Montana Noir By James Grady, Akashic Books (Softcover)

Montana Noir, by James Grady (Editor, Contributor), Keir Graff (Editor, Contributor) James Grady was born and raised in Shelby, Montana. His first novel, Six Days of the Condor, became the iconic movie starring Robert Redford. Keir Graff was born and raised in Missoula, Montana. He is the author of four novels for adults (most recently The Price of Liberty), and two novels for middle-graders. Graff now lives in Chicago, where he is the executive editor of Booklist. David Abrams (Contributor), Caroline Patterson (Contributor), Eric Heidle (Contributor), Janet Skeslien Charles (Contributor), Sidner Larson (Contributor), Yvonne Seng (Contributor), Jamie Ford(Contributor), Carrie La Seur (Contributor), Walter Kirn (Contributor), Thomas McGuane (Contributor), Gwen Florio (Contributor), Debra Magpie Earling (Contributor)

INTRODUCTION Noir's Last Best Place When people learn we're from Montana, we can almost predict what they'll say: I've heard it's so beautiful. Why would you ever want to leave? One stock reply, always good for a laugh at a party, is, You can't eat the scenery. Which also saves us from having to admit that, as young men, neither of us could wait to get out. With some very notable exceptions, most of the Montana writers we've known came there from some other place. Those of us who were born there often leave. We leave for the same reasons people leave their hometowns all over the world — to see what else is out there. For both of us, leaving was the very thing that made it possible to have careers in writing and publishing. Of course, having left, all we ever do is think about going back. Editing this anthology has been a wonderful way to return to our home state, with everything that's good and bad about it. Montana is indeed beautiful. It can be as picture-postcard perfect as you imagine, with the grandeur of legendary mountains rising in the famously clean and blue Big Sky, rivers crashing through piney canyons, and prairies rolling like a golden sea. It's the kind of beauty that makes us think, when we're visiting, like every other tourist: I should live here. But living in beautiful places can be just as hard as living in the most soul-crushing cities.