User:Michaelpoint/Michael Point
Michael Point is a fictional character in the supernatural crime-thriller novel Contract, written by Simon Spurrier and published by Hodder Headline.
Character Biography
[edit]Point works as a Contract Killer living (but never willingly working) in London. He goes to great lengths to demystify his profession; dismissing the more outrageous clichés propagated by Hollywood Movies. This leads to a series of "nuts-and-bolts" explanations of the humdrum realities of the job: the construction of silencers, the purchase of weapons (such as his favoured Ruger MkII .22 pistol), the disposal of bodies, etc. At frequent intervals he makes the point that he's neither sadistic, immoral, vengeful or thoughtless; but rather wilfully amoral. He does what he does simply because so few others will, and because of his simplistic life philosophy:
"It's All About The Money."
Point appears to have constructed a dissociative self-reality in which he considers himself unsubtle, stupid, uninteresting and flawed. In fact his "simple" exterior conceals a myriad of conflicting emotions, unhappy backstories and self-deceptions.
While not working he pursues an almost hermitlike existence within his North-London Flat, engaged in "exploring the world, but cutting-out the middleman": essentially doing little but watching television documentaries and aimlessly surfing the Internet. This has lead to an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of random, useless trivia - which he calls "Borrowed Wisdom."
His favoured method of killing "clients" is to shoot them at point blank range with hollowpoint bullets filled with heroin (kept in liquid suspension by lemon-juice) - inducing immediate, and fatal, overdose.
He attempts to distance himself from the natural guilt experienced after each job by picking up random girls from London nightclubs for casual sex. "Self distraction," as he has it, "is the new self destruction - which was yesterday's new self improvement."
Developments and Supernatural Influences
[edit]From an early stage in the novel, Point begins to doubt his sanity when one of his "clients" appears to return to life after being murdered. This cycle of death-then-resurrection gradually becomes more common, until Point must either accept he's losing his mind or consider alternatives. One such is that he has somehow become a pawn in an overarching metaphysical conflict: an earthly manifestation of the biblical "War In Heaven." It is the ambiguity of this possibility that drives Michael in the latter stages of the novel.
Character Voice
[edit]As both protagonist and narrator, Michael Point's snappy, neurotic syntax defines the novel's pace: a narration which relies heavily upon rhythmic repeat-phrases, invented words and portmanteau composites. This narrative style appears to reference in its heritage distinctive "voice"-authors such as Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut and Bo Fowler.
Marketing Strategy
[edit]One conceit of the experimental marketing strategy of the novel Contract, which attempts to generate interest digitally (as have other debut artists in other media - see Arctic Monkeys, Snakes on a Plane), is that Michael Point is a "real" person, reaching-out to tell his story via Internet Forums and social-network websites such as MySpace.
This marketing strategy will see the generation of an increasingly viral web-presence dedicated to Michael Point and the novel, culminating – for a limited time – in free digital access to the text.