Down These Mean Streets A Publisher Must Go: The Akashic Books Noir Series
2010; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 84; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2010.0092
ISSN1945-8134
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
Resumok A I NTERNATIONAL Cí^ rimf òlMystfby I NTERNATIONAL ). MADISON DAVIS Down These Mean Streetsa PublisherMust Go the akashic books noir series Johnny Temple,the bassist oftherockgroup Girls Against Boys, achievedeveryrocker's dreamof a recording contract witha major label,he didnotbuyhimself a limousine ,a mansion, or a dangerous supply ofillegal drugs. Hedidsomething unprecedented fora rocker hedecidedtopublish a book.Nota bookhe had written - as John Lennon , Jimmy Buffett, andmany other celebrity musicians havedone - but a book someoneelse had written. Temple decided topublish a bookas a publisher. Just as modern artists depended onthesupport ofthevery bourgeoisie they mocked, anti-establishment musicians dependon thepurchases ofpeoplewhoselivestheyderide. Individualism becomesa product sold by corporations to as many peopleas possible. Theinsider pretends tobeanoutsider. Theoutsider movesinsidein searchofan audience .Elviswassoftened upbyColonel Parker. Nobodyis morebourgeoisthanGeneSimmons of Kiss. Just watch hisreality show. Templewas happy with his checkfromthe recordcompany, butalsoscaredofitas a symbol of corporate co-opting. Whenhe met with author Arthur Nersesian todiscuss publishing Nersesian'snovel The Fuck-Up(1996),Temple was undermining the corporatehegemony , he felt, withitsownmoney. Bookpublishing todayis blatantly a business. Itisinthehandsofmassive corporations forwhichbooks aremerely asterisks in their annual reports. Mostbookslineuplikevarietiesofbreakfast cereal:Post,Kellogg 's,General Mills.Marshmallow chocolate pablumon theseshelves; fiber-enriched oat flakeson those. Bonappétit! To Temple'sand almost everyoneelse 'sastonishment, the little publishing househefounded turned out tobethe publishing housethat could. Nersesian's novelturned outtobe a cultclassic, selling overonehundred thousand copies. Akashic Books now publishesabout twenty-five titles a year,mostly by authors who are rarely household names. Thecatalog describes Akashicas "dedicated to publishing urbanliterary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who areeither ignored bythemainstream, orwhohaveno interest inworking within the ever-consolidating ranks of themajor corporate publishers." Temple grewup intheintegrated neighborhood ofShepherd Park in Washington, D.C., and has been particularly interested in publishing worksofwhathe callstheAfrican diaspora. His authors include Chris Abani,MelvinVan Peebles,Amiri Baraka, Roberto Arellano, Elizabeth Nunez,Cristina García, and others. Akashic's sloganis "reverse gentrification oftheliterary world." Temple explains:"I think literature should be consumed bymorethanjustthe well-educated. Reverse gentrification isthe notion that wedon't needtojust keeptrying tosellbookstothesame people."1 Temple's visionary thinking also includes themovement toward digital books."I think infive years," he told theLos AngelesTimes, "a lot ofpeoplewhotodaymight haveno interest inreading a bookona screen willhaveturned a corner." Kindle is justa beginning. "Youhavetotry to seethings asanopportunity."2 OneofAkashic's great successes hasbeenitsNoirseries. Author Tim McLoughlin pitched Templeon the idea ofan anthology ofnoirstories bydifferent authors allsetinBrooklyn . Theconventional wisdom inthe fiction writing world isthat theshort story isvirtually deadas a commercialenterprise andthat collections of short stories donotsell.Brooklyn Noir was notonlysuccessful, itspawned a lengthy seriesofsimilar anthologiessetinvariedlocations . Thecurrent Akashic cataloglistsoverforty different volumes, including Boston November- December 2010 19 ICrime &MysteRY Noir(ed. DennisLehane),Havana Noir(ed. AchyObejas),MiamiNoir (ed.LesStandiford), Mexico City Noir (ed.PacoIgnacio TaiboII),Haiti Noir (ed. EdwidgeDanticat), LagosNoir (éd.ChrisAbani), andMumbai Noir (éd. Altaf Tyrewala). Thereis even a LoneStarNoir(ed. BobbyByrd and JohnByrd)and IndianCountry Noir(ed. SarahCortezand Liz Martinez) withstories byLawrence Block, O'Neil De Noux,MelissaYi, andothers. Theextensiveness ofthislistis perhaps another signthat we livein a "noir"age - skeptical, ifnotcynical ,aboutheroism inparticular and greatness in general. The optimisticvaluesthat previous generations treasured seem outdatedfantasies. Noirseemsto be a morerealistic viewoftheworld, despite thestylishness ofitspresentation. Theconventions and exaggerations ofnoir becomean artistic wayto makeits unsettling truths moredigestible, to satisfy Chandler's warning that realismisnotenough inart.Still, as the many stories intheAkashic volumes andthevastliterature ofnoir proves, noiris malleable. In describing DC Noir2: TheClassics, editedbyGeorge Pelecanos, Temple remarked, "These arebleakstories bywriters whoare notnecessarily considered noirwriters , butwhohadnoproblem exploringtheir darksides."3 Different writers findmultiple ways to explore noir'simplications, and noir'sphilosophicaland moralimplications speakpowerfully tomost ofus.This iswhynoiristheprevailing form of creative crime writing inourtime. It is popularand itprovides creative opportunities for writers. Noirwas, ofcourse,originally a film term. As a styleor genre, it hasqualities similar toJustice Potter Stewart's description of"pornography ":it is difficult to define, but we certainly knowitwhenwe see it. ComedianslikeTommySledge and Garrison Keillormockit easily .Neil Simonand WoodyAllen, amongothers, haveparodied it.Literaryeminences likeThomasPynchon (Inherent Vice, 2009)and RobertCoover (Noir,2010)are recent examplesof authorsplayingwith theconventions ofthenoircontext. Bookandmoviereviewers often use theterm very loosely, describing any storywithunhappyor grimelements as noir.However we identify noir,it'salso truethatifwe don't knowwhatnoiris,exactly, wenonethelessknow what we like. Noir dominatestoday's crimewriting, from Stockholm toMelbourne. In film criticism,the term becamecommon withFrench...
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