This is an unashamedly literary novel whose preoccupation is less with telling a story in all its constituent parts and more with creating atmosphere and examining themes to do with films in general and the film “Psycho” in particular. I’ve never seen Psycho, and maybe I would have got along better with this if I had, but that said I still found things to enjoy within this novel - the bit where one of the characters is stuck in a car in the motel car park is particularly tense, and if you read it like a series of loosely connected short stories then each one is pretty good. The author writes with tremendous skill and confidence, and I’m pretty sure if he set about writing a novel that started at the beginning and ended at the end and left in all the dramatic bits that this one left out I’d think it was great. But I suspect he’s not that kind of author. ( )

When a famous actor and director arrives in Bakersfield, California (1959) scouting film locations for an upcoming movie about madness, the local gossip columns begin to speculate why they are here. However, when a murder at a roadside motel is discovered, this dusty, quiet town is turned on its head. Unfolding the same way the Hitchcock’s movie Psycho, almost frame for frame. No one ever predicted that life would rival anything that this director could capture on the screen.

Manuel Muñoz has been dazzling the world with his short story collections for a while now, often been compared to Junot Díaz or Daniel Alarcón. What You See in the Dark is his debut novel and it explodes onto the scene to explore the deliciously sinister side of desire. Heavily influenced by Psycho, Muñoz tries to capture that iconic feel of this classic movie.

What I found fascinating about this novel is the way it did try to mimic Hitchcock’s Psycho, trying to capture the feel and style. While it does not always work I was very impressed with just how much did translate to the page. Manuel Muñoz is a very impressive writer and I went into this book expecting something light and fluffy but ended up being captivated by the style.

What You See in the Dark is a very stylistic novel that tried and often succeeded in playing with the imagery, however it often did stick to what novels do far better than movies, and that is the internal monologues. The book is not without its flaws, there are times where it tries too hard at mimicking Hitchcock and there are other times where it feels flat or dry. In the end, this was an enjoyable book with a perfect title. What do you see in the dark? Hitchcock knows and he has the answer.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2015/06/26/what-you-see-in-the-dark-by-manuel-mu... ( )

Manuel Munoz's novel has the feel of film noir, from the classic story of girl with dreams meets boy and things go horribly wrong, to the fading Hollywood actress sent to film a handful of scenes for a new movie in Bakersfield, California. There's a crime here, but no mystery, unless it lays in the buried dreams and motivations of the residents and migrant workers.

This was a beautifully written book, with as vivid a setting as could be hoped for. Set fifty years ago, in an agricultural town dependent on migrant labor, there'e a wonderfully nuanced cast of characters, from the girl, Teresa, who lives in a room above the bowling alley, and who is a little lonely and a little hopeful, to her boyfriend's mother, whose income depends on a motel on the road into town, a motel that will be bypassed by the interstate being built a few miles away, to the actress, who wonders if this next film will mark the end of her career and whether she cares.

I'll be looking for Munoz's short stories and I'm looking forward to seeing what he writes next. ( )

Brooding, atmospheric, and with the feel of film noir threading its pages, Manuel Munoz's novel What You See in the Dark is unlike my normal reads, edging close to claustrophobia and hinting of menace. A multi-stranded narrative weaving the tale of a solitary, poor girl, Teresa, and her developing relationship with the town's golden boy, with the spare and unfulfilling, disappearing and seemingly irrelevant life of his mother Mrs. Watson, and the arrival in the town of Bakersfield of a famous Actress and Director (Janet Leigh and Alfred Hitchcock) as they start work on Psycho.

When the narrative focuses on Teresa and Dan, the narration is addressed to the reader as if s/he is a woman in the town whose jealousy over the developing relationship remains palpable even as she pursues her own boyfriend giving that thread of the novel a slightly prurient feel and keeping the reader distant from both Teresa and Dan themselves as characters.

The narration of Arlene Watson's portion of the novel focuses on her feelings, her past and the way in which life has passed her by, leaving her invisible and unable to grasp life and accept the future. There is a resigned inevitability to her character and to her life that bows her head and weighs down her shoulders, manifesting in the story of her abandonment by her husband and in the way in which she cannot see that the motel she owns is going to be obsolete, lonely, and as empty as her bitter life once the new freeway bypasses it.

The portions of the novel concentrating on the Actress and Director take their lead from the reality of movie making. There are technical bits, concerns over character motivation, and the delicate work of creating realistic artifice. The Actress wonders about her role and the trajectory of her career. The Director, exacting and controlled, looks to create art, pushing the boundaries of reality in film only to come up short against these exponentially expanded boundaries in the future.

As all three of the parallel stories wind together, there is a terrifying inevitability and a hopelessness that pervades the novel and the shocking act of violence at its core is neither unexpected nor anticipated. The writing is visually rich and symbolic. Munoz keeps a steady tension throughout the novel, slowly pulling back the shower curtain to show the blood mixing with water and swirling down the drain, disappearing. Quietly desperate and terrible, this forbidding and complex novel tapers off in the end neither embracing the change coming nor eschewing it. ( )

Change-both progressive and regressive-is the theme of this quiet thriller set in Bakersfield, California in the 1950s. Three stories are told that intersect in varying ways, leaving the concept of "what you see in the dark" meaning entirely different things. Darkness is the time to ruminate over bad decisions, the time when crime often occurs, and the only way to see a movie-all demonstrated in this novel.

As the book begins, we're introduced to a young couple who defy their small town's expectations by dating, even though their 'interracial' relationship is a scandal. He's white and successful, a veritable catch, while she's a poor Hispanic, living alone in poverty, abandoned by her mother. As the town gossips, the story seems to be on track for a fairly predictable resolution...that is, until you realize that the narrator isn't identified. Who is this person that seems to be watching and seeing what is going on in the lonely town? This unknown element changes the novel, making it less predictable and adding tension.

While this is going on, a famous Actress comes to Bakersfield with a Director to film a new and somewhat scandalous new movie, using the small town as a location to set their prospective movie. I was terribly annoyed by the way the Actress and Director were only referred to by those titles...it became annoying. Yet, it's not long before you figure out that Munoz is alluding to Janet Leigh and Alfred Hitchcock, and that the movie is a not-subtle nod to the film Psycho. The film's elements also refer to change, in the form of what is seen on film in terms of morality and violence.

Amid this is a small hotel (Bates, anyone?) on Highway 99 facing obsolescence due to the progressive new I-5 freeway being built nearby. (I've driven these roads before, so it's easy to picture the setting.) Again, change threatens to alter both lives and the city itself, and when a unexpected murder occurs, the intersections all make sense.

At times the story loses its rhythm, often in lengthy asides wherein film history (European vs. American style) is analyzed for far too long. Yet, in other places, the methods of filming and lighting individual scenes is fascinating. It's almost as if there's too much knowledge packed into the novel that might have made an excellent nonfiction film exploration.

In any case, I didn't really get attached to any of the characters. Arlene, mother of the popular young man and owner of the hotel, is a sad old woman living in the past, and who doesn't want to move forward. The young Hispanic woman, Teresa, seemed far too stereotypical to be believed; too dependent and needy for a young woman already managing on her own. And the Actress, who studiously analyzes her role and the implications of it, comes off more like Pollyanna than real.

The setting of Bakersfield is spot-on, however: the street names, weather descriptions, even the crops and sports are all true to life. The anomaly of this small town being just a few hours from Los Angeles, yet world's away culturally, and the conflict between both ways of life, is something that propels much of the action. ( )