An Ontology in Crisis: Review of  Erik Larson’s Groundless Noir

Filip R. Zahariev Under Review:Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction. Erik Larson. Bucknell University Press, May 2026. RNoir is defined by cynicism, insecurity, vulnerability, and what Vivian Gornick once described as “the inability to feel the reality of your own life, or anyone else’s”. An all-pervading feeling of uncertainty is present in every facet of noir’s characters and setting. Scholar Erik Larson chooses to define this mood as “groundlessness”. Rather than just concentrate on the breakdown in meaning inherent to noir, Larson chooses to also examine the fluidity necessary for an individual to survive worlds that continuously unravel meaning, truth, and subjectivity alike. His project seeks to exemplify ways in which this sense of groundlessness “creates a new sense of ground”. In effect, he looks to move noir theory past the point of deconstruction, where much of literary theory has left it over the past half-century, choosing instead to develop an…