Organ heist medical thrillers : a grotesque perspective

Abstract

John Ruskin, in his book The Stones of Venice claims that the genius of a work depends on its quality of being “grotesque” or in the “incapability of understanding it” (158). Perceived in this light, this study unravels the complexity and significance of the organ heist medical thrillers, a category within bestsellers. Grotesque studies of medical thrillers recognize that medicine is not a monolithic entity and it can contain both negative and positive aspects of medical institutions and professionals. A study of organ heist medical thrillers contributes to the existing literature by giving a fuller understanding of our contemporary society, medical institutions, and medical professionals in different contexts. Falling under the umbrella category of popular fiction, genre fictions are mostly considered literature ‘of the people and for the people.’ Organ heist medical thrillers are just a single subgenre among the many permutations of the thriller genre. ‘Organ heist medical thriller’ is not a term in vogue, but one identified and used throughout this thesis on the grounds of the running theme of organ theft. It has been synthesized by borrowing from ‘organ heist’ (a term used by Brunvand) urban legends and combining it with the medical thriller genre. To understand the usage better, Martin Rubin’s definition in the introduction to his debut work Thrillers (1999) is useful. He writes that thriller is a hybrid concept, one which is at once quantitative and qualitative. Although Rubin does not write about medical thrillers in particular, his broad definition of thriller explains well the qualities of the genre. According to Martin Rubin: [T]he thriller often involves an excess of certain qualities and feelings beyond the necessity of the narrative: too much atmosphere, action, suspense– too much, that is, in terms of what is strictly necessary to tell the story […] The thriller works primarily to evoke such feelings as suspense, fright, mystery, exhilaration, excitement, speed, movement […] it emphasizes visceral gut-level feelings, such as tragedy, pathos, pity, love, nostalgia. (5) Organ heist medical thrillers have all these features; their one unique additional characteristic lies in the usage of medicine as a specialization. One of the commendable features of the genre is its high readership; it can be said that their near-universal appeal underscores the readership.