Editor and contributor Dennis Lehane attempts to answer the question, "What is noir?" in his introduction to Boston Noir, a collection of contemporary short stories. As he describes it, noir is darkness, but with shades of light. Noir is mystery, but with conclusions. Noir is tragedy, but with heroes who do not start at greatness. As Lehane writes, "in Shakespeare, tragic heroes fall from mountaintops; in noir, they fall from curbs."
Discovering the meaning of noir is only half of this impressive collection's purpose. Answering the question "What is Boston?" is just as important, as each story is set in a neighborhood of the city. The stories that are the most successful have a magic way of combining Beantown with the noir genre, infusing the comfortable city readers know with anticipation and suspense.
The first story of the book, "Exit Interview" by Lynne Heitman, centers on a woman holding a hostage in her office building in the Financial District after murdering her boss for failing to promote her. Her plight is pitiable — she is overlooked for her gender, not for her qualifications — and her end is upsetting. While Heitman's writing may not amaze, her plot opens the collection well.
The next and best story, by Lehane himself, "Animal Rescue," succeeds from the very first sentence — "Bob found the dog in the trash." — to the end. His writing simply amazes as he develops rich, complex characters that find a dog and are blackmailed by its original, abusive owner. Lehane maintains a mood that invites but does not reveal the twist ending. The author subtly gives the city, with its biases, camaraderie and crime network, a role in the action.
Jim Fusilli's "The Place Where He Belongs" is the next story and the first in which an outsider moves to Boston — in this case, from New York. The protagonist's disdain for Boston-area bagels may resonate with readers from other parts of the country, but he is soon revealed as the villain after stealing a baby. In "Dark Waters," a short story by Patricia Powell, a middle-aged, black woman named Perle is visited in the middle of the night by an injured, escaped convict. Watertown remains irrelevant until the final few pages of the story; up until then, the story could take place anywhere.
The next section, "Skeletons in the Closet," offers four more tales, the first two of which are set in the past. Post-WWII "The Dark Island" works cleverly as the story of a private investigator who attempts to help a woman retrieve a box of mementos left by her deceased husband, who served in the army. Like "Animal Rescue," the story offers a spectacular finale complete with vengeful murder — classic noir style.
Stewart O'Nan's "The Reward" repeats the use of animals to bring people together, as the protagonist finds lost pets and returns them to Brookline residents for rewards. Another notable story is "The Cross-Eyed Bear," in which Father Tom Mulcahy is accused of molesting an altar boy thirty years earlier. The story toys with the reader's notions of justice versus punishment and victim versus villain. Here, everyone is hiding something, and no one gets off scot-free.
The final section of the book, "Veils of Deceit," begins with a story that features a classic protagonist: a detective with a complicated history. He's being played by both his client and the subject of his investigation, two poets who take competition to a whole new playing field. Although the story, "The Collar" by Itabari Njeri, fails with respect to the genre, it's an interesting drama nonetheless.
Unfortunately, this anthology ends with Russ Aborn's "Turn Speed," which, while offering the classic elements of noir, simply seems like a series of criminal scenes mashed together without a continuous plot line.
The stories in "Boston Noir" are written by tremendously gifted writers who were born in or have spent many years in the Boston area. Most of the authors write with eloquence and affection for neighborhoods within the city and their localities' distinct characters, moods and offerings. Unfortunately, a few of the authors do not have an equally sufficient grasp of noir, and stories in the collection only succeed when they capture both. "Boston Noir" provides an impressive anthology of lovely writing and creativity, but not all of its pieces ultimately deliver what the title promises.
