A review by laurenleyendolibros
New Jersey Noir by Joyce Carol Oates

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The stories themselves are fairly mediocre, one or two stand out above the others (Jonathan Safran Foer’s Too Near Real and Jonathan Santlofer’s Lola – the latter was definitely my favourite). There were a few poems but they were unnecessary for me. 

The best thing about the collection was probably JCO’s introduction. First, if you’re going to have a story collection about New Jersey, especially dark stories like these, who else is going to write the intro?* It would be like a NJ music anthology not mentioning Springsteen or Sinatra (they were both mentioned here by the way). 

I must admit, I didn’t actually know the definition of noir (fatalism and moral ambiguity), it just made me think of femme fatales and black and white films. But JCO’s intro is so interesting and really makes you want to start reading the stories and, oddly, watch The Sopranos. 

*I know she’s not actually from NJ, but there’s no writer I associate with more with the state!