BEHIND THE NOVEL

WHY WE ARE,

WHAT WE ARE.

Perverse Expectations, is a contemporary fiction novel written from the perspective of lone American backpacker and diagnosed psychopath, Tristan Adler. When travelling along the Turkish coast of Bodrum, Tristan has a surprise encounter with a lost inebriated British couple who, in gratitude for his help, introduce him to their friend, West; a rebellious millionaire. Invited aboard West’s luxurious yacht, Tristan is happy to abuse West’s hospitality as his plan to swindle the millionaire blooms into action. However, as Tristan finds himself falling deeper into West’s Hollywood lifestyle, the picturesque view from the yacht hides a sinister underbelly; as the raucous façade of living free and rich, begins to reveal a web of money, power, and psychosis at the very top of the capitalist food chain.

Tristan’s encounter with West reveals the vulnerability of perceived male resilience - where Tristan's ignorant beliefs about how easy it is to manipulate and abuse the charitable nature of strangers, leads to his own downfall when stepping into an upper-class world of money, power, and greed. This story is a cautionary tale to young men at a peak time where red-pill conspiracies and the push for hyper masculinity is at current, circulating the internet on a daily basis.

However, Perverse Expectations, also aims to bring awareness to topics close to Tristan’s soul, such as mental illness and the effects of a negative perception of said illness; homosexuality, and the contention it brings with stereotypical male values such as husbandry and child rearing; and finally, male loneliness and the societal expectation to conceal emotions, and deny fragility. This novel required both a great deal of self-reflection and outward research of other human subjects, including research into personality disorders; Psychopathy, and Borderline Personality Disorder. Aiming to compile a broad spectrum of how these disorders bloom individually in different people, this is then built onto the foundations of our protagonist, Tristan, to create a unique blueprint of a human being - so as to not simply copy the traits of an individual already in our world, but to create new life.

Documenting a timeline of the experiences I’ve had that converged to the creation of this story, not only focusing on my Turkish heritage and memories spent in Bodrum, but into the finer details of why such a place would inspire creativity, or a desire to depict the coastal city through the eyes of a character who is quite the opposite to me.

This story comes from the mind, not the skin. I find myself living with the idea, the concept of what defines a man, incessantly crawling along the ridges of my female brain. Yet, despite the undeniable fact that I’m not a man, I’m certainly not a bystander. What a man is, isn’t just intriguing, but it’s also necessary for an artist like me who oh-so-enjoys writing male characters. It’s undeniably complex, and as the puppet master, it’s not as simple as writing a woman and then switching out all her pronouns and physical descriptors to that of a man. I have already written a plethora of men and women both over the years, but with this project in particular, I aim to put gender at the forefront. It’s no longer a question of putting other ideals above my male lead's train of thought, when his very goals are to live at the peak of masculinity.

Perverse Expectations, is about a man who is at odds with the dichotomy between him and a chance meeting with a callous millionaire. Peering into an unempathetic world where I attempt to solve two separate puzzles; the psychopathic coldness of trauma, and a diagnosis of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and the monetary coldness of a life without poverty; always getting what one wants. This story encompasses the psychological side of the male ego, pride, and duty, when conflicted with the sociological topics of financial superiority and the behavioural change in humans by the wealth gap. Its basis as a fiction novel is to keep one core subject at the forefront; entertainment. Where the subject of the male gender has thrived in academic discussions thus far, I now wish to bring it into the creative field. I believe this novel to be both a challenge to myself, and a challenge to the reader, to trust, that despite my physical appearance, I can appease their curiosity into the inner monologues of my male lead.

I often question how I can have the audacity to ask male readers to listen to my interpretation of how they think, to which my answer is; wrong body, same mind.

Soraya Caraca | AUTHOR

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ARTWORK & COVER DESIGN © SORAYA CARACA