On October 30, Half Price Books on Northwest Highway in Dallas hosted a book launch for Dallas Noir. This volume, from the remarkable literary press Akashic Books, puts Dallas into the esteemed company of New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Paris, Istanbul,  and over forty other metropolis’s whose native authors revel in showing their beloved hometowns at their absolute worst.

What fun.

WordSpace is proud to say that we have hosted in the past year two contributors to this volume and will bring you a reading by a third in January 2014. Ben Fountain did his first public reading from Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at a WordSpace salon months before it won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Will Bondurant, whose second novel The Wettest County in the World became the film Lawless, also did a salon event. In January 2014, David Haynes will be reading from his soon to be released seventh novel.

These three join seventeen other Dallasites who offer up all the mayhem and low behavior you could hope for. Since it is all conveniently organized by neighborhood, you can quickly find out what your neighbors are getting up to. Your worst suspicions will be deliriously realized.  Dallas Noir is available wherever fine books are sold. Half Price Books sold out of their first shipment at the launch party, but more are on the way.

This respectable looking bunch have surprisingly lurid imaginations