."
— Publishers Weekly
"It was inevitable that this fine noir series would reach New Jersey. It took longer than some readers might have wanted, but, oh boy, was it worth the wait . . . More than most of the entries in the series, this volume is about mood and atmosphere more than it is about plot and character . . . It should go without saying that regular readers of the noir series will seek this one out, but beyond that, the book also serves as a very good introduction to what is a popular but often misunderstood term and style of writing."
— Booklist , Starred Review
"A lovingly collected assortment of tales and poems that range from the disturbing to the darkly humorous."
— Shelf Awareness
Featuring brand-new stories (and a few poems) Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Pinsky, Edmund White & Michael Carroll, Richard Burgin, Paul Muldoon, Sheila Kohler, C.K. Williams, Gerald Stern, Lou Manfredo, S.A. Solomon, Bradford Morrow, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffrey Ford, S.J. Rozan, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini, Hirsh Sawhney, and Robert Arellano.
From the introduction by Joyce Carol
". . . The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances—of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir ."
— Susan Justiniano , included in NPRs Book Picks for All 50 States "Oates's introduction to Akashic's noir volume dedicated to the Garden State, with its evocative definition of the genre, is alone worth the price of the book . . . Poems by C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon, and others--plus photos by Gerald Slota—enhance this distinguished entry."
— Publishers Weekly
"It was inevitable that this fine noir series would reach New Jersey. It took longer than some readers might have wanted, but, oh boy, was it worth the wait . . . More than most of the entries in the series, this volume is about mood and atmosphere more than it is about plot and character . . . It should go without saying that regular readers of the noir series will seek this one out, but beyond that, the book also serves as a very good introduction to what is a popular but often misunderstood term and style of writing."
— Booklist , Starred Review
"A lovingly collected assortment of tales and poems that range from the disturbing to the darkly humorous."
— Shelf Awareness
Featuring brand-new stories (and a few poems) Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Pinsky, Edmund White & Michael Carroll, Richard Burgin, Paul Muldoon, Sheila Kohler, C.K. Williams, Gerald Stern, Lou Manfredo, S.A. Solomon, Bradford Morrow, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffrey Ford, S.J. Rozan, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini, Hirsh Sawhney, and Robert Arellano.
From the introduction by Joyce Carol
". . . The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances—of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir ."
290 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2011
42 people are currently reading
581 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
857 books9,682 followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
August 22, 2021
Some fantastic, dark stories in this anthology. I'm a Jersey boy, and they captured the grit and feel of growing up in the Garden State. Not a bad story in the bunch, either. Looking forward to reading more of these noir books now.
April 4, 2013
I thought it was a fabulous collection of stories. Very dark and at times depressing (AKA, good reading!) I'm from New Jersey, what can I say? And I love Joyce Carol Oates, who was the editor. Her own story, which ends the book, is particularly dark. I highly recommend this. This is part of a "Noir" series set in various locales around the country and the world. I'll probably check out others soon.
September 10, 2019
Meh... Unlike in Prison Noir, these are, at least, professional and accomplished writers.
Still..., not terribly interesting.
Still..., not terribly interesting.
January 14, 2012
I should have realized when I read "Brooklyn Noir" back in 2004 that I was looking at the beginning of a series. I guess I never see things coming, though, until they're about to flatten me as they thunder past. Just eight years later and the list of titles in the "Noir" series reads like an exhausting travel itinerary. Somehow an editor scraped "Orange County Noir" together a few years back. I've been to Orange County and noir was always just about the furthest French word from my mind every time. Quelle domage!
So the concept has taken off. Congratulations. I've only read "Brooklyn" and now "New Jersey," and they were both pretty uneven. We should expect something different from anthologies? Probably not. What bugs me, at least a little, is the execution of noir. Is it even something writers should aspire to? Of course the idea comes from film, where the blackness of the shadows onscreen match the motivations of the characters and the double-crossing really pops. Does it work as fiction, though? To her credit, Joyce Carol Oates makes a decent fist of defining, or trying to define, noir in her introduction. She checks the appropriate boxes and tips her hat in the right directions (Raymond Chandler), but the stories that follow mostly miss the mark she's laid down for them. She notes that there has to be a femme fatale, and she's right. But I'm hardpressed just having finished reading the damn thing to remember even one. Jonathan Safran Foer comes closest; his story is really solid and not just creepy. And there's the problem. We have a halfway decent collection of stories here but mostly they're not much different from what you'd expect from a garden variety detective story. What makes them noir? It has to be more than just seedy, or creepy, or drug- and alcohol-fueled. Some stories flat out stink.
But I can't stop them. Not that I'd want to, anyway, but we all know that I can't. There are several more titles in the pipeline and the concept is so vague and has so much momentum that they can play it out for years. That's fine, too. I just won't be buying.
So the concept has taken off. Congratulations. I've only read "Brooklyn" and now "New Jersey," and they were both pretty uneven. We should expect something different from anthologies? Probably not. What bugs me, at least a little, is the execution of noir. Is it even something writers should aspire to? Of course the idea comes from film, where the blackness of the shadows onscreen match the motivations of the characters and the double-crossing really pops. Does it work as fiction, though? To her credit, Joyce Carol Oates makes a decent fist of defining, or trying to define, noir in her introduction. She checks the appropriate boxes and tips her hat in the right directions (Raymond Chandler), but the stories that follow mostly miss the mark she's laid down for them. She notes that there has to be a femme fatale, and she's right. But I'm hardpressed just having finished reading the damn thing to remember even one. Jonathan Safran Foer comes closest; his story is really solid and not just creepy. And there's the problem. We have a halfway decent collection of stories here but mostly they're not much different from what you'd expect from a garden variety detective story. What makes them noir? It has to be more than just seedy, or creepy, or drug- and alcohol-fueled. Some stories flat out stink.
But I can't stop them. Not that I'd want to, anyway, but we all know that I can't. There are several more titles in the pipeline and the concept is so vague and has so much momentum that they can play it out for years. That's fine, too. I just won't be buying.
October 8, 2013
I did not care for this book at all. I am not really into short story / poetry compilations unless the material is exceptional, however, most of this stuff reads like college English Composition essays. Also annoying, this book tries way too hard to be "dark", including opening with a story set in a morgue. I took it from the library expecting some real macabre stories of things that actually happened in NJ, however, its just a collection of mediocre and badly written stories that could take place anywhere. These writers chose Newark, Jersey City, or Hoboken as the name of their otherwise generic settings and *poof* its "New Jersey Noir". Not recommended, unless you teach a class on "how not to write a short story".
June 19, 2012
I feel like everything gets four stars lately - but I haven't read a short story anthology as gripping as this one in a while. It took the easiest routes to my heart: crime, variety, and a New Jersey backdrop.
May 8, 2012
I thought this collection of stories set in various NJ towns was OK. I liked the ones set in Hoboken and Asbury Park the best, but I am also partial to those places.
August 21, 2021
Much better than expected! Some real gems here.
January 2, 2022
A few really great short stories, and a few alright short stories. The best are at the beginning, and then it gradually lessened in quality for me. Overall, my favorite part was reading the descriptions of places in NJ I haven’t travelled to yet, and then checking them out on Google maps. Good way to discover new places in the state.
October 7, 2014
Stories set in very real places with a touch of the kind of Jersey legend that was created by shows like the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. What constitutes “noir” in New Jersey? There’s the Newark morgue workers cutting the hair off the corpses to sell for wigs. On a more gruesome note there’s the guy who claimed to cut up Jimmy Hoffa’s body and bury the parts in the end zone of the still under construction Giants Stadium. One of my favorites stories, "Soul Anatomy," is about cops and politicians in Camden. It was written by Lou Manfredo, who worked in the Brooklyn criminal justice system for 25 years. You can assume he knows noir. Another of my favorites is "Run Kiss Daddy" by Joyce Carol Oates about a reconstituted family in a lakefront home in the northwest part of the state. I can’t tell you the noir element of this one or I’d completely spoil it.
There is some poetry as well, my favorite of which is "Newark Black 1943-1954" by C.K. Williams.
"Miles of black turnpike and parkway pavement
scrolled out onto the soil of the no-longer farms."
The book is part of a series so you can get Brooklyn Noir, Baltimore Noir or any of several dozen others. For most the book about places they’ve lived will be of most interest. If the New Jersey edition is any indication of the quality of the stories, I’d expect most of them to be pretty good.
There is some poetry as well, my favorite of which is "Newark Black 1943-1954" by C.K. Williams.
"Miles of black turnpike and parkway pavement
scrolled out onto the soil of the no-longer farms."
The book is part of a series so you can get Brooklyn Noir, Baltimore Noir or any of several dozen others. For most the book about places they’ve lived will be of most interest. If the New Jersey edition is any indication of the quality of the stories, I’d expect most of them to be pretty good.
January 14, 2021
The stories themselves are fairly mediocre, one or two stand out above the others (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Too Near Real and Jonathan Santlofer’s Lola – the latter was definitely my favourite). There were a few poems but they were unnecessary for me.
The best thing about the collection was probably JCO’s introduction. First, if you’re going to have a story collection about New Jersey, especially dark stories like these, who else is going to write the intro?* It would be like a NJ music anthology not mentioning Springsteen or Sinatra (they were both mentioned here by the way).
I must admit, I didn’t actually know the definition of noir (fatalism and moral ambiguity), it just made me think of femme fatales and black and white films. But JCO’s intro is so interesting and really makes you want to start reading the stories and, oddly, watch The Sopranos.
*I know she’s not actually from NJ, but there’s no writer I associate with more with the state!
The best thing about the collection was probably JCO’s introduction. First, if you’re going to have a story collection about New Jersey, especially dark stories like these, who else is going to write the intro?* It would be like a NJ music anthology not mentioning Springsteen or Sinatra (they were both mentioned here by the way).
I must admit, I didn’t actually know the definition of noir (fatalism and moral ambiguity), it just made me think of femme fatales and black and white films. But JCO’s intro is so interesting and really makes you want to start reading the stories and, oddly, watch The Sopranos.
*I know she’s not actually from NJ, but there’s no writer I associate with more with the state!
August 29, 2015
This is a really great series! Pick almost any city in the world and you can read about its dark underbelly.
I hadn't realized the difference an editor can make. The stories here had a very different feel than Helsinki Noir. In the introduction, Oates talks about noir and what it is, and I'm not sure our definitions gel. Most of these stories were drug-oriented, which got tired. Also, I picked this up hoping to read about local places. The farthest north these stories are set in is Hoboken. Especially given the writing talent that lives in northern NJ, I had expected better representation.
This is an interesting book, and if you're a fan of Oates, I'd recommend checking it out. I thought about half the stories were good and the other half filler.
I hadn't realized the difference an editor can make. The stories here had a very different feel than Helsinki Noir. In the introduction, Oates talks about noir and what it is, and I'm not sure our definitions gel. Most of these stories were drug-oriented, which got tired. Also, I picked this up hoping to read about local places. The farthest north these stories are set in is Hoboken. Especially given the writing talent that lives in northern NJ, I had expected better representation.
This is an interesting book, and if you're a fan of Oates, I'd recommend checking it out. I thought about half the stories were good and the other half filler.
October 27, 2021
All nineteen original stories and poems in this anthology were enjoyable. The following four I found exceptionally so: “Soul Anatomy” by Lou Manfredo; “The Enigma of Grover’s Mill” by Bradford Morrow; “Too Near Real” by Jonathan Safran Foer; and “Excavation” by Edmund White and Michael Carroll.
March 4, 2012
Uneven, but interesting.
September 14, 2023
At first, I wondered about these stories falling under the "noir" genre. After completing the collection, I reread Oates' introduction, which I had only briefly looked at beforehand. "Noir isn't subject matter so much as a sensibility, a tone, an atmosphere...Noit is the essence of mystery: that which cannot be 'solved.' Most of all, noir is a place...in which a betrayal will occur." (p. 14) With this understanding in mind, the selection of stories made perfect sense.
Just a few of my favorites:
"The Enigma of Grover's Mill," propelled by the 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Grover Mills being the site of the fictitious landing from Mars, and the ensuing suicide of a WWI veteran who couldn't "face the big one, the unwinnable one, the one against the Martians." First betrayal. The son's story proceeds from there.
"Lola" offers a vivid and convincing perspective of the first-person narrator and the outcome totally took me by surprise. Betrayal indeed.
Perhaps the best written is Jonathan Safran Foer's "Too Near Real, " which draws the reader into a seductive world of virtual reality. This story reminded me of the wonderful Cloud Cuckoo Land.
I would definitely read another volume in the Akashic Books noir series.
Just a few of my favorites:
"The Enigma of Grover's Mill," propelled by the 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Grover Mills being the site of the fictitious landing from Mars, and the ensuing suicide of a WWI veteran who couldn't "face the big one, the unwinnable one, the one against the Martians." First betrayal. The son's story proceeds from there.
"Lola" offers a vivid and convincing perspective of the first-person narrator and the outcome totally took me by surprise. Betrayal indeed.
Perhaps the best written is Jonathan Safran Foer's "Too Near Real, " which draws the reader into a seductive world of virtual reality. This story reminded me of the wonderful Cloud Cuckoo Land.
I would definitely read another volume in the Akashic Books noir series.
October 9, 2019
I liked this short story selection better than the last one I read, Philadelphia Noir, which I didn't even finish Possibly the result of having Joyce Carol Oates, this collection has a strong array of stories from the Garden State, even if a lot of them highlight drug use. I think my favorites were the one about the woman getting messages and the final story about a father trying to convince himself that he has changed.
October 9, 2021
Really 3 1/2 stars. I'm taking a half star off because too much of this occurred in rural parts of New Jersey. I'm sure they could have had far more promising noir in the urban Norteast parts of New Jersey.
October 13, 2018
Reading with my college students and having a blast.
August 17, 2022
some stories were pretty bad, others were fun. surprisingly good beach reading?? best story = the one by jonathan safran foer. made me realize i wanna read more books set in jersey
Read
December 5, 2023I read two of the stories and found them to be disturbing. Enough for now!
January 13, 2025
Especially fond of Joyce Carol Oates short story in this.
August 27, 2013
This was a fun collection of stories, especially since I went to many of their settings while I was a missionary for my church in New Jersey. I was hoping for a little more hard-boiled detective stuff, and there may have a few too many stories about young junkies, but I am a fan of the noir genre and this collection featured much of what I like about it: gritty settings, scarred protagonists, and an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia. You can read what I've written about the series in general at my website, the LitMap Project.
Content alert: Some profuse language and a some sexuality.
Content alert: Some profuse language and a some sexuality.
February 25, 2012
I usually prefer novels to short stories, largely because by the time I've gotten into the short story, it's over, but occasionally I read them for a change of pace.
Have been watching The Sopranos on DVD and thought New Jersey Noir would complement it beautifully. I was not disappointed. Joyce Carol Oates edited the collection, and contributes one of her own stories. Other authors I was familiar with were Robert Pinsky and Jonathan Safran Foer.
Good stories, almost every one of them. Worth reading, IMHO>
Have been watching The Sopranos on DVD and thought New Jersey Noir would complement it beautifully. I was not disappointed. Joyce Carol Oates edited the collection, and contributes one of her own stories. Other authors I was familiar with were Robert Pinsky and Jonathan Safran Foer.
Good stories, almost every one of them. Worth reading, IMHO>
August 7, 2014
Some of these stories were great; I enjoyed Oates intro and her story. However, this was thus far my least favorite of the Noir collection . Perhaps it's that I am less familiar with the geography in the book than others so the places aren't as vivid for me. The poetry that was included , some of it was very good, but it broke the flow for me. Read the introduction, which was great, and decide if you want more.
September 11, 2011
There's good stuff in all the fiction and poetry, and Robert Pinsky's poem in particular blew me away. Editor Joyce Carol Oates's introduction makes a handy overview for a class on American noir.
February 10, 2012
As the title says, short noir-ish stories set in New Jersey. Not bad, but a bit more literary than I was expecting.
March 20, 2012
I am not usually a fan of short stories but these were great...maybe because I live in NJ and I am of Joyce Carol Oates.
April 15, 2012
I liked some of these short stories. Didn't finish them all however.
November 3, 2012
Great anthology....we're talking Jimmy Hoffa New Jersey, not Jersey Shore New Jersey. Great noir!
February 10, 2016
Reading for BookRiot.com Read Harder Challenge on GoodReads.com
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews