Abstract
The African crime novel, an emerging literary genre, is often mirrored on a Western method of writing. The topos of the city, drug-use related crimes, human trafficking and urbanization are ubiquitous in various sub-genres of detective and crime fiction, including political, medical and legal thrillers. In this paper, I critically analyse South African author Chris Karsten’s 2012 crime novel The Skin Collector, The Skinner’s Revenge (2013) Face-Off (2014) with a specific focus on the use of medical narratives in South African crime novels (and medical thrillers), which has received limited attention from researchers. The following questions are raised and answered: What does medical knowledge add to crime novels? Does it establish some form of equilibrium between rational science and the murderer’s irrational mind and behaviour? Can the reader remain ‘safe’ from the novel’s reality if perceived rational scientific knowledge forms the counterpart of Lotz’s ‘madness’? While the detective’s goal in most crime novels is to explain an event (a murder) that seems inexplicable to the reader at first, Karsten inverses this dynamic by making Lotz—a crazy, irrational individual—the character with the most accurate and highly developed medical knowledge. In this way, the reader remains interested, invested and captured by the narrative until the last page.
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Notes
- 1.
The trilogy was first published in Afrikaans (Abel se ontwaking (2010), Abel se lot (2011) and Die afreis van Abel Lotz (2012)) and subsequently translated into English and published by Human & Rousseau in South Africa.
- 2.
Initially perceived as paraliterature, crime fiction is slowly becoming an accepted literary genre (e.g., Mouralis 1975).
- 3.
This list is an indication that mainly white South African crime novel authors have specialised in this genre and achieved local and international readership and reputations.
- 4.
In Headline Murders and Unsolved (Human & Rousseau), Chris Karsten goes beyond the headlines, giving us an opportunity to become intimately involved with some of South Africa’s most notorious and heinous crimes and criminals.
- 5.
Killer Women-Fatal South African Females.
- 6.
According to the online Collins Dictionary, a tsantsa is “(among the Shuar subgroup of the Jivaro people of Ecuador) the shrunken head of an enemy kept as a trophy”.
- 7.
For example, Masks and Masking: Faces of Tradition and Belief Worldwide by Edson, Gary; McFarland & Company, 2005.
- 8.
Amongst the ‘abject art’ discussed by Foster are the works of Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, John Miller and Mike Kelley and an exhibition ‘Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art’ at the Whitney Museum in 1993. Foster (Foster 1996: 152) highlights that on several fronts in contemporary art, a battle has been waged to evoke ‘the real’.
- 9.
Other ‘abject materials’ the taboo-violating artist can incorporate include dirt, dead animals, rotting food and bodily wastes, such as blood, vomit and excrement.
- 10.
Novels in the serial killer subgenre have proliferated in many language domains since the late 1970s and early 1980s.
- 11.
Part III of The Skinner’s Revenge starts with a quote from Momo Kapor’s The Provincial: “Nobody can be as vicious as an angry child, deeply convinced of the justification of his hatred… One cannot expect mercy from a boy (…) who has tried to survive evil as best he could” (Karsten 2013: 224). This quote may refer both to Abel Lotz and Milo Boonstra (who saw his father being shot to death, his mother’s demise after she was raped, and his sister being disfigured and unable to have children, also after a vicious rape in Sarajevo in 1991).
- 12.
Muti refers to traditional herbal medicine.
- 13.
The reader finds out in Part One that Lotz’s mother had killed her husband and son when they had “sinned”.
- 14.
Another noteworthy example of medical knowledge is highlighted on page 87 of The Skinner’s Revenge: « He had faith in Diprivan. (…) Doctors – often fond of insider jokes – jokingly referred to it as “milk of amnesia”. Propofol was a strong sedative, usually administered as an anaesthetic, but in Diprivan, propofol was a quick-acting tranquiliser. Within forty seconds of being administered, either by intravenous drip or by injection into a large vein in the forearm, the patient fell into a coma. He would use Dr. Lippens’ pad to write a prescription for Diprivan Injectable Emulsion with 10 mg/mL propofol per vial” (Karsten 2013: 87).
- 15.
“Even when the scalpel was in his own hand, he never made unnecessary cuts” (Karsten 2013: 59).
- 16.
“He felt the pulse under his fingers falter, like the fluttering of a bird, then die. To make certain he took out the stethoscope and pressed it against the doctor’s chest. Nothing. He got up, put the stethoscope back into the pocket, buttoned the coat and set to work with the Russell knife. The first incision was in the hairline on the doctor’s forehead, the exact location where a skilful cosmetic surgeon would insert his scalpel to execute a traditional facelift. Not the three fine incisions that allowed an endoscope entry to perform a “weekend” facelift.” (Karsten 2013: 73).
- 17.
Another description of this procedure can be found on page 353 of The Skinner’s Revenge: « He took the needle and vial from his pocket, drew the liquid into the syringe, tapped out the air bubbles, replaced the cap, and left for his appointment with Mr. Poppe Junior.”
- 18.
“I normally use my thumbs. I have strong, skilful thumbs (…). Normal air contains twenty-one per cent oxygen (…). If the oxygen falls to fifteen per cent, you lose coordination (…). At ten per cent you lose consciousness (…). If it goes under eight per cent, you lose your life” (Karsten 2013: 304).
- 19.
The procedures for tanning and preserving skins are further detailed on pages 372–373 of The Skinner’s Revenge.
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Ferreira-Meyers, K. (2019). Medical Narratives in the South African Novel: Case Study of Chris Karsten’s Trilogy The Skin Collector (2012), The Skinner’s Revenge (2013) and Face-Off (2014). In: Görgen, A., Nunez, G.A., Fangerau, H. (eds) Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90677-5_15
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