Psychedelic Noir

What is Psychedelic Noir?

Sept. 21, 2025

Psychedelic Noir, as I aim to write it, involves twisting the classic noir aesthetic into something beyond its initial intent.

Noir emerged based on the rise of atheism, existentialism, moral messiness, and the newfound potential for wars that could annihilate the human world. In other words, from the beginning, noir grappled with the hopelessness of seeing the possibility of not only one's personal death, but capital-d Death, the Death of the world.

Further developments problematized the assumptions made by early noir, leading to the birth of neonoir, which retained tropes and aesthetics while modifying and updating them to fit changing anxieties.

Psychedelic Noir moves into new territory again, claiming noirness while modifying it to include the emerging sense of an irreal world lacking in consensus reality. In our time, collapse isn't only physically occurring. It’s simultaneously occurring at the deepest corners of our collective psyche. We can no longer find the threat merely outside. We are infected with it like a virus. Steeped in hopelessness and existential threats. Bombarded with them daily via uncountable media streams. But we are also facing a lack of consensus with respect to how and why.

Psychedelic noir explores the current mental territory through the use of plot devices that encourage the slippage of established reality in the world of the story. This is a technique familiar to those interested in related genres, like psychedelic novels and film, not to mention slipstream.

Psychedelic noir is not necessarily experimental, though there's nothing wrong with it going there. It can have a sense of humor, but it isn't mere parody. It can turn noir tropes on their head, but it remains noir in essence. You know? The vibes. How do you define essence in this case? I guess you can be the arbiter. I'm only speaking for myself here.

I see two major areas which I want to establish as set within the realm of Psychedelic Noir:

One - The narrative is always contemporary. Regardless of if the setting of the story is in the past, Psychedelic Noir retains a contemporariness. It's about what's happening now. Maybe we could argue that any historical fiction is actually contemporary in its execution. Whatever. The point is we're not ignoring the world. We're engaged in the terrors of the time.

Two - DIY aesthetic. Psychedelic noir is made by messy authors. The greatest range of expression comes from taking ownership of one's creative acts in a way that forces a holistic approach. For instance, I'm not saying you can't outsource cover designs or layout. All I'm suggesting is the author takes care of what they can at as many levels as possible. Markets tell the same old story over and over again. They search for what already sold and try to sell it again. And let's be honest, the major goal of the business end of things is to move units. I believe the creative world is tragically bereft of real out-there thinking. That's because it's risky. But Psychedelic Noir is risky! The maximization of subjectivity conversely teases out unexplored corners. Corners of human experience that may well be universal but have so far been left to fester as uncertain, quiet secrets. "Am I the only one who thinks this? Is there something wrong with that?" No!

Now I'm gonna cheat and add another condition. In my view, Psychedelic Noir is pulpy as well. I'm talking about the kind of novel you pick up on a whim and finish in an afternoon cause you can't put it down. And it's short! But more than that, it doesn't take itself too seriuosly. We're not writing the great american novel here, we're writing a great whatever-country-you-live-in novel. Great in that it moves and breathes. That it's weird in a personal way. The joy of picking up a random book in a used bookstore for a couple bucks and being blown away by it, only to find out no one you know has ever heard of the book or the author. That kind of pleasant surprise that sends you back to the first page to read it again when you're feeling down, like comfort food. And yet, the reader should never be too comfortable. The sky is falling, remember?

Psychedelic Noir produces new stories unlimited by the restrictions of genre conventions, yet still usefully constrained by their aesthetic orientation. In all cases, narratives present a questioning of reality as we know it, whether through use of psychedelic substances by the characters, or through the emergence of situations that shatter the reality of the characters. We find antecedents of both modalities in the great psychedelic writings of Phillip K. Dick or Thomas Pynchon. The idea is not to reproduce any works, but to pay homage, learn, and evolve. Have fun! Bend some minds with a nice book you can finish in a couple days.