Old noir regaled us with gangsters, mob assassinations, bank robberies, and femme fatales. Contemporary noir drops these cliches, using today’s themes to uncover uncomfortable contemporary truths about ourselves in a modern context.
Noir has an advantage. It switches up storytelling by giving readers insight from the criminal’s side. We see things through their eyes (instead of the investigator’s). We watch and understand what they’re doing when they’re doing it.
Perpetrator viewpoints are rare in modern literature, so we rarely meet their minds. Most crime stories aim to solve a crime puzzle and then wrap it up by sending a bad guy to jail. It’s crime’s perfect happy-ever-after story, gifted with a nice bow on top. Everyone smiles and sleeps well at night.
Modern noir, neo-noir, doesn’t necessarily send readers balloons and presents. Happy-never-after is a suitable theme, too; doing this takes us away from well-worn tropes like good over evil, etc.
Neo-noir usually grinds its narrative against a familiar social backdrop. The archetypal gangster is lost, giving way to a range of new and highly accessible characters who embark on their journeys through today’s morality minefield. In many cases, the characters are so relatable that they challenge us to look at our past indiscretions, including those that evolved in our minds but never reached our hands or lips.
SEETHINGS is a shocking new neo-noir novel by an Australian author.
Michael Forman created a sinister new protagonist. Using a storm-enraged city as a backdrop to a series of macabre, hard-to-solve murders, a camera enthusiast believes he witnesses the perpetrator’s actions while following his passion for shooting the perfect lightning strike.
Forman relentlessly pursues his psychopath’s twisted journey in and out of sanity, giving us insight into the demons that his protagonist claims are inside all of us. It is a neo–noiristic style that Forman has mastered well.
Expect no bloodbath here. Forman has found a sophisticated way to keep the suspense without the gore (or fantasy demons). The murders are cringingly compelling. One review provided by author Linda J Bettenay, says of Forman and this book: “His word pictures are stark and disturbingly real.”
Forman admits that the novel is, at times, heavy-going.
“I wrote this story to uncover the birthplace of a murderer. I had to locate the exact moment when an ordinary, well-grounded citizen snaps. The reader should finish the book believing the events inside could’ve happened to anyone, maybe even someone they know and love.”
It would be accurate to say that Forman’s animal is made of the stuff that humans fear most − that of the inner self and what it’s capable of when pushed too far.
SEETHINGS is self-published, available through SMASHWORDS, downloadable and free for a limited time.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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