Moscow Noir

by Julia Goumen (Editor), Natalia Smirnova (Editor), Anna Starobinets

The more you watch Moscow, the more it looks like a huge chameleon that keeps changing its face—and it isn’t always pretty. Following Akashic Books’ international success with London Noir, Delhi Noir, Paris Noir, and others, the Noir series explores this fabled and troubled city’s darkest recesses.

Features brand-new stories Alexander Anuchkin, Igor Zotov, Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Tuchkov, Anna Starobinets, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Evdokimov, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Maxim Maximov, Irina Denezhkina, Dmitry Kosyrev, Andrei Khusnutdinov, and Sergei Kuznetsov.

Natalia Smirnova was born in 1978 in Moscow. In 2006, together with Julia Goumen, she founded Goumen&Smirnova Literary Agency, representing Russian authors worldwide.

Julia Goumen was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1977. She holds a PhD in English and has worked in publishing since 2001.

Genres: Russia, Short Stories, Fiction, Mystery, Noir, Crime, Anthologies

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Julia Goumen was born in Leningrad in 1977. With a PhD in English, she has worked in publishing since 2001, and started her own literary agency after three years as a foreign rights manager. Since 2006 Goumen has run the Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency with Natalia Smirnova, with whom she also coedited Moscow Noir and St. Petersburg Noir. Julia Goumen is the coordinator of The Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia project (published by Fuel Publishing, UK) and handles the estate of Danzig Baldaev as well as Home-Made by Vladimir Arkhipov, also published by Fuel Publishing in UK. Her clients list includes Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Sergei Kuznetsov, Marina Stepnova, Eugene Vodolazkin and others. Her field is Russian-language publication, film and theater adaptation rights.

See Юлия Гумен

Reviews

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

How about touring Moscow and using these stories as a map? (I haven't been to Moscow yet.)
What is it that makes these stories so Russian? Two of them reminded me of stories I'd read in class in college: The Point of No Return and The Coat That Smelled Like Earth. (Gogol's The Overcoat?) Quintessentially Russian--whatever that means.
My favorites tended to be the ones with a woman as a main character, although only three of them are actually written by women. The book is edited by two women however. My favorites: Daddy Loves Me, Christmas, and In the New Development. Also Doppelganger.
My least favorite was Europe After the Rain.
But I raced through this book, and like the proverbial potato chips, couldn't stop at just one (story). Had to gobble the entire book down.
I love this series as a way to "travel" and to learn new authors. This is the third one of the Akashic Noir Series that I've read and I confess I want to read them all. Every single volume, from Brooklyn to Mumbai. I hope they're planning Berlin Noir, Vienna Noir, Shanghai Noir, Tokyo Noir, Prague, Budapest... But look at what they already have. It's an extensive collection of cities and stories. I can't praise this enough.
akashicbooks.com/noirseries

[Lisa Hayden Espenschade · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in Moscow Noir have a powerful cumulative effect: they're all dark, and there's lots of violent crime, combining for a bleak and atmospheric picture of a city. Each story is listed with a geographical location, and the book contains a map.

As is usual (and preferable) with an anthology, I liked some stories much better than others. My favorites were "The Mercy Bus" for its mention of social programs and its end twist, "Field of a Thousand Corpses" for its instant coffee drinking cop, and "The Coat that Smelled Like Earth" for its political and literary pedigrees. I also liked "The Doppelganger" quite a bit, though that one brought back some uncomfortable memories: it takes place in my old neighborhood, which was the scene of some high-profile crime. I took a short break from the book after that story but (of course) couldn't wait to get back.

Moscow Noir is unrelenting and oddly fascinating in its darkness, but that's the point. An introduction by editors Natalia Smirnova and Julia Goumen concludes with this: "This anthology is an attempt to turn the tourist Moscow of gingerbread and woodcuts, of glitz and big money, inside out; an attempt to reveal its fetid womb and make sense of the desolation that still reigns."

(Publisher Akashic Books provided me with a review copy of the book.)

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: this is not published by the Moscow Chamber of Commerce or Tourist Board. This is not an exploration of Russian history or a guide to the city. It is noir. I state this because while it may be obvious to others, I kept catching myself thinking "this is so stereotypical of Russia...surely not everyone is this bad!" Oh, back to "noir". I needed to remind myself of that definition throughout: "crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings." Once I was clear on that, it was easy to understand.


This collection of short stories is random and the stories themselves are incredibly varied. However, a few things link most of them: distrust, despair, revenge, and rage. Physical similarities as well: snow, night, black sedans, drugs, alcohol, and leather jackets.
To say life is cheap in this style is redundant. The Soviet history created characters that are immune to feeling and social conventions. And if, without intending to, a character does show their softer side? It's guaranteed they aren't going to live long after. Death is everywhere, as are traitors. Many characters are cops. No one can be trusted because every underling knows their way to success means eliminating their superiors. Strangely, money is often in excess, yet having it doesn't buy anyone a way out of the mess.

Many of the stories take place at night, often in the snow. Train stations, deserted streets and subway tunnels are frequent settings, and most of the characters use drugs or alcohol to numb their emotions. The anger that should be directed at the failed institutions that created them is instead directed at their fellow man. The descriptions of the cold weather, the complicated facades of the empty churches standing guard, and the hard scrabble lifestyles are all detailed without slowing down the pace. The stories move along briskly.

The book is grouped into sections: Crime & Punishment, Dead Souls, Fathers & Sons, and War & Peace. I think my favorite was "Field of a Thousand Corpses" which illuminated the corruptness of the police and their inability to effectively handle the crimes they investigate in any sort of honest way. Yet there was a sort of tenderness in how one detective tries to train another and advise him on how to fit in.

A word about Akashic Books...they have a series of Noir titles, including Los Angeles, London, etc. All have a similar vein but illuminate a region in its own unique way. Their Los Angeles Noir was especially interesting for me, trying to guess the locations that are mentioned since I've been there often.

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This compilation was pretty hit or miss, though I guess most short story compilations are. I have unfortunately not visited Moscow (well, not yet!) but it painted overall a pretty dark and violent picture of Moscow, though as a compilation of noir fiction, it's going to be by definition dark and violent. It is interesting to see how each individual book in the series captures the particular underworld of a city. After all, underworlds are not homogenous, each city's has its own flavor.

I did sometimes have a feeling that some of the stories weren't quite "noir". I mean they were dark crime fiction, for sure, and about half of them were what i would really call hardboiled. But several stories really only felt somehow grim and sad, but that's not quite the same thing. I kind of feel like I'm splitting hairs, but this is my review and that's how I felt while reading.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

super solid collection of noir, mystery, crime, and horror from Moscow. You get the feeling the authors aren't stretching things a whole. Which is very scary really, but maybe it's not as bad as it seems?
Day of the Oprichnik

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this four stars because the book is well written and each story is crafted with precision. However, I cannot claim to have really enjoyed the book. I personally find the short story format not to be conducive to the noir category. Without having developed a vested interest in the characters, the violence and crime is too much for me.

[Punk]

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[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stories, some not so good stories, many about betrayal and shadow selves.

[Tuxlie]

The more you watch Moscow, the more it looks like a huge chameleon that keeps changing its face—and it isn’t always pretty. Following Akashic Books’ international success with London Noir, Delhi Noir, Paris Noir, and others, the Noir series explores this fabled and troubled city’s darkest recesses.

Features brand-new stories by: Alexander Anuchkin, Igor Zotov, Gleb Shulpyakov, Vladimir Tuchkov, Anna Starobinets, Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, Sergei Samsonov, Alexei Evdokimov, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Maxim Maximov, Irina Denezhkina, Dmitry Kosyrev, Andrei Khusnutdinov, and Sergei Kuznetsov.

Natalia Smirnova was born in 1978 in Moscow. In 2006, together with Julia Goumen, she founded Goumen&Smirnova Literary Agency, representing Russian authors worldwide.

Julia Goumen was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1977. She holds a PhD in English and has worked in publishing since 2001.

**

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of these stories are filled with mindless and more or less meaningless violence, some of it not unlike a Call of Duty game. That's not noir. Noir needs feeling, not just nastiness. So the stories I liked best were the more soulful ones, many of which had historical themes. I liked 'Decameron', 'Daddy Loves Me', 'The Coat That Smelled Like Earth' and 'Moscow Reincarnations', but the rest I could have lived without. The Moscow depicted here is hellish indeed.

[Olga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does exactly what is says it does: it shows real Moscow, naked, without all that pretentious glamour and luxury. Some of the stories are a bit naive, some are too predictable, and there are few very memorable ones. My favorite pieces were by Anna Starobinetz and Sergey Kuznetzov.

[Fuschia · Rating 1 out of 5]

aborted half-way through

[Celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven quality of stories. I liked the stories at the end better then the beginning.

[Gabriela Galescu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lackluster

Not all stories are bad, but as a collection it doesn't quite work. Too many mob stories: people kill just because they can, not a lot of plot or character development in those.

This collection reminded me why I cannot watch action movies: mindless violence is amazingly boring.

[Yanik · Rating 3 out of 5]

decent

[Dorota · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are few weak short stories here, but once you read all of them, you discover few unexpected pearls - Samsonov, Kusniecov, Jevdokimov... Something quite different than my standard reading but equally addictive.