Almost Completely Read: "A Hell of a Woman" edited by Megan Abbott

Almost Completely Read: A Hell of a Woman: an anthology of female noir edited by Megan Abbott, 2007, 9780976715733.

[Man, I hate when I post something for my personal blog on my work blog. That will explain to the elder Abbott why her response is not here. I deleted that other post and pasted it over here.]

First off come the complaints. Story titles and authors are not repeated at the top or bottom of each page. That was annoying.

Second off come the observations. Good stuff in here. It would be easier to point out which story and author most impressed me but because of observation #1 I was not going to bother flipping back to the title page or table of contents. The Houston Dude from Busted Flush sent us a bunch of bookmarks once. That was considerate.

Third off comes the fact that I did not read all of the pieces in the Women in the Dark appendix where authors, critics, and film buffs list their favorite female noir character of print or film. Even my odd obsession with Bill Crider did not stop me from a quick skim of his choice.

Fourth off are my recollections.
- I was disappointed with Charlie Huston's entry. I sure do like his novels though.
- The lead off story is a great fictionalization of Bonny Lee Blakley. I do not know much of Blakley's real life but know she was a scammer and whore. The fictional character behaves repulsively. So does the fictionalized Robert Blake.
- Christa Faust was good. Reminds me I never read F.X. O'Toole's second collection of stories.
- Sex as a tool is a common theme in many stories. No surprise considering the genre. I realized something about this while reading but cannot recall what it was.
- Guthrie's had a nice time countdown in it.
- Scoppetone had a good one. The narrator hooks up with different dudes beginning when she was 15-years-old. A surprising lesbo twist at the end. I should try one of her novels out.
- Hell, they were all good. No slouches here. It was neat to read something by Zoe Sharp, I've seen her mentioned before but never read anything by her before. Busted Flush is going to print her Limey-only novels for the U.S. market.

Fifth off is a question. Will Patti Abbott google-search Megan Abbott and end up at this worthless blog? Again?

[Okay. The blog is not totally worthless. I do use it for my intended purpose which is to remind myself of what I read.]