‘Structure, Image and Ideas at play’: A revisitation into the select Medical thrillers from a Grotesque lens

INSTITUTION: Department of Humanities and Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India. Medical thriller is one of the bestseller genre fictions among the popular fiction category in the contemporary times according to publishers and booksellers’ list. In spite of that fact, it has been relegated to the margins of literature based on the academic critique of being ‘low literature’ and also as an embodiment of clashing bioethical facets that perplexes the reader's mind. Against this grain, this discussion attempts to argue that medical thriller is a significant contribution as a genre and a cultural phenomenon, primarily drawn from a grotesque lens. Grotesque in these novels are displayed as a ‘play’ in its various representations, engagements, use and effect of the techno-driven medical culture which Frances S. Connelly asserts as very much intrinsic to the ideation of grotesque in The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture (2006). Such a stand engages the reader enlightening with some insights about these novels which have received a blind spot from the earlier two critiques. Besides, giving insights of the insider and outsider perspective, the affectation on the readers resembles the distorted art of the grotesque. The distorted reality/view displayed by the novels intend to observe the reality of the real in its various manifestations which the paper studies as a technique of grotesque aesthetics reasserting its significance.