Milwaukee Noir
I was born in Milwaukee and lived in the city through the 1950s and 1960s. When I finally left the city to attend law school, I never looked back. I didn't return to Milwaukee until 2015 for a 50th anniversary high school reunion. The city grew on me with absence. I spent time when I returned in seeing places I knew. I hope to return and revisit Milwaukee again soon.
I developed a love for reading in Milwaukee but began to read noir fiction only many years after I had left. I had read some of the many books in the Akashic Noir series and wondered if there ever would be a book about Milwaukee. Somehow, it didn't seem to me a noir city from a childhood and youth that seemed to me on the whole bland and conventional. I had been anxious to leave.
After many books of place-specific noir set in the United States and abroad, Akashic Noir at last published this book on "Milwaukee Noir", and I read it eagerly. The editor of the book, Tim Hennessy, owns a bookstore in Milwaukee. I have memories of browsing Milwaukee's bookstores as well as its libraries. The book consists of 14 original stories by as many writers, both familiar and unfamiliar, set in Milwaukee and its environs together with Hennessy's introduction. The book also includes a little map of the neighborhoods discussed in the stories together with various city landmarks. I was moved just be seeing the map and it brought back memories.
Hennessy points to what I recognized as the bland reputation of Milwaukee and of what he sees as the reluctance of some of its residents to make large scale change and take risks in their lives. Yet I, and many others, left the city to make their lives elsewhere. Hennessy shows a love for the city and for its stubbornness. Milwaukee changed a great deal in the years since I left. With the decline of manufacturing it has become prey to crime and poverty and has been in the process of reinventing itself. Hennessy describes Milwaukee's decline, and he writes:
"I love my city's lack of pretension: its stubbornness and pride in the unpolished corners. I fear that my city faces an uncertain future -- that as it becomes more divided it may push our best and brightest to find somewhere else to shine."
As far as stories go, the works in this collection are mixed in terms of literary merit. They are also mixed in how place-specific they are to Milwaukee. Even more than literary quality, I wanted stories that captured something of Milwaukee as opposed to stories which could just as easily have been set somewhere else. Most of these stories were well tied to place. Thus I enjoyed the book in that it brought me back to Milwaukee during the time I was there and during the long intervening years.
Places I know include Washington Park and Washington High School, Sherman Park, the downtown area, West Allis, Whitefish Bay, the East side around UW-M, and more. All these and more were covered in the stories. I remember Milwaukee's buses and bridges, and they too are covered here. I remember the old, seedy adult theater, the Princess, which is the subject of one of the best stories in the book, Matthew Prigge's "Third Street Waltz". I also knew about the old amusement parks which graced the city well before my time, and one of them is featured in Mary Thorson's "Wonderland". I was an inveterate bus rider in Milwaukee and Frank Wheeler Jr's story "Transit Complaint Box" brought back memories of the days. Larry Watson's story "Night Clerk" seemed to me rooted in a highly Milwaukean type of hotel. Finally, Derrick Harrell's "There's a riot going on" took me back to some old stomping grounds near Sherman Park and brought home to me the changed character of the area and of the city.
I was glad to read this book and to catch up through noir stories with my old city. My fondness for the city has grown with distance and with the years. I enjoy thinking about Milwaukee and its formative impact on my life.
Robin Friedman
