“In November 1957 — two years before Psycho was first published — Ed Gein was arrested in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsinfor the murders of two women. When police searched his home, they found furniture, silverware, and even clothing made of human skin and body parts. Psychiatrists examining him theorized that he was trying to make a “woman suit” to wear so he could pretend to be his dead mother, whom neighbors described as a puritan who dominated her son.
At the time of Gein’s arrest, Bloch was living 35 miles (56 km) away from Plainfield in Weyauwega. Though Bloch did not look into the details of the Gein case at that time, it gave him an idea, and he began writing with “the notion that the man next door may be a monster unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town life.” Bloch was surprised years later when he “discovered how closely the imaginary character I’d created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation.”[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(novel)
I initially set out to look at the source novel for the film Psycho, but was struck by this section on Wikipedia focused on the inspiration for the novel. Particularly, I was struck by the quote by Robert Bloch, author of Psycho the novel: “the notion that the man next door may be a monster unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town life.”
I believe this really resonates with the novel, as it is constantly said that everyone knows everything about everyone else in a small town and the intense gossip that ensues. One could feasibly believe that close proximity and word-of-mouth information would lead one to grasp the nature of most people in one’s small community. This is seen distinctly in Psycho when Lila and Sam go to the chief who quickly dismisses their suspicions about Norman, having known him his whole life.
This is seen over and over again in What You See in the Dark. Some examples would be people believing in Dan’s kindness though he was capable of murder, the café girls assuming that Arlene was just a cold, old woman without knowing the hard life she has lead, and people assuming Candy is happy with Cal though she secretly lusts over Dan. To me, this is a facet of what “what you see in the dark” means; even in a small community, one never gets the full story, one simply sees an outline, like one would see if one saw someone in a dark room. Everyone has secrets, even within intimate relationships such as Dan and Teresa’s. For all we know, everyone has the potential to become Norman Bates, because we will never know a person as intimately as they know themselves.
I believe the other side of the title is also related to this idea of knowing and not knowing. I think “what you see in the dark” can be taken as what one sees when they are alone, or at night in one’s dreams and nightmares. No matter how often one sees another person around town, one can never penetrate that private place of dreams and fears. This relates to the theme of longing in the novel; longing for love in fear of being alone, for acceptance in fear of isolation, longing for another person in fear of monotony.