Mississippi Noir

June 13, 2016
Mississippi, as Franklin notes in his introduction, has the most corrupt government, the highest rate of various preventable ills, and the highest poverty rate in the country. In short, the state is a natural backdrop for noir fiction. The 16 stories in this uneven Akashic anthology emerge from a cauldron of sex, race, ignorance, poverty, bigotry, misunderstanding, and sheer misfortune, though few of them take advantage of the possibilities of such a mix. Most tales are variants on the theme of two people having sex and then something bad happening to one or both of them—which is a limited exploration of this fairly complex genre, dealing as it does with the spectrum of human nature’s dark side. Still, readers will enjoy those entries that do stand out for their originality: Mary Miller’s “Uphill,” about a man’s effort to take a picture; Jimmy Cajoleas’s “Lord of Madison County,” which follows a drug deal gone strange; and Andrew Paul’s tale of innocent evil, “Moonface.”

Sixteen stories show off their Mississippi settings and both writers' and narrators' capacities to deliver the hallmark of American noir: the cold- blooded character's devastating effect on others. The Mississippi authors include Jimmy Cajoleas, Mary Miller, Chris Offutt, and RaShell R. Smith-Spears, each offering the perfect blend of the ordinary and the creepy. The narrators also turn in performances that enhance the characters and plots. Some stories are performed by just one narrator, always well chosen for the particular tale, while others feature a pair of narrators working together to ramp-up the rising tide of foreboding. Accents, pacing, and tonal variations are strikingly authentic and varied to make each story a fully voiced--and fully captivating--experience. F.M.R.G. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine