The Rise and Rebellion of Women Noir Writers

Women writers of crime, mystery, and noir have been kicking their male counterparts in the keister lately. Evidence of this is Akashic Books’ outstanding new anthology Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers. In the world of noir, Akashic wears the publishing crown of noir, from novels to over 100 noir anthologies set in cities around the world. 

In this new anthology, authors Aimee Bender, Steph Cha, S.J. Rosen, Edwidge Danticat, and twelve others prove that women have the cutting edge over their male counterparts. Joyce Carol Oates who Akashic calls “a queen of the noir genre” puts her keen, dark eye to stories that skewer the gendered status quo of “femme-fatale.” No longer do women lure hapless men to their demise. Instead, these writers of femmes-noir, a subcategory of contemporary neo-noir, have a little fun at the expense of a crumbling patriarchal society.

The modern female noir and crime story covers a lot of ground. These stories with their strong sense of place and atmosphere kept me up late into the night and gave me thrills and chills.

“In noir, women’s place until fairly recently has been limited to two: muse, sexual object. The particular strength of the female noir vision isn’t a recognizable style but rather a defiantly female, indeed feminist, perspective.” —Joyce Carol Oates, introduction, Cutting Edge

Take for example my favorite story in the anthology, Aimee Bender’s “Firetown.” An erotic contemporary story is set in a Los Angles that is “crackling” after eleven months of wildfires. This story has the appeal of classic noir with its repartee and humor, its PI and beautiful client. 

But the PI is female, owns an apricot-colored chair, and drinks whiskey, rocks, “to maintain image”; the beautiful client vapes and owns a cat; and other characters develop Etsy sites and drink pale ale. Never far away, however, are the fires, a physical and existential threat.

Another favorite is Bernice L. McFadden’s “OBF, Inc,” a terrifying contemporary tale set in office spaces that could be in any city. This is alternative current history where Black Lives Matter is a terrorist group and blacks are only allowed typewriters and analog phones. By the end of the story, you’ll learn what OBF stands for and why racism still burns hot in our current culture.

Whatever your taste in dark tales, you’ll find delicious ones in Cutting Edge. Steph Cha’s “Thief” is more crime than noir and Elizabeth McCracken’s “An Early Specimen” is more horror than crime. Justice, a favorite theme of mine, finds its way into Shelia Kohler’s “Miss Martin,” another story that raises the current curtain on dark days.

Round out this anthology with a Joyce Carol Oates story and Margaret Atwood poetry, and you have a gift to reread and read out loud. The cynical voices, themes, exemplary language, even the settings defy categories and would be comfortable in either literary or genre. To be scared, stimulated, transfixed, and entertained should be the motive of any writing. Cutting Edge is perfect reading for those with a taste for the nocturnal.

Authors included in the anthology:

Livia Llewellyn

S.J. Rozan

Lisa Lim

Lucy Taylor

Edwidge Danticat

Jennifer Morales

Elizabeth McCracken

Bernice L. McFadden

Aimee Bender

Steph Cha

S.A. Solomon

Cassandra Khaw

Valerie Martin

Sheila Kohler

Margaret Atwood

Joyce Carol Oates

Val's Review of Attica Locke's HEAVEN, MY HOME

Attica Locke creates stories rich in setting and character and entwined with history. (Bluebird, Bluebird) The plot of her latest, HEAVEN, MY HOME, is not only intense but complex and multilayered. Levi, the nine-year-old son of an Aryan Brotherhood leader, goes missing. Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is assigned to find him. As crime novels go, that would be ordinary, except Matthews is black and must follow the law even when faced with legal and moral issues. One of the settings he’s called to, Hopetown, was created after the civil war for freed slaves. Now white supremacists live there too, making a living off people who are nostalgic for anti-bellum Texas.

Matthews comes into the assignment with personal problems, including a mother who doesn’t have his best interests at heart, a vulnerable marriage, and a past investigation that haunts him. As a character, he’s so fully fleshed out that I feel as if I know him, making his story the kind I yearn for as a reader.

I won’t go into any more plot details as other reviews have covered those. I do enjoy how Locke interweaves Texas history in the novel, plus pulls us into a world in 2016 that is more conflicted than it was a few decades ago. Like a Pandora’s Box of Bigots, the racists have become emboldened and don’t fear the law. Levi the nine-year-old is a bad actor, but questions arise for Matthews as well as the reader as Matthews must put aside his feelings and search for the boy. Should Levi be held to same standards as his racists’ relations? Is his hate conditioning or something more rooted in his genetic make-up?

Locke leans heavily on the idea of forgiveness. Should we always try to forgive, or are there times we cannot afford to forgive?

I’m always drawn to crime and thrillers that ask big, bold, and uneasy questions like these. Early in the novel, Matthews says:

“Maybe the rules had to be different. Maybe justice was no more a fixed concept than love was, and the poets and bluesmen knew the rules better than we did.”

Maybe so. Think about that for a minute before you dive into the novel because once you do, you’ll be too swept up in not only what happens, but what choices the characters must make. Walk in their boots. Experience a time of both past and present, times that make moral and legal choices so difficult.