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A Dark Journey Into A Killer's 'Personal Effects'

A Dark Journey Into A Killer's 'Personal Effects'

Have you ever wished you could e-mail or telephone a character from a book you're reading? A new "multiplatform transmedia experience" by authors J.C. Hutchins and Jordan Weisman offers readers the opportunity to do just that.

Hutchings and Weisman's new interactive novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art, follows art therapist Zach Taylor as he struggles to evaluate a blind psychic serial killer. The novel unfolds in traditional chapter form, as well as via a series of "personal effects" that belong to the characters - including business cards, photos and legal documents, which are included in a pouch attached to the book's cover.

"The intent of this is to make the reader more than just a passive ingester of the entertainment, but to become an active participant in the story," Hutchins tells NPR's David Greene. "The idea was to fundamentally blur those lines between fiction and reality."

Further blurring those lines? Additional phone numbers and Web sites - including a blog created by the main character's girlfriend - that allow readers to gather more clues about the story.

Hutchins is credited with writing the novel, while Weisman was responsible for assembling all the extra content.

Weisman likens the experience of exploring the book and its additional offerings to finding a stranger's wallet on the street: "You want to return it to the person who lost it, but you feel kind of dirty just looking through it, because there's nothing more voyeuristic than looking through someone's pockets or their wallet," he explains.

"All of the sudden these characters aren't remote. These characters are much more real now because they are in your world. You're holding the contents of their wallet in your hand. You can call them on the phone; you can e-mail them and get responses," says Weisman. "It makes the story much more immediate."

Because the protagonist is an art therapist, he's not as interested in solving crime as he is in helping his patient. The sleuthing, says Hutchins, is left up to the readers, who are encouraged to gather clues from the book's additional sources.

"The reading of the book is a vicarious experience. And then there's a subtle transition into a first person-experience, where you're now going to take on the detective role yourself and solve things that Zachary Taylor didn't solve," he says.

Originally printed at npr.org, click view for more information

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At a recent lecture given by long time subversive artists Gilbert and George, there was a fantastic point made which highlighted the absurdity of institutionalised religion and the anomalous status it's given in today's society.

They said something along the lines of....

"Imagine if a biscuit company was able to sell itself the way the church does. The biscuit company would probably be able to do a lot better if it was able to offer eternal life (in addition to biscuits) as a reward for your money"

Now the idea also works in reverse.

Imagine if there was a company that didn't pay tax, had little or no oversight from the state legal system, was found to be fingering children- had tried to hide it- their leader and the leader's brother were both implicated and they still refused to open themselves up to public scrutiny.

You probably wouldn't buy their biscuits would you.

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