By William Blick
Retreats from Oblivion
January 21st, 2025
One of my favorite types of “noir” is the more “hopeful” one…”one more job and I am getting out”….The other type which is more relevant today is that there are “noble projects” that are doomed from the beginning because of how things have been set up….
Noir encompasses a broad range of styles and content. There is neo-noir, classic noir, rural noir, urban noir, etc. Author Ken Wishnia has created a new subgenre for noir: Biblical Noir. In Wishnia’s latest book, From Sun to Sun (PM Press), he dramatically revises the biblical Book of Ruth and also creates a parallel contemporary universe where all noir conventions are reworked in innovative and fascinating ways.
From Sun to Sun features two strong women protagonists and each with a fascinating story to tell. With rigorous research in biblical texts making the old seem new and the new seem old, Wishnia’s writing alternates between “noir-speak” and embellished biblical prose. The author’s talent for writing uncompromisingly powerful texts that speak to the marginalized and very often forgotten comes to the forefront in this latest work.
I met with Ken Wishnia via Zoom and he talked at length about the Bible, Noir, and the current state of events. Speaking to Wishnia was an enlightening experience as he shared his exceptional expertise on the Hebrew Bible, the Yiddish language, Feminism, noir, and ancient history. The resulting interview is as follows:
Before we talk about Biblical Noir can you talk about your experience as editor for the Jewish Noir anthology?
Some interviews begin with asking for a definition of noir…and it’s like ok- there are like 15 definitions of noir…
One of my favorite types of “noir” is the more “hopeful” one….you know…”one more job and I am getting out and taking my stake and buying the horse farm”…like there is something glimmering on the horizon…but we know they’re not going to get there…
The other type which is more relevant today is that there are “noble projects” that are doomed from the beginning because of how things have been set up…. And there are parallel narratives between U.S. and ancient Israel…. For example, you could argue that the lofty ideals of the enlightenment built into the documents like the Declaration of Independence and other documents are noble, but are built on the oppression of many groups.
We were generous with guidelines for Jewish Noir We had a very broad definition of Jewish Noir. We agreed that you do not have to be Jewish to write Jewish noir. I invited a Rabbi, of course, to contribute and he responded with a question: He asked, “What do I mean by ‘Jewish noir’?” We both said if we are writing about Jews, it is going to be noir no matter what happens.
What made you want to write From Sun to Sun now? How is it relevant to what is going on today?
The inspiration came in 1990s when I was a graduate assistant for a prominent Feminist scholar in the Comparative Literature department at Stony Brook…. We studied the Book of Ruth… I’ve always been attracted to powerful female characters…. I have always had a notion of parallel stories from the beginning.
Why now? The book asks the basic question: “Who is one of us and who isn’t?” One motif of noir is: the person who doesn’t feel at home in the world. This is relevant to what is happening in the U.S. today.
Did you coin the term “biblical” noir? Can you explain what that term means?
As far as I know, yes, but if so, I’m just continuing the tradition: The Bible doesn’t precisely conform to James Ellroy’s definition of noir (“Everyone’s fucked on page one, and then it gets worse”), since it’s not until page two of Genesis that everything goes wrong and we’re exiled from an earthly paradise, condemned to a life of hard labor, suffering, and death. There is plenty of dark material in the Hebrew Bible (what others call the Old Testament). When asked to name my favorite “Jewish noir writers,” I usually begin with “Whoever wrote the biblical books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations.”
Briefly, the overall message of the Book of Job is, When bad shit happens, don’t ask why. Because you’re not going to get an answer anyway.
The overall message of Ecclesiastes is, What’s the point? The famous King James version (Vanity, vanity, all is vanity) is rendered in modern translation: Utter futility! All is futile!
Need I say more?
And finally, Lamentations is believed to be a fairly reliable eyewitness account of the Babylonians’ year-long siege of Jerusalem, and its outlook is pretty grim. Consider the following verses:
Alas, women eat their own fruit, their new-born babes! (2:20)
With their own hands, tenderhearted women have cooked their children. (4:10)
Biblical noir, indeed.
But no matter what time period I’m writing about, all my novels feature strong female characters who are underestimated, marginalized and ignored, who nevertheless manage to make their way with attitude, skill, and sheer force of will.
Your writing has crackling dialogue similar to usual “noir-speak. Also, you seem to alternate between crisp dialogue, and longer passages which appear biblical, lyrical, and prose-like. How is this different from your usual noir fiction?
I definitely chose to give some of the dialogue in the ancient sections a slightly “other” quality based on the grammar of biblical Hebrew. For example, ancient Hebrew has no word for “yes” (it definitely has a word for “no”), though many modern English translations use “yes” for economy. But in ancient Hebrew, the usual way of handling affirmative phrases in dialogue is either to repeat the question as a statement (Q: Have the horses been fed? A: The horses have been fed.) or to reply, “I will do as you say” in response to a command. This type of reply makes my protagonist sound more deferential than she truly is, underscoring the fine line she must walk to be accepted by the ever-suspicious Israelites.
Who are your heroes? Who is your inspiration? Writing and otherwise?
Any writer who tells it like it is despite the commercial and professional risks. As Hemingway said, “Just don’t play it safe… Even if it doesn’t work, you’re all right. The hell with playing it safe.”
How long did it take you to write? Is this your magnum opus?
This one is definitely my epic. (It even has 24 chapters, since the classical epics have 24 books.) It’s the result of about eight years of research and writing. The first draft took about two-and-a-half years, and sprawled across more than one thousand pages: Of course I knew that no editor on the planet was going to look at something that sprawling (the official nickname of this novel-in-progress was “the big, baggy monster”). So I cut about 200 pages on my own, then worked with an independent editor and cut another 200 pages. The pandemic lockdown helped, allowing me to set the manuscript aside for a time, so that I was able to look at it with fresh eyes and tighten the story even more. [A side note about the lockdown: I also read ten Cornell Woolrich novels during this period. Some of it must have rubbed off.]
How is this different from your other works?
Strangely enough, despite a decidedly noir debut with 23 Shades of Black (Edgar Award Finalist, thank you very much), the series, featuring Filomena Buscarsela–because it became a series, because a series protagonist has to come through in one piece–is closer to hardboiled, and as such contains a fair measure of the possibility of redemption. From Sun to Sun is really two novels, with two parallel stories, and the odds of redemption are not favorable in either one.
When it comes to doing historical research–or any other kind of research, really–some writers can get away with reading one book and faking it. My mother was a feminist historian, and she taught me by example that you don’t read one book, you read fifty books–and a few dozen articles. Plus I’m taking on the Bible, people. So I’d better know what I’m talking about.
But no matter what time period I’m writing about, all my novels feature strong female characters who are underestimated, marginalized and ignored, who nevertheless manage to make their way with attitude, skill, and sheer force of will.
Can you describe your writing process?
It’s a little bit like the formation of a planet: A bunch of dust particles start orbiting an idea, attracting more interplanetary matter as the gravity increases, and after a few years I’ve collected enough material for a novel.
I wouldn’t recommend this method, but it’s the way I work: When I started out with my series character, Filomena Buscarsela, I would take the notes for five novels, then write one. For my Jewish-themed noir historical, The Fifth Servant, I doubled that ratio to 10:1. And for From Sun to Sun, I doubled that to 20:1. For my next novel, I am determined to get the ratio back to a slightly-less-insane 10:1. But that’s my process, folks: Go big or go home.
William Blick is a film and literary/crime fiction critic; a librarian; and an academic scholar. His work has been featured in Film International, Senses of Cinema, Film Threat, Cineaction, and CinemaRetro, and he is a frequent contributor to Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of Noircon. His crime fiction has been featured in Close to the Bone, Pulp Metal Magazine, Out of the Gutter, and others. He is an Assistant Professor/Librarian for the City University of New York.
