SEREN – Peter Gooch

April 8th 2025

“Deft, Sardonic, Hallucinatory”
—Literary Titan

It’s 1978, and the art scene in the Midwest is booming. Successful Detroit gallery owner Fairchild Moss secretly yearns to return to his first love—painting. When he comes into possession of a mysterious masterpiece, his life takes an unexpected turn. Perplexed by the imprint of a nipple in the thick paint, Moss is determined to unravel the painting’s mystery. So begins a darkly comic quest to uncover the story behind the eerie masterpiece and to locate the elusive muse who inspired it.

Praise for Seren

“Gooch delivers a surreal combination of suspense, of horror, of dread— his precision with language and imagery lends to a reading experience that is as hypnotic as it’s unsettling.“

—Emma Greathead, Third Coast Magazine

“Gooch has created a book that is—a redemption story, a love story, a mystery, an artistic closure, a haunting supernatural, and a huge catalogue of objects to desire (even the linen suits got me and I live in long-sleeved T-shirts).“

—Scott Archer Jones, Award-winning author of

The Moth, The Big Wheel, A rising Tide of People Swept Away, and others.

-Read Full Review

—Scott Archer Jones, Award-winning author of The Moth, The Big Wheel, A rising Tide of People Swept Away, and others. -Read Full Review

“Seren by Peter Gooch is a mystery and the tale of a deeply personal journey where art, memories, and emotions intertwine to illuminate the power of art as a reflection of man’s grief, guilt, desire, and longing.“

—Feathered Quill

“Seren is a fantastic book about an artist searching for a muse, and willing to risk everything to find her, and to use her, and to be used by her. It’s a trippy story and I was all in from the get-go. It’s a peek into the lives of artists and art dealers. it’s a story about the difficulty of knowing who we are and what we want. It’s a story about art and what makes it great or boring. It’s a story about inspiration and the lengths an artist will go to to find it.

Five Stars!”

—Paul Trammel, Author of

Until They Bury Me, and host of ‘Dream Chasers and Eccentrics’ Podcast

—Paul Trammel, Author of

Until They Bury Me, and host of ‘Dream Chasers and Eccentrics’ Podcast

“Artists and art lovers will find plenty to chew on, but even if you’ve never set foot in a gallery, the book’s humanity and humor are what really shine.”

—Literary Titan

“A page-turning thriller, a meditation on art, and a touching exploration of second chances, Peter Gooch’s SEREN is a novel that does all that.”

—Adam Prince, Author of

The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men

—Adam Prince

“The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men”

“In this arresting novel, Peter Gooch uses his impressive talents as a writer and painter to craft a gripping mystery centered on a masterpiece by landscape painter Norris Bainbridge. . . . Gooch’s hand with narrative and description is sure, and his knowledge of the milieu and characters carries the story along with satirical panache and absorbing suspense. Seren is at once a sharply comic satire of the art scene, a canny meditation on the nature of art, and an entirely absorbing murder mystery. Buy it. Read it. Enjoy.”

—Arnold Johnston, novelist, playwright, poet, and author of

Swept Away, The Witching Voice, and Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been

—Arnold Johnston, novelist, playwright, poet, and author of Swept Away, The Witching Voice, and Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been

“Peter Gooch’s Seren is above all a good read, suspenseful, comic, and diverting. Drawing on his own career as a fine visual artist, Gooch constructs a puzzle centered on the life and death of a renowned and reclusive painter, Norris Bainbridge, the key to whose demise is Seren, his beautiful and enigmatic muse. This novel skewers the pretensions and infighting of the art world in the context of a thoroughly satisfying mystery that will make readers laugh and think.”

—Deborah Ann Percy, fiction writer, playwright, and author of

Invisible Traffic and Dream Time (Susan Smith Blackburn Award Finalist)

—Deborah Ann Percy, fiction writer, playwright, and author of Invisible Traffic and Dream Time (Susan Smith Blackburn Award Finalist)

“Seren is a tour de force that dives into an artist’s deepest desires—a glimpse of immortality, or his signature on the ceiling of the local bar beside other renowned artists. Peter Gooch offers a cast of lively, well-rounded characters in an affluent artists’ world. The plot line quivers with energy and mystery as Fairchild Moss, a competent Midwest artist/art dealer, renews his singular talent for painting. Rooted in an archetypal battle between darkness and light, Moss is possessed by traces of the elusive and feral Seren, an artist’s model. It appears that she has circled the death of three artists who displayed with their last brushstrokes across the broad canvas of life a luminous splash of creation. Is she the muse his vision requires, or is she nature’s duende? Will a perfect fit with Seren’s lithe body produce a work of genius? Or will the artist sell his soul in a Faustian bargain for his signature on the ceiling?”

—Phaedra Greenwood, author of

Beside the Rio Hondo and co-author of Those Were the Days: Life and love in 1970s New Mexico.

—Phaedra Greenwood, author of Beside the Rio Hondo and co-author of Those Were the Days: Life and love in 1970s New Mexico.

On Writing Seren

In speaking about The Executioner’s Song, his Pulitzer Prize (1980) winning novel, Norman Mailer said, “Art is about the selection of detail.” He was likely quoting someone else, but nonetheless it stuck with me over the years. It may be stating the obvious, but it’s also true—as much in painting as in writing. From a world of facts and observations, a single well-chosen detail can make all the difference in a character, a painting, or a musical score. After SEREN was put to bed, I had some time to think about a few of the important details in the novel and why I decided to put them in and leave them in the final cut. In this section, I hope to offer a few thoughts on the subject of choices.