Man Alone: The Dark Book

by Jack Remick

Man Alone is set in and around a complex Seattle where Rat City meets the Billionaires' Club. Zene, a man alone, lives in a chaotic, sexually disruptive and violence-wrecked world. His life ruined after a chain of disappointments and falls---the fruits of his violent nature---Zene runs into Karizma, a love-creature from his past, and he's smitten again, knowing all the while that for him, there's no future in love. Not your basic romance, for sure.

Audible Audio

Published December 20, 2023

About the author

An accomplished novelist and poet, this author’s body of work explores the complexities of identity, isolation, moral conflict, and the human condition across shifting cultural and psychological landscapes. Blending literary depth with philosophical undertones, their writing spans novels, poetry, and collaborative works, often marked by introspection, existential tension, and bold narrative structure.

BOOKS

Valley Boy (Second Edition)
A defining work that captures themes of dislocation, personal struggle, and the search for meaning, set against a vividly rendered backdrop.

No Century for Apologies
A critically recognized novel shortlisted for the prestigious Hoffer Grand Prize (2023), examining the weight of history, memory, and consequence.

Citadel (A Novel)
A compelling narrative that navigates power, confinement, and the structures, both internal and external, that shape human lives.
Blood

A stark and evocative work that confronts primal instincts, violence, and emotional fracture.

The California Quartet
A sweeping four-part literary series mapping psychological and cultural terrain through interconnected narratives:

The Deification — Book One
Valley Boy — Book Two (First Edition)
The Book of Changes — Book Three
Trio of Lost Souls — Book Four

Gabriela and the Widow
An award-winning novel celebrated for its emotional depth and exploration of womanhood and resilience. Recipient of Best Women’s Fiction at the Orangeberry Virtual Book Expo; Montaigne Medal Finalist; Book of the Year Award Finalist.

COLLABORATIVE WORK

The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery (co-authored with Robert J. Ray)

A practical and insightful guide for aspiring writers, combining craft expertise with accessible instruction on constructing compelling mystery narratives.

POETRY

Satori: Poems
A contemplative collection reflecting moments of clarity, awakening, and inner transformation.

Songs of Sadness, Joy and Despair for the Anthropocene
A powerful and unflinching poetic work blending long-form verse and the sequence Josie Delgado, capturing the emotional and existential weight of modern existence.

ADDITIONAL FICTION

Doubles in a Game of Chance
A surreal and haunting novel centered on a bureaucratic nightmare, following a disoriented protagonist trapped in an absurd, relentless system.

Man Alone: The Dark Book
A deeply introspective and shadowed narrative examining solitude, identity, and the darker edges of the human psyche.

Reviews

[Emily Anne]

Man Alone: The Dark Book is a haunting and introspective read that pulls you deep into the mind of isolation and survival. The author does a strong job of creating a tense, almost suffocating atmosphere, where every moment feels heavy with meaning. While the pacing can feel slow at times, it adds to the emotional weight and realism of the story. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a memorable one—perfect for readers who appreciate darker, more psychological narratives. ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Zene had settled into that helpless zone where life zips by without saying hello and you wind up years older than you should be in human time, the time you wasted stacked up behind you taller than the mountain of the future waiting, and you are afraid that your past will catch up with you and she will tell you the truth in a long sentence that always begins with because…”

The ellipsis is Jack Remick’s in this novella, Man Alone; Zene, his central alone man. This single sentence condenses Remick’s cleverness. In a swoop, he depicts a relatable condition, here, of a figure in his story, and strings the words according to the thought process of that figure, and even jokes–directly and indirectly—about what makes a sentence. A sentence, many of us were taught, may not begin with “because,” and has it ended if there is no period, only an ellipsis? And, yes, a sentence may be a paragraph. A paragraph, a sentence. Further, this particular sentence-paragraph addresses the huge question: How do we spend our limited time?

Remick’s book brings many such huge questions to mind. Why does anyone with “everything” behave poorly? When we have little to lose, are we more likely to commit criminal choices? How much of our circumstances do we control? What is worth dying (living) for? What matters? Zene poses one of his uncertainties aloud, “Is there a moral question?”

In Man Alone Remick imagines a cast of sad and morally-challenged characters, some heinously villainous in their everyday behaviors. Gird yourself.

[Katherine Perrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack Remick's Man Alone: The Dark Book is not a novel you read so much as one you endure and survive. It is a stark, unflinching plunge into the underbelly of Seattle, a world where desperation and violence are the only currencies that hold value . Described as "Pacific Northwest noir," this novella follows Zene, a man whose life has been systematically dismantled by his own violent nature and a chain of crushing disappointments . When he re-encounters Karizma, a dangerous woman from his past, he is instantly consumed by a passion he knows holds no future, setting them both on a collision course with their own personal abysses .

The power of Man Alone lies in its brutal economy. At just over 100 pages, every word feels curated, every line of dialogue and description essential to building its suffocating atmosphere . Remick has been praised for creating a new genre of "Pulp Literature," delivering prose with the deadpan, poetic precision of a detective on a crime-trail . The writing is visceral and immediate, using sensory details, particularly smell, to ground the reader in the primal, desperate minds of its characters .

What makes this story so compelling is its refusal to offer easy answers or redemption. Remick imagines a cast of "sad and morally-challenged characters," some who are "heinously villainous in their everyday behaviors" . Zene is an anti-hero who elicits not pity, but a grim understanding of a man who has lost everything and is simply waiting for the inevitable . The central relationship between Zene and Karizma is less a romance and more a "beautifully disturbing power struggle" . The novel's climactic moments are shocking, but feel like the only logical conclusion to a story steeped in such darkness. As one reviewer aptly noted, the book is "an intimate gut punch" that will sear itself into your memory

[Arleen Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man Alone is classic Jack Remick – a prolific writer who digs deep into the dark underbelly of modern civilization and takes readers to places we don’t always want to go. His characters are people we may not want to spend time with but who ask questions we need to address. Man Alone is a story of human despair in a world where “[c]ivilization once locked the chains on evil. Laws punished men who let it out … The katagogic spiral spun down until the only goodness left in the race lay in the moment of conception when pure innocence had not yet been perverted by a single breath.” With the skill of a master, Remick keeps us turning pages in a voyeuristic desire to see what happens next like drivers slowing to gawk at high-speed collisions.

[Kerri Hakoda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man Alone follows the nocturnal lives of characters groping their way through darkness – Zene with his night-shift job, losing himself and his loneliness in the pitch blackness of his sexual obsession with Karizma. Karizma using the cover of night to escape the brutal confines of her memories and her marriage. Both clutching and clawing at each other as they fall into the inevitable abyss. With his vivid, beautifully sparse style, Jack Remick demonstrates that “less is more.” Man Alone is only 104 pages long, but every word is curated, every description and line of dialog integral and necessary. With Man Alone, Jack Remick has distilled his own brand of distinctive Pacific Northwest noir.

[Jack Remick · Rating 5 out of 5]

reposting this review from Midwest Book Review. Gotta love Michael J. Carson--

Deftly crafted, singularly unique, and provides its readers with an inherently fascinating and emotionally visceral literary experience, “Man Alone: The Dark Book” is a compulsively compelling novella and one which will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after it has been finished and set back upon the shelf. “Man Alone: The Dark Book” is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, community, and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.
Michael J. Carson

Reviewer, Midwest Book Review