Who is Noire?

I was initially stymied as to Noire's identity. She said in an interview last year that Noire is, in fact, her real name, and that she has a brother named Niger and a sister named Nisaa. I tried searching the New York City directory and voter-registration rolls for these siblings. No luck—in fact, I could find no listing for a woman with the first name Noire in the entire tri-state area.

Then I noticed something curious in the e-mail interview I conducted with Noire: She put the trademark symbol next to the phrase "Urban Erotic Tales." So, I did a search on the Web site of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and found filings for a pending trademark on "An Urban Erotic Tale." The applicant for the trademark is Urban Erotic Tales by Noire, a limited-liability corporation registered in Delaware; on the application, the corporation's president and sole officer is listed as Tracy Price-Thompson. (Do a search for serial number 78824799 if you'd like to see for yourself.)

This was the first of several data points that suggest Price-Thompson and Noire are one and the same. I searched for additional trademarks owned by Price-Thompson and found just one other, also pending: "From the Streets to the Sheets," a tagline used by Noire at her Web site. The applicant's signatory is "Tracy Price-Thompson DBA Noire"—DBA stands for "doing business as." The mailing address was listed as a post-office box in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Price-Thompson resides. (The serial number for that pending trademark is 78819522.)

The connections didn't stop there. The same post-office box was listed in a filing with the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, registering Noire as a trade name in that state; the registrant is Urban Erotic Tales by Noire LLC. According to a Network Solutions WHOIS lookup, Price-Thompson is the owner of the domain name urbanerotictales.com. And both Price-Thompson and Noire are represented by the same literary agent, Ken Atchity of Atchity Entertainment International, and share the same editor, Melody Guy.

The last tip-off was something Guy said during my interview with her. She mentioned off-handedly that Noire also writes under a different name, which she refused to divulge. But she added that Noire's other works weren't street lit; Price-Thompson's novels, which are more traditional erotica, certainly don't exhibit much thugged-out flavor.

I e-mailed Price-Thompson to ask whether she is Noire. She responded graciously but cryptically: "While Noire probably gives me some credit for her success, I certainly don't claim any as she's accomplished great things all on her own." I gave her a chance to clarify this position, asking flatly whether she could confirm or deny that she was Noire. Another kindhearted reply followed—Price-Thompson said that she knew Noire personally, and had "played a small part in getting her manuscript noticed."

I finally confronted Price-Thompson with the coincidences I'd uncovered. The explanation this time was that she'd assisted Noire in setting up the corporation and applying for the trademarks. "I am more than happy to assist her in blocking the public's probing eyes," she wrote. Price-Thompson added that she has helped several young authors get their manuscripts noticed by editors: "I've done it for lots of authors, especially those I'm close to, and I'm very close to Noire."

I also got back in touch with Noire via e-mail, and noted all of the connections between her and her alleged mentor. In contrast to the cheerful Price-Thompson, Noire seemed ticked off by my inquiry: "You ask to interview [me] about my books and drag my family and friends into it? Not cool." She did not, however, address my primary question—whether Noire is a pseudonym for Price-Thompson.

There's no way to be 100 percent certain that Price-Thompson is emulating one of her favorite authors, Stephen King, and writing under a pseudonym. (King wrote several novels under the name Richard Bachman.) Despite all the coincidences, a few things give me pause—for example, the mention of a New York City post-office box on the trademark application for "An Urban Erotic Tale," or the dramatic difference in tone between Price-Thompson and Noire's e-mails. It's possible that Price-Thompson is telling the truth, and using Delaware's corporate laws to conceal the identity of a dear friend. Still, it's best not to forget Occam's Razor in situations like this: Given the preponderance of evidence, it seems most likely that Price-Thompson is Noire.