summer 2009
Welcome to the summer noir issue of Chaparral. Atmospheric, elegiac, and always courting mystery, the writings featured here are redefining this LA trope in new ways. The subjects of these pieces—grief, hair-loss, war, sex, a clarinet—are, at times, focused literally on the color black, other times, only dark in tone. Moving beyond noir’s typical female victim or femme fatale, this issue, predominately made up of women writers, presents a range of tones and modes. “A vowel rises like a fat crow,” writes Marsha de la O. And the pieces below, too, rise—touching noir’s toughened sense of alienation and making their own, very current, departures.
