It felt like a well-heeled dame with a sob story
six-feet deep was going to stroll into the joint at any minute. Kevin
Sampsell and I were sitting at the lunch counter at Fuller’s on NW 9th
over greasy plates of gravy and bacon, discussing the finer points of
The Maltese Falcon and Sampsell’s turn as the editor of
Portland Noir.
Sampsell, occasional Mercury contributor and publisher of
Future Tense, curated Portland’s entry into Akashic Books’ noir series,
which began in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir and now boasts over 40
titles. The premise is simple: Sixteen local authors write an original
story about a different neighborhood in their burg. What makes
Portland’s stand out is the reoccurring sense of dread and familiarity
that pervades the stories—as the writers subtly reference events
and places that occur in other stories in the collection.
“It turned out super good. I’m quite happy with it,” says Sampsell,
who sent out a call for submissions to about 40 writers that he’s met
during his decade-plus working at Powell’s Books. While some writers
were dubious about writing genre fiction, not sure that they could
muster a mystery, some of their stories were a pleasant surprise. “I
liked Megan Kruse’s [“Lila”] and Dan DeWeese’s [“The Sleeper”]. They
both snuck up on me,” Sampsell says.
“I asked for stories with a heavy Portland feel, with some sort of
dark aspect to fit the noir genre,” he explains. But he didn’t want to
include “paint by numbers” mysteries. So Sampsell asked Bill Cameron, a
local mystery writer and Noir contributor, if noir fans would be
disappointed if the collection were more literary in scope. According
to Cameron, noir fans tend to be more tolerant of literary
experimentation than straight-up mystery fans. Famed crime writer
George Pelecanos, editor of DC Noir and DC Noir 2,
told Sampsell that the DC collections tended toward the literary as
well.
Apparently, smart dark fiction suits Portland just fine, as
Portland Noir has been topping Powell’s best-selling fiction
list. “The series has been very successful. [Akashic Books] say they
tend to sell around 7,000 copies, which is quite good for a small press
book”—a big selling point for editing the book. “Anthologies are
a lot of work,” he says. Not one for idle hands, at the time
Sampsell was also working on his upcoming memoir, A Common
Pornography, due out in January 2010.
As for the stories, Portland’s noir runs the gamut from stalker
tales to skateboarding brodowns to straight-up gore to comics. The
comic, by Jamie S. Rich and Joëlle Jones, is only the second to
appear in the series (inexplicably, the first was in the Wall Street
anthology). Much like Portland, the collection is a mixed bag of fun,
with individual writers choosing neighborhoods to write
about—Ariel Gore opted for Clinton Street, Monica Drake picked
West Burnside—and common references and allusions tying them
together. “I wanted it to be a déjà vu thing, not a
repetitious sort of thing,” says Sampsell. “Sort of like Portland and
its small town feel.”
Sampsell has been busy watching film classics like Sunset
Boulevard and Double Indemnity just in case someone lobs a
weighty noir question at him during Friday’s Powell’s event. He
promises a theatrical reading of the book’s introduction, complete with
mood music. Contributors Chris A. Bolton, Luciana Lopez, and Jonathan
Selwood will read their stories afterward.