More on Chicago Noir

The terrific blog Pete Lit has to say about Chicago Noir and my story "All Happy Families."

Chicago Noir is a highly readable story collection which offers numerous fresh, inventive takes on the well-worn noir genre. While there's still plenty of moral ambiguities, cliffhanger plot twists and sudden acts of senseless violence for devoted noir fans, the writers here come up with some interesting new angles.

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Andrew Ervin's "All Happy Families" confounds expectations by not having a single character die; Ervin's narrative deftly interweaves three threads: a nearly-botched bank holdup and subsequent train ride back to Chicago (with a nifty shout-out to Joliet!); the robber's obsession with the Chicago Cubs, whose game he's hoping to attend that evening if the cops don't pick him up first; and some backstory as to how an intelligent literature major ever starting robbing banks.

American Book Review // Europeana, &c.

Please see the Nov./Dec. issue of American Book Review, for which I guest edited a section on Eastern European fiction in translation. I had the pleasure of asking some of my favorite young writers to contribute.

Contents
Introduction
Cover illustration "Sugar & Spice" by Regina Allen
Ben Greeman on Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century by Patrik Ourednik
Selah Saterstrom on Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Vitezslav Nezval
Sheila Heti on Love and Other Stories by Tibor Dery
Elizabeth Searle on Out of Oneself by Andras Palyi
Andrew Crumey on Requiem for the Living by Alan Cherchesov
Neal Pollack on A Dream in Pollar Fog by Yuri Rytkheu
Soren A. Gauger on Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli