Publishers Weekly
07/31/2023
For this chilling anthology, Oates (Extenuating Circumstances) brings together 15 stories exploring body horror through women’s experiences. In Aimee Bender’s “Frank Jones,” an office loner creates a tiny golem from her own shed skin tags that helps maintain the boundaries between herself and her horrified coworkers, while in Joanna Margaret’s “Malena” an art student gives life to her own “parasitic twin.” Margaret Atwood’s “Metempsychosis, or the Journey of the Soul” is concerned with the soul of a slain snail that possesses the brain of a bank employee, creating a snail-human hybrid consciousness that struggles to adapt to modern life. “Dancing” by Tananarive Due, one of the collection’s standouts, follows a woman who, upon the death of the grandmother she’s spent two decades caring for, loses control of her body in fits of unruly dancing. Oates has a broad take on the body horror subgenre, and while some stories use the anthology’s premise to devastating advantage, others don’t quite fit the bill, including “Scarlet Ribbons” by Megan Abbott and “Breathing Exercises” by Raven Leilani. Still, the thematic probe into bodily autonomy makes this a must-read for fans of feminist horror. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Assoc. (Sept.)
The Hard Word
"A Darker Shade of Noir gives us some of the top writers of our time, working at the top of their game, many in a genre they haven't worked in before, proving that matters little when you understand the story telling craft. Many serve as a feminist allegory that never allows the politics to get in the way of the prose. They take characters who can be seen as victims and empower them in the way they survive."
Bust
"Sure, we all aspire to 'love the skin we're in,' but let's face it: bodies can be unruly, embarrassing, foul-smelling, troublesome, gross, and even a little monstrous. Certainly, the powers that be now live in full-time panic about bodies they can't control, ostracize, or regulate. So it's fitting to see a collection of women writers inspiring new visions of body horror in their trembling readers. From Tananarive Due's unnerving tale of a grieving granddaughter who can't stop dancing to Margaret Atwood's amusing story of a snail reincarnated into the adult body of a bank service representative . . . [T]hese fifteen stories evoke all the weird ways in which strange bodies can make us shiver and heave. And some selections, like . . . Joyce Carol Oates's all-too-real account of the tortures of asylums once doled out to cure women of 'hysteria,' will burrow under your skin and live forever in your darkest dreams."
Washington City Paper
"Cloaked in these stories are themes of powerlessness and loss of identity like in Margaret Atwood’s ‘Metempsychosis, or The Journey of the Soul,’ in which the protagonist shares her body with a snail, prompting the woman to audit her self-worth. A Dark Shade of Noir will appeal to a variety of readers, especially fans of gothic horror and supernatural authors like Brian Evenson and Shirley Jackson."
Toronto Star
"Given our culture’s prurient obsession with the female body, it’s no wonder that many of the finest practitioners of the body horror sub-genre should be women. In A Darker Shade of Noir, Joyce Carol Oates—no stranger to the field herself—gathers fifteen new stories that explore and turn familiar horror tropes inside out, exposing the vulnerabilities and latent powers of the female body. The author roster is first rate, with standout stories from Tananarive Due, Aimee LaBrie, and Cassandra Khaw demonstrating the subgenre's full range and gut-punching effectiveness."
CrimeReads
"Yes, this isn't a novel, but we're bending the rules a bit to include it in this round-up because it's a standout work of fiction and because it's just such a provocative and incisive collection. Edited by Joyce Carol Oates, the book's contributor list is a marvel in itself . . . Prepare yourself for some truly unsettling stories."
Ink 19
"Joyce Carol Oates assembles her team of writers and two visual artists (Laurel Hausler and Lisa Lim) to create a body of work (excuse the pun) that explores many facets of body horror . . . [Oates] has a knack for gathering the best writers and producing excellent collections of stories. These stories are fun to read. Some are funny; some are weird. It's an entertaining mix . . . Whether the source of this horror is internal (psychological) or external (spider bites, guns), these stories are bound to keep you turning pages and make you think about your own relationship to your body."
Cyberlibrarian
"Joyce Carol Oates has written a remarkable introduction to A Darker Shade of Noir, Akashic Books’ newest addition to their collections of Noir fiction. It really tells you everything you need to know about the book and its outstanding group of women authors, each of whom contributed a story to the collection, including Oates, Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott . . . These are marvelous stories that touched a real nerve—in both my body and my mind. Highly recommended."
ink19.com
"Joyce Carol Oates assembles her team of writers and two visual artists (Laurel Hausler and Lisa Lim) to create a body of work (excuse the pun) that explores many facets of body horror . . . [Oates] has a knack for gathering the best writers and producing excellent collections of stories. These stories are fun to read. Some are funny; some are weird. It's an entertaining mix . . . Whether the source of this horror is internal (psychological) or external (spider bites, guns), these stories are bound to keep you turning pages and make you think about your own relationship to your body."
From the Publisher
"Cloaked in these stories are themes of powerlessness and loss of identity like in Margaret Atwood’s ‘Metempsychosis, or The Journey of the Soul,’ in which the protagonist shares her body with a snail, prompting the woman to audit her self-worth. A Dark Shade of Noir will appeal to a variety of readers, especially fans of gothic horror and supernatural authors like Brian Evenson and Shirley Jackson.”
—Washington City Paper
"Sure, we all aspire to 'love the skin we're in,' but let's face it: bodies can be unruly, embarrassing, foul-smelling, troublesome, gross, and event a little monstrous. Certainly, the powers that be now live in full-time panic about bodies they can't control, ostracize, or regulate. So it's fitting to see a collection of women writers inspiring new visions of body horror in their trembling readers. From Tananarive Due's unnerving tale of a grieving granddaughter who can't stop dancing to Margaret Atwood's amusing story of a snail reincarnated into the adult body of a bank service representative . . . [T]hese fifteen stories evoke all the weird ways in which strange bodies can make us shiver and heave. And some selections, like . . . Joyce Carol Oates's all-too-real account of the tortures of asylums once doled out to cure women of 'hysteria,' will burrow under your skin and live forever in your darkest dreams."
—Bust
“Given our culture’s prurient obsession with the female body, it’s no wonder that many of the finest practitioners of the body horror sub-genre should be women. In A Darker Shade of Noir, Joyce Carol Oates — no stranger to the field herself — gathers 15 new stories that explore and turn familiar horror tropes inside out, exposing the vulnerabilities and latent powers of the female body. The author roster is first rate, with standout stories from Tananarive Due, Aimee LaBrie and Cassandra Khaw demonstrating the sub-genre’s full range and gut-punching effectiveness.”
—Toronto Star
“In this haunting new collection, edited by Oates, 15 women writers explore the manifold horrors of living (and dying) in a patriarchal society . . . this collection may initially appeal to readers eager for tales filled with vampires and werewolves, influences from beyond the grave, and gore, guts, and ooze. They will not be disappointed. However, the stories not only bleed across the categorical boundaries they have been assigned, but also expand the scope of what is terrifying about the body—living or dead, human or nonhuman—in the first place . . . A bold collection of horror stories that flies in the face of both gender and genre conventions.”
—Kirkus Reviews"For this chilling anthology, Oates brings together 15 stories exploring body horror through women's experiences . . . the thematic probe into bodily autonomy makes this a must-read for fans of feminist horror."
—Publishers Weekly
“A Darker Shade of Noir gives us some of the top writers of our time, working at the top of their game, many in a genre they haven't worked in before, proving that matters little when you understand the story telling craft. Many serve as a feminist allegory that never allows the politics to get in the way of the prose. They take characters who can be seen as victims and empower them in the way they survive.”
—The Hard Word
“Joyce Carol Oates has written a remarkable introduction to A Darker Shade of Noir, Akashic Books’ newest addition to their collections of Noir fiction. It really tells you everything you need to know about the book and its outstanding group of women authors, each of whom contributed a story to the collection, including Oates, Margaret Atwood, Tananarive Due, and Megan Abbott . . . These are marvelous stories that touched a real nerve—in both my body and my mind. Highly recommended.”
—Cyberlibrarian “Yes, this isn’t a novel, but we’re bending the rules a bit to include it in this round-up because it’s a standout work of fiction and because it’s just such a provocative and incisive collection. Edited by Joyce Carol Oates, the book’s contributor list is a marvel in itself . . . Prepare yourself for some truly unsettling stories.”
—Crime Reads
Kirkus Reviews
2023-06-21
In this haunting new collection, edited by Oates, 15 women writers explore the manifold horrors of living (and dying) in a patriarchal society.
Divided into three parts—“You’ve Created a Monster,” “Morbid Anatomy," and “Out of Body, Out of Time”—this collection may initially appeal to readers eager for tales filled with vampires and werewolves, influences from beyond the grave, and gore, guts, and ooze. They will not be disappointed. However, the stories not only bleed across the categorical boundaries they have been assigned, but also expand the scope of what is terrifying about the body—living or dead, human or nonhuman—in the first place. Some stories lean into the visceral imagery typical of the body horror genre. In “Muzzle,” Cassandra Khaw explores the terrors of transforming from a human into a werewolf: feeling muscle, bone, teeth, and primal urges realigning inside oneself. Similarly, Aimee LaBrie’s “Gross Anatomy” and Valerie Martin’s “Nemesis” attend to the body's bumps, scabs, and pus (though both stories dip into ableist territory by presenting illness as a moral punishment). Other stories, however, like Margaret Atwood’s “Metempsychosis, or The Journey of the Soul,” focus more on existential terrors. Through the point of view of a snail whose soul has been ripped from its body and transplanted into that of a human woman, Atwood taps into the fears surrounding not only mortality, but also bodily misalignment, confinement, existential dread, and not being recognized for who you really are. “To be female,” Oates writes in her introduction, “is to inhabit a body that is by nature vulnerable to forcible invasion, susceptible to impregnation.” In the pages that follow, not only men and offspring, but also the desires of the dead, the societal expectations of the living, powerful weapons, self-doubts, and new souls creep into the bodies of women characters, taking up space. Yet the women are not entirely powerless. In “Breathing Exercise,” Raven Leilani’s protagonist, Myriam, works to tease apart the criticism she faces for her performance art, the violence with which men threaten her, and her own relationship to her body and work as a Black woman artist. For Myriam, power, pain, fear, and vulnerability do not exist in static relationships to one another—nor do they in many of the stories in this collection.
A bold collection of horror stories that flies in the face of both gender and genre conventions.
