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At first glance, you can see that Bleak House has done a caring and cool job on this trade paperback. Those who know old paperbacks will, as I did, grin at the notice at the bottom that reads "this is a genuine pocket edition – complete and unabridged." I'm not a New Yorker and while I have great memories of the city, it's not my perfect place. I can't say that reading all the locations that frame the cover (Canarsie, Brighton Beach, Dyker Heights, Cobble Hill) did anything for me, such as bringing nostalgia, recognitions, awareness, and perhaps that's my loss. Maybe that special love of Brooklyn would have helped me enjoy this collection. Instead, I found too much of a sameness, a bleakness, a sad, often dreary bunch of stories that in no way explain to an outsider why Brooklyn rules. There's a clear desire to show off just how tough Brooklyn is, and perhaps the problem is, I don't care – I was looking for good stories. I didn't find a lot even if they did "scream Brooklyn" as the editor, author Reed Farrel Coleman wanted them to do as he states in his introduction. He also says that "the very soul of the Brooklynite is hard-boiled." Apparently you must be tough to survive this borough. I'm not taken in by such boasting or such claims, wherever they are based. I've heard it about South Boston and I've heard it about Hunter's Point and I've heard it about a lot of places and I don't really care. And the stories are tough, and sad. I didn't enjoy most of them because they exhibited a sameness. There was a certain helpless feeling, a watching as terrible things happened, as children became monsters, or lost the fight to have a good life. There are several tales of revenge, at getting back at bullies, getting back at bad guys who killed a member of your family, of nasty people. It's about cops who take advantage and beaten down civilians. The authors want to show how hard-edged everyone is, in most stories and it tired me out. Maggie Estep's Bonecrusher (that's a bike, by the way - phew!) was one of the few different stories in the book. The only one that shone for me – no surprise – was SJ Rozan's Sunset. I've been saying for more than ten years that Rozan's one of our best writers and her skills as a short story writer are evident here. (And yes it is the reason I picked up the collection to begin with.) Her story tells of a con, worked on the right people and isn't dismal and it's about smarts and angles. There were good stories here or at least good writing. Gabriel Cohen's Right is Right about two cops working together to stop scam artists repairmen worked mostly but I didn't quite buy it. The premise was interesting as heck, the relationship iffy. Timothy Sheard's All Bleeding Stops Eventually about what happens in the ER one night, and who the good and bad guys turn out to be worked pretty well. And I guess many of the stories were intended to show how unique Brooklyn life is so we can't know how it feels to lose your kid on the subway as Peter Blauner's Going, Going, Gone shows us. Except for me, the story didn't work. I saw what was coming early on and I didn't really want to know. New Yorkers, Brooklynites often take pride in what it takes to live in the city. I don't blame them, Manhattan, Brooklyn, even the subway can overwhelm. But there was too much of a uniformity in the stories here; Jason Starr, Joseph Wallace and Ralph Pezzullo all offered stories of lost, destroyed 'hard-boiled' children. Dirty cops, racists and liars. I dunno – this is hard-boiled? Does it have to be? Can't you be edgy without being so damn bleak? Maybe not, maybe it's me and my difference of definition. Finally, while I praised the book's outside design, the insides could use some work. The copy I read, which was not an advance copy, did not offer page numbers in the table of contents, nor were the story titles shown on the pages of the book. There was also, surprisingly for an anthology that contains several unfamiliar and new names, no author bios, which would have provided welcome insights into the writers. In recent years, I've seen a lot of writing show up that calls itself, or is called noir and now I'm seeing stories that are defined as hard-boiled and they're putting me off. There's an incredible coldness here, a sense of "it's all too late, everyone is full of despair, rage, hopelessness and loss" and I know there's more to hard-boiled than that. There sure in hell is more to Brooklyn than that.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, March 2007
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