Domestic noir: History and Key Facts

Domestic noir is a literary subgenre within crime fiction. Though used earlier in discussion of the film noir subgenre, the term was applied to fiction in 2013 by novelist Julia Crouch, who has been described by crime writer Elizabeth Haynes as "the queen of domestic noir". Crouch defined the subgenre in her blog:

In a nutshell, Domestic Noir takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants. That’s pretty much all of my work described there.

Crouch's novels, Cuckoo, The Long Fall, Tarnished and Every Vow You Break, had previously been categorized as psychological thrillers, a label she felt inadequate: 'The engine driving my work is more an unravelling than the high octane roller coaster suggested by the word 'thriller'.'

The term was embraced by fellow novelists, including Rebecca Whitney in an article in the Independent newspaper, where she describes her own subject as 'the toxic marriage and its fall-out.' Whitney quotes Sophie Orme, Senior Editor at Mantle, on the appeal of Domestic Noir:

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Domestic noir by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.