Voyoucracy in Benjamin Black's Irish Noir

Abstract

In this chapter, I contend that the Derridean term “voyoucracy” lends itself for the interpretation of the Quirke series, published by John Banville as Benjamin Black. The novels dwell on all the elements of connivance, and illegality hinted at by Derrida and also on the forces at work in practices of State secretiveness that have been widely explored by secrecy critics. Such postulates are particularly useful for the analysis of Elegy for April (2010) and April in Spain (2021), where Blackhighlights the artifices that pervaded Ireland’s capital city in that period. Through the story of the eponymous character April, that is introduced in the first book and revisited in the most recent one, the author examines the means whereby crimes could remain concealed under the auspices of the web of power and influence sustained by high-rank political and religious figures and the Irish newspapers. My main argument is that a vouyeocratic milieu permeates the texts, ultimately capitalising on the totalitarian, dogmatic, and undemocratic conditions of the mid-twentieth century order.