Books by Mark Seltzer

In The Official World Mark Seltzer analyzes the suspense fiction, films, and performance art of Patricia Highsmith, Tom McCarthy, Cormac McCarthy, J.G. Ballard, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others to demonstrate that the modern world continuously establishes itself through the staging of its own conditions.

Using crime as his canvas, this work offers an analysis of how cultural fantasies, fears, and desires have blurred the distinction between fiction and real event, from Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories up to Patricia Highsmith's ambiguous "Ripley" and the rash of reality TV shows.

Seltzer draws upon popular sources, scholarly analyses, and the language of psychoanalysis to explore the uniquely modern phenomenon that is the serial killer.