Haunted

February 21, 2005
What elevates Palahniuk's best novels (e.g., Fight Club
) above their shocking premises is his ability to find humanity in deeply grotesque characters. But such generosity of spirit is not evident in his latest, which charts the trials of a group of aspiring writers brought together for a three-month writer's retreat in an abandoned theater. The novel intersperses the writers' poems and short stories with tales of the indignities they heap upon themselves after deciding to turn their lives into a "true-life horror story with a happy ending." They lock themselves in the theater, reasoning that once they're found, they'll all become rich and famous. They raise the stakes of their story by first depriving themselves of phones, and then of food and electricity; eventually they cut off their own fingers, toes and unmentionables before they start dying off and eating each other. Palahniuk tells his story with such blithe disregard for these characters that it's hard not to wish he had dispensed with the novel altogether and published, instead, the 23 short stories that pop up throughout the book. For instance, "Obsolete," about a young girl about to commit state-mandated suicide, and "Slumming," about rich couples who pretend to be homeless, play so deftly with expectations and have an emotional core so surprising that they consistently, powerfully transcend their macabre premises to showcase the heart beating beneath the horrors. Agent, Edward Hibbert at Donadio & Olson.

January 1, 2005
Never answer an ad that says, "Artists' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months." Palahniuk's 23 characters did, and now they're hungry, isolated, and telling more and more desperate stories.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2005
In this over-the-top gore fest from Palahniuk (" Fight Club, " 1996" ; Lullaby, " 2002), a group of aspiring writers move into a locked, windowless theater to write their masterpieces under the guidance of a (seemingly) old man. The story of their hellacious retreat-kidnapping is interspersed with poems about the various writers and stories by them. Convinced that they will one day sell the story of their dystopian nightmare for millions, the writers seek out suffering to make their lives saleable: they starve themselves, lop off body parts, cannibalize, and so on. The stories here vaguely resemble ghost stories, but rather than being scary, they're just disgusting. Sex dolls shaped like children, a fetus aborted by Marilyn Monroe, a pool intake sucking out a man's colon--you get the picture. There's a point to the madness--Palahniuk is exploring our yearning for suffering and our newfound desire to make our misery marketable. The allegory is sometimes very clever and pitch-black funny. But " Haunted " provokes a lot more nausea and eye rolls than deep thoughts. One hesitates to criticize a novel featuring a chef who murders people who review his dishes poorly, but we'll take our chances; this novel will please Palahniuk's hardcore fans and few others. But he certainly has his many and devoted fans. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

July 11, 2005
One of Palahniuk's more sweeping and macabre offerings, this is a collection of 23 short stories and poems generated at a fictional writer's retreat turned grotesque survival camp. The pieces range from the stomach-turning to the satirical or the absurd. The seven readers tackling the decidedly offbeat Palahniuk are, for the most part, refreshingly successful. Cashman is a standout, narrating the action at the retreat. His voice shuttles nimbly between the male and female writers, while maintaining the integrity of his own unnamed character. Morey's narration is disappointing on "Guts," the novel's most notorious and gruesome tale, which has reportedly caused some listeners to faint. Morey sounds too mature and polished for this series of wicked adolescent masturbatory nightmares. In general, the multivoiced narration is practiced and professional, with the trio of actresses turning in particularly strong performances. The other side of all that spit and polish is that Palahniuk's humor is occasionally stifled. Some listeners may wonder whether the author's prose is so singular that only he might be capable of delivering it. But overall, an engaging, albeit lengthy, listen. Simultaneous release with Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 21).

May 1, 2005
Sixteen bizarre characters with appellations like Comrade Snarky, Chef Assassin, and Mother Nature voluntarily lock themselves away from the world in an abandoned theater to write, ostensibly amid no distractions. Their short stories and poems make up half of Palahniuk's latest novel (after "Diary") and may or may not be their back stories; the rest of the tale centers on a cast of lunatics who sabotage their own environment and destroy their own food and life-support mechanisms until they are reduced to cannibalism in what self-consciously becomes a parody of reality television shows like "Survivor". Palahniuk casts aside all constraints in this twisted saga of antagonists without a protagonist. The short stories would work if taken singly and at intervals, but strung together they become a catalog of atrocities. Palahniuk is a clever and inventive writer, but this book is recommended only for public library readers with strong stomachs and morbid dispositions. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/05.] -Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.