When we think of Honolulu, Hawaii, we think of warm sunny beaches, not dark smokey alleys.
But it’s decidedly more of the latter that you’ll find in the short story anthology Honolulu Noir (paperback, Kindle), which is the latest installment of Akashic Books’ ongoing, geographically-based Noir series.
In the following email interview, Honolulu Noir editor Chris McKinney [Midnight, Water City] talks about what makes this series unique, how this collection was assembled, and what makes this collection different from, say, Havana Noir and Haiti Noir.
For people who aren’t familiar with Akashic Books’ Noir series, what is the focus of these anthologies? What are they all about?
Each book in the Noir series is set in a specific city. For example, there’s Los Angeles Noir, Boston Noir, Chicago Noir, etc. The series goes beyond the United States and includes such cities as Bangkok, Kingston, and Istanbul. Each is a collection of new, yet-to-be-published noir short stories by authors who have a connection to the place.
It’s impressive, really. I think Honolulu Noir is the 122nd release. Akashic’s Noir series is a monster.
And do the contributors have to be from the geographic location in question, or live there when they wrote the story, or is it that the story has to be set there?
Akashic wanted the majority of the contributors to actually live in the city they’re writing about, which makes sense. Authenticity is important.
In the case of Honolulu Noir, seven of the thirteen contributors were born and raised here. Four are from other places but have resided here for years or even decades. One (Alan Brennert) has spent a lot of time in Hawaii and has written successful novels set here. Another is Native Hawaiian (Lono Waiawaiole) but grew up on the West Coast. He, of course, has spent time here as well.
But yeah, all the stories needed to be set in Honolulu.
Are there other parameters the stories have to fit? Like word count or something?
Akashic wanted stories between 3000 and 6000 words.
The interesting thing is that I was told what qualifies as “noir” is broad. As long as the story is “dark,” it’ll work, Akashic said. I appreciated this leeway. Honolulu is a small place, and it’s not really possible to find a dozen talented writers who dream of being the next Dennis Lehane. There are stories with cops and criminals as main characters in this collection, but there’s also some magical realism and stories of petty thefts and more personal conflict as well.
So for Honolulu Noir, how did you find the contributors?
It was my responsibility to find the contributors. Like I said before, Honolulu is a small place, so someone like me (born and raised on Oahu) who has been writing here for over 25 years, well, I know most of the published writers on island.
I suppose I started with the ones who I admired. These included Kiana Davenport, Alan Brennert, and Don Wallace. Once they agreed, it became a game of trying to match the diversity of the city’s population with writers whose skills I had faith in. It was important that I had contributors who are Asian, Native Hawaiian, mixed race, and white, because that’s the general complexion of this place.
The writers were free to come up with their own story ideas as long as they were dark in tone. I think it was the best approach because end results are most diverse with the absence of constraints.
Kiana Davenport, B.A. Kobayashi
And when people started suggesting story ideas, did anyone suggest one that made you think, “That would never happen in Honolulu,” but then you started to think about it and yeah, that makes sense…?
Of all the story ideas, the two that initially surprised me most were Kiana Davenport’s [“Hairstyles Of The Jihadi”] and B.A. Kobayashi’s [“Shadows And Haoles”]. Kiana’s starts with the idea that ISIS has a presence in the city and tries to recruit Native Hawaiians who might be sympathetic to the cause. Though startling, Kiana’s did start to make sense fairly quickly. There have been a couple of news stories on the topic. However, yeah, when someone thinks ISIS, the last thing they think next is Hawaii.
B.A.’s is about vampires who specifically hunt Native Hawaiians because their blood protects them from the sun. That’s just the kind of story he likes to tell. It’s meant to be comic and a little silly. I’m glad both are in the anthology. They help widen the spectrum.
Of course, the obvious thing would be a story in which a tourist is murdered. Maybe even too obvious. How many of those stories are in Honolulu Noir?
Ha ha, tourist murder. Yeah, it’s definitely present in this collection, but not in the typical way. A couple of the tourists are rather unsavory characters. There are three stories that can fit into this category — though one is really more tourist stupidity than murder. It’s important to have one of those because by far the biggest killer of tourists in Honolulu is a lack of respect for the power of nature.
I didn’t establish a limit on anything, really. With that being said, I was familiar with the work of each writer and kind of knew, for the most part, what type of story they were going to tell. For example, I knew Christy Passion works in an ICU unit and was going to do something set in Queen’s Hospital, and I knew it was going to be spot on authentic because, well, it’s her job. I knew that I was going to get historical fiction from Scott Kikkawa because it’s what he exclusively writes. And I knew I was going to get speculative fiction from Tom Gammarino. I suppose things could’ve taken a very bad turn if the three writers above decided to do tourist murder as well, but thankfully, they didn’t.
One of the stories in Honolulu Noir, Stephanie Han’s “The Swimmers,” is about Chang Apana, the real-life native Hawaiian / Chinese police officer who was the inspiration for Charlie Chan, the fictional and controversial for being stereotypical Honolulu detective from Earl Derr Biggers’ novels and countless old movies. Whose idea was it to have someone write a story about Apana?
“Apana’s Last Case” is entirely Alan Brennert’s brainchild. He didn’t need any input from me. I respected his decision to write the story, knowing it would be no small task. First, capturing 1920s Chinatown authentically is a lot of work. Second, there are a lot of dangers with portraying with the real-life person who inspired the character Charlie Chan.
And was it Alan’s choice to have the story be about Apana as opposed to Chan? Because it could’ve been an opportunity to correct some of the insensitivities of the character. Or, conversely, played with them in a way that provides social commentary.
I think Alan was right to use the name Chang Apana instead of Charlie Chan. The name “Charlie Chan” comes with too much baggage and can be a distraction for readers. With “Chang Apana,” the reader knows they’re getting something different from the nasty stereotype. Something genuine.
Obviously, the stories in Honolulu Noir are different from the ones in, say, Helsinki Noir, Houston Noir, and Hong Kong Noir. What do you think makes the stories in Honolulu Noir uniquely Honolulu-ian? And I’m mean specifically Honolulu-ian as opposed to Hawaiian or if the book was Hilo Noir or based on another Hawaiian city?
Hawaii Noir would be a different collection. Hilo Noir even more so. Early on, I had to make a decision: in the context of this book, do I define “Honolulu” as the actual city or do I define it as Honolulu County, which includes the entire island of Oahu? I decided to go with city. It wasn’t easy because I was well aware of what I was giving up: the less densely populated areas of Oahu. There’s a lot of rich rural noir to be mined in say, Waianae or Kahaluu, which is where I grew up and where much of my first novel is set.
However, if I opened it up to the entire island, it felt like a cheat that should be titled Oahu Noir, so I kept all the stories in the city. The stories are uniquely “Honolulu-ian” because collectively they capture the history and flavor of this place. Readers get a glimpse of Honolulu in the 1920s, 1950s, and present day. There’s old money neighborhoods of privilege, as represented in Mindy Eun Soo Pennybacker’s “Diamond Dream.” There’s the more underprivileged sides of the city, like Kalihi’s public housing and Hawaiian homelands in Papakolea, next to Pauoa. Lono Waiwaiole’s “Melelani’s Mana” is set around this area. Don Wallace’s “Third Night of Carnival” shows the very real private school fetish the people of all neighborhoods in this city have.
Honolulu has typical American urban problems: skyrocketing housing prices, homelessness, and crime. But despite the urbanization and population, there’s still a smalltown feel to the place. It’s still a city where people are connected to their roots, whether they be Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Filipino, whatever. I live in Manoa, a suburban Honolulu neighborhood. There’s a Chinese graveyard, a Japanese language school for children, a waterfall, and a Safeway all within two miles of my house. I feel like that’s the book in a nutshell: a this, a that, and another thing seemingly worlds apart, but only a couple miles away. That’s Honolulu.
Hollywood loves adapting short stories into movies. Are there any stories in Honolulu Noir that you think would work really well as a movie?
I think Alan Brennert’s story would be the easiest to adapt into a feature film because it has an established and relatively well-known main character and setting already in place. However, it would also be by far the most expensive to produce, it being set in the 1920s. Who knows, though. Will AI eventually change all that?
Tom Gammarino’s “It Entered My Mind” would also be great because it revolves around a very simple and elegant technological advancement: the ability to trace human microbial signatures. A lot can be done with this concept, enough to turn it into a Netflix series.
Scott Kikkawa’s “Midori” would work well, too because he’s written multiple novels with the same main character, which would give production companies a mountain of material to work with. And Stephanie Han’s “The Swimmers” would work great as a feature if the father character actually started doing some of the stuff he fantasizes about doing to his family. He’s such an awful human being. He’d be a fun character to develop further.
So, is there anything else you think people might need to know about Honolulu Noir?
I think readers would be hard-pressed to find a collection as diverse as this one. Native Hawaiian, White, Asian, mixed; writer whose ages range from 20s to 80s. It might be jarring at first, the mix. We have a phrase here “poi dog,” which is basically a mixed breed dog. Honolulu Noir is a poi dog, and that’s what I wanted.
Finally, if someone enjoys Honolulu Noir, and it’s the first book in the Noir series that they’ve read, which one would you suggest they read next?
I’m biased, but the three that top my list are D.C. Noir because I don’t think George Pelecanos is capable of putting together something bad; Santa Cruz Noir because, like Honolulu, it’s an overpriced tourist destination, and the book’s content might surprise readers, while Susie Bright, the editor, is just an awesome human being in general; and Manila Noir because, wow, what a setting. It’s one of those places that’s beautiful, tragic, corrupt, and incredibly intense all at the same time. I’ve been a fan of editor Jessica Hagedorn for decades now.
