A light, funny, and audacious novella that relies as much on screwball comedy as it does hard-boiled noir, with more than a dash of Manischewitz wine
Solomon, or Sol the Wise Guy, has a problem. He lives on the borders of Hornytown, which is an annex of Hell that has now popped up in the middle of D.C. He used to work for the police force, but now has gone private. It’s a classic noir setup, except the woman who comes to his office is a demon, and it might be that she actually didn’t kill the Mayor of Hornytown like she said she didn’t. Sol is going to have to load up on a lot of Manischewitz wine. And maybe even stronger stuff, like chicken soup, to deal with what’s arrayed against her... and now, him.
This is the story in Andrew Hiller’s novella Hornytown Chutzpah.
The novella runs on, and will succeed or fail for the reader, on the conceit that the Christian theology is correct, with a few twists. Satan clearly exists, and demons are a thing, and you can really lose your immortal soul or bargain with it. Consecrated food and drink really is your best defense. But Sol is not Catholic, not even Christian. He’s Jewish, so when he goes armed, it is not with holy water and communion wafers; it is with a water gun filled with blessed Manischewitz wine.
In keeping with that, the novella’s tone is a bold genre-splitting mixture of a few influences. First of all, it runs on noir movie beats that anyone who has watched a few of them will recognize. Sol is the classic private detective that you can recognize and love: former police officer, barely making rent, a cupboard existence at best. Enter the femme fatale who needs his help (which is a demon in this case) because no one else can help her. Urrie is depicted perfectly in the role, a demon who may not have actually done the murder that everyone has said she did, but can you actually trust a demon’s word on that? Sol is in over his head, and we are soon on the tracks of the noir story in classic fashion, and the author hits those beats. Of course the cops come immediately on Urrie’s heels, right out of a noir movie. After that, we are plunged into Sol and Urrie having to flee into Hornytown in an effort to clear her name and find out what really happened with the mayor’s death, and who really did it, and why. Sol gets reunited here and there with some old associates, some friendly, some hostile, some neutral, and begins his investigation in earnest. All streets will eventually lead to the Mayor’s residence and the revelation of the true circumstances of his death, but it follows noir beats all along the way.
In addition to the noir beats, there is definitely an undertone of sometimes screwball comedy to the proceedings. Again, keeping in the era that this story throws back to in many respects, this novella owes as much to His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby as it does to The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep. The novella is noir, but it plays a lot for laughs in a light and frothy tone throughout. Sure, we can believe that Sol and his friends are definitely in danger, but it is leavened frequently by strong notes of humor.
And then there is the tone that underlies it all, and really, is what will make this novella work for you or not. It is really the central conceit of the story. Hiller has written it from a strong Jewish perspective that feels a bit like a flanderized and deeply immersed version of NYC-style Jewish culture. I’ve already mentioned the wine, but it goes far deeper than that. Word choice, idiom, Yiddish phrases, and a perspective from entirely within that community prevail in the book from start to finish.
The first paragraph sets the tone for the entire book. Your reaction to this paragraph, in essence, will tell you whether this book could be for you or not. I suspect, given just how out of the usual bounds the novella is, that was precisely the point:
The sheyd passed by my mezuzah like it was a smoke detector without a battery. The furshlugginer thing was supposed to protect the first born, but my dime store tchotchke just blinked blissful ambivalence. Underneath my desk, my toes clenched and unclenched.
Really, what I have said to this point, and that paragraph, tells you whether this story is for you or not. There is a glossary at the end, written casually, to some of the terms and phrases and ideas. I didn’t need it myself, since I grew up in New York and had plenty of contact with the community and many of its members. You can’t live there and not pick up some of it. If you are truly confused, I’d still advise you to not look at the glossary before reading the novella, because it does in fact inadvertently spoil the ending.
Even for it being comedic noir, this worldbuilding the presence of someone who is religious and immersed in a culture that is not the default Christian culture of America¹ is an interesting and clever choice. I suppose you could write this story from the perspective of, say, a devout Italian Catholic, with holy water and communion wine and communion wafers, but it would not be as funny. Spraying holy water on a demon is something that happens all the time in fantasy with a Christian theology. Shooting a demon with a super-soaker full of blessed kosher wine is, as far as I can tell, never been done before in fantasy fiction.² For all of its comedy and playfulness, the novella really does have a strong message about doing good, doing right, and being a good person, regardless of one’s religious trappings. In keeping with that, the novella, I am happy to report, is queer-friendly and inclusive. I think the author may have missed a trick in not making Sol himself queer, but he is following the noir track between Sol and Urrie, so that would have defused and depowered their relationship significantly.
Hornytown Chutzpah, like a good noir movie, keeps the pace lean and mean and knows when to move the plot along so that the story doesn’t flag. Like a screwball comedy, it knows exactly when to hit the comedy beats and when to become more serious (although it leans more toward the former than the latter). And it knows when to hit you in the heart and soul, like a nice bowl of chicken soup from your Bubbe on a cold winter’s day.
At the time of the publication of this novella, it is being funded on Kickstarter.
Highlights:
- Strong fusion of noir, screwball comedy and Jewish humor
- Lean and mean; never overstays its welcome
- For all of its origins, inclusive, modern and welcoming
Reference: Hiller, Andrew. Hornytown Chutzpah (Atthis Arts, projected 2026).
¹ I am not going to say Judeo-Christian, because, in my experience, many who use that phrase are piggybacking on the first part and only mean the latter in practice.
² It does feel like something Poul Anderson could have cooked up with Stainslaw Lem. About the only contemporary author I can think of that would even contemplate a scene like this is Lavie Tidhar.
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.
