The writers who have influenced me the most are Joyce Carol Oates, Ruth Rendell, Patricia Highsmith and Laura Kasischke. Below are links to my thoughts about why I love the work of these writers, but first my view of Noir and why I think Suburban Noir is a fitting description for my novels and stories.
My fiction isn’t strictly Noir in the historical sense. It doesn’t have the “emphasis on sexual relationships and the use of sex to advance the plot”. This isn’t to say my work is “sex-less”, my first novel has a character with femme fatale qualities, but sex is not the driving force of the plot. Like Noir fiction, I explore “the self-destructive qualities of the lead characters”. Noir reflects the type of stories that haunt me.
Noir Fiction is considered (according to our collective expertise recorded at Wikipedia) a sub-genre of Hardboiled Crime. The protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. She is someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called in to solve or fix the situation.
I started playing with the notion of “noir” to describe my fiction because it was frustrating to mention psychological suspense and have that interpreted as “mystery” or “high stakes thriller” — readers looking for those traditions will be disappointed with my stories. I couldn’t understand why people interpreted psychological suspense as “thriller”. Then a writer on the now-defunct blog, Two Blowhards, helped me understand why:
“Ever run across discussions of this genre [psychological suspense]? I can’t imagine why; it’s not very well known in America. England and France have much more developed traditions of psych-suspense fiction.”
Poor me, born and living in the US of A where the genre I love is not very well known. Michael Blowhard goes on to describe the genre, pointing to the novels of Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith as examples, as well as films such as “Lantana”, “Alias Betty”, “Unfaithful” and some of the quieter Hitchcock movies:
“What characterizes the genre? I find it helpful to keep in mind that it isn’t a mystery-fiction subgenre; it’s really best thought of as a crime-fiction subgenre. That helps take some weight off the idea of “mystery.” Its main characteristic, though, is it generally uses a crime as a pretext for opportunities to look into personality and sociology. There’s a murder or a kidnapping, sure — but often in psychological suspense you know from the outset who did it. ie., from a mystery point of view, there’s pointedly no mystery. And often the central character, if there is one, isn’t the investigator but the criminal.
Suspense? Well, kindasorta. But seldom of the rushing-to-a-breathless-climax sort. There’s often a tone of dread or malignity — you’re watching or reading about curious, fated, peculiar things, people and actions.”
My fiction also includes elements of psychological horror.
If you like a quieter mood of suspense or dread, if the worlds you want to explore exist inside the infinite intricacies of the human mind, you’ll probably enjoy my Suburban Noir fiction. Thanks for stopping by.
Patricia Highsmith — Coming soon.
Laura Kasischke — Coming Soon.
Pingback: A New Home in Cyberspace | Suburban Noir
Pingback: Suburban Noir
Pingback: Fatal Friday: Noir is the New Black | Suburban Noir