Haunted: A Novel (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: old man cashier, movie fragment, slick guy, Miss America, Saint Gut Free, Comrade Snarky (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post

This guy Chuck Palahniuk, he wrote Fight Club and Choke and Lullaby and some other good books. Fight Club, that was really good, and it was a great movie, too. It was dark, that kind of dark you get when you have a really clever idea, a surprising plot twist, some scary disturbed characters. But this writer, Palahniuk, he makes them feel real to you, like you might not want to sit next to these people on a bus but if you met them in another situation -- like a 12-step meeting or summer camp or the fight club in Fight Club -- under those circumstances, you might think, "These are people I could relate to, these are people I'd like to know more about, maybe, as long as I could get away from them if I had to."

Just so you understand, this guy Palahniuk, he's written some good books. But not this one.

You might pick this one up and read the premise on the back of the dust jacket: "WRITER'S RETREAT: ABANDON YOUR LIFE FOR THREE MONTHS. Just disappear. Leave behind everything that keeps you from creating your masterpiece. Your job and family and home, all those obligations and distractions -- put them on hold for three months. Live with like-minded people in a setting that supports total immersion in your work. Food and lodging free for those who qualify. . . . Before it's too late, live the life you dream about. Spaces very limited."

You'd think that sounds like an ideal scenario for Palahniuk -- a chance to skewer our notions of fiction, of reality, of our culture's obsession with fame and the notion that writing is just another route to celebrity; that anybody, just anybody, can write a book. Because he gets this group of people together, people with silly cartoony made-up names, and they all want to be writers, or at least they all want to be famous. And they all get on a bus and go to this place that they think is going to be great.

Only it's not. It turns out to be an old movie theater, and once they're inside, they can't get out, like they're locked in for three months; and the food is all freeze-dried, not gourmet at all, and everything is pretty disgusting and shabby and meaningless and depressing and disgusting. Did I say that twice? I forget, because this book, it's kind of repetitive, and it's also really, really gross.

Each character in the book tells a short story. Each also tells a poem, which is not such a good idea, as the poems aren't very good. In Lullaby, Palahniuk's really creepy novel from 2003, there's a poem that kills people who hear it, but I don't think anyone's going to die reading stuff like this: "The film: a shadow of a reflection of an image of an illusion."

In between the stories, there's a narrative about the people locked up in the movie theater. This isn't a very good idea either, as the people mostly complain about each other, and the freeze-dried food. They also talk a lot about celebrity and reality shows, without really saying anything new about them. After a while they start cutting off their fingers and toes, I guess because they're hungry. Some of them die. They start eating each other. Which isn't in itself a terrible idea, because some people like to read about stuff like that, as in the Hannibal Lecter books, and Marianne Wiggins's John Dollar, and even stories about the Donner Party. But in Haunted, even the cannibalism is kind of boring.

But some of the stories are good. Maybe you've heard about this story, "Guts," which is the one story everyone's heard about, because Palahniuk, when he read it at bookstores and readings and places, people who heard him read it, they threw up, or fainted, or something.

But that story, "Guts," it's pretty funny, in a totally gross-out way, and I laughed at it, and I didn't throw up. But only a few of the other stories are as good as that first one. "Foot Work," the hippie Mother Nature's story, is funny in a satirical way; it's about foot reflexologists and people like that who become assassins. And "Obsolete," the last story in the book, is excellent; kind of like a George Saunders story, or an episode of the old "Twilight Zone" TV series gone berserk. But that's only two stories out of 23. And don't forget the poems, and the linking narrative. So not a lot of bang for your book.

The stories in Haunted reminded me a little bit of stuff by Roald Dahl; not his kids' books, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Witches, but his stories for adults, the ones in Someone Like You and Switch Bitch and Kiss Kiss. Only the stories in Haunted have a lot more explicit sex in them. But it's not much like real sex. It's more like the kind of sex you imagine if maybe you're a 13-year-old boy who doesn't really know anything about it and likes jokes about bodily fluids and really bad smells. Sort of Garbage Pail Kids sex. Only, like I said, kind of boring.

"To become a household word," says Chef Assassin, "all you need is a rifle." Or maybe just a movie and a big book contract.

Because, by the end of this book, I was wondering if maybe Chuck Palahniuk got his idea from real life. Like, I was wondering if maybe his publishers locked him in a room for three months and told him he had to write a book really fast, and they'd pay him a lot of money if he did. That happens to writers when they become celebrities. They think maybe it's a good idea, because it's a lot of money, and their fans -- the people who buy their books no matter what -- well, they're going to buy this one too.

But you know, if something like that happened, not in a story I mean, but in real life, to a cult writer as talented and cutting-edge and interesting and popular as Chuck Palahniuk -- well, that would be really scary.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Hand
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (April 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400032822
• ISBN-13: 978-1400032822
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (313 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,269 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Churn your stomach, May 1, 2006

By	Steven R. McEvoy "MCWPP" (Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Haunted : A Novel of Stories (Hardcover)

Chuck Palahniuk is most known as the author of Fight Club, the book that became the movie with Brad Pitt and Ed Norton; and overnight Palahniuk had a cult following. Erie, scary, and terrifying; if I had to use three words to describe this book, that would be it. Robert A. Heinlien the classic Science Fiction author once quipped "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." Of this book I would state, "One man's perversion is another man's pleasure." This book will hit both, depending on who you are and your sensibilities.

This book is a collection of short stories, written by characters who are on a writer's retreat. They all responded to an ad to "give up three months of your life and create the masterpiece you have always said you would". Each of the 18 respondents had an idea of where they would be going - to a large country estate, a camp in the woods; yet the reality is they get locked into an old ornate theatre house. They have food, shelter, and facilities, yet all doors are locked, all windows bricked over and no way out.

From there the book becomes a cross between Fear Factor, Survivor and your most feared horror story. We see the depths to which people will descend to achieve fame and riches. Palahniuk, during the current book tour, was reading the first story called `Guts' and to date there have been 63 people who have passed out with many people being injured falling into book cases in book stores. This book will at times, turn your stomach, but will give you an understanding of the darkest side of human nature.
Readers beware! This book is like the fight club movie on super steroids.

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Upchuck, strikes again, May 1, 2006

By	Steven R. McEvoy "MCWPP" (Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Chuck Palahniuk is most known as the author of Fight Club, the book that became the movie with Brad Pitt and Ed Norton; and overnight Palahniuk had a cult following. Erie, scary, and terrifying; if I had to use three words to describe this book, that would be it. Robert A. Heinlien the classic Science Fiction author once quipped "One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." Of this book I would state, "One man's perversion is another man's pleasure." This book will hit both, depending on who you are and your sensibilities.

This book is a collection of short stories, written by characters who are on a writer's retreat. They all responded to an ad to "give up three months of your life and create the masterpiece you have always said you would". Each of the 18 respondents had an idea of where they would be going - to a large country estate, a camp in the woods; yet the reality is they get locked into an old ornate theatre house. They have food, shelter, and facilities, yet all doors are locked, all windows bricked over and no way out.

From there the book becomes a cross between Fear Factor, Survivor and your most feared horror story. We see the depths to which people will descend to achieve fame and riches. Palahniuk, during the current book tour, was reading the first story called `Guts' and to date there have been 63 people who have passed out with many people being injured falling into book cases in book stores. This book will at times, turn your stomach, but will give you an understanding of the darkest side of human nature.
Readers beware! This book is like the fight club movie on super steroids.

74 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 2 stars for the main story, 5 stars for the short stories, May 3, 2005

By	D. Bakken "dobak" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Haunted : A Novel of Stories (Hardcover)

I have enjoyed all of Palahniuk's past books in varying degrees. A few are worth 5 stars, the rest 4 stars, but all of them have been consistently enjoyable. Unfortunately, his new book is not consistently good.

I read somewhere in an interview that Palahniuk has originally planned this book as a novella and then would release the short stories separately. While a book of just these short stories would have been worth 5 stars, the novella about the writer's retreat could have damaged his career. I hate to say it, but it is just not very good, and not even close to what he can write.

The main story about the writers who go on the retreat is just not believable to me. In a normal Palahniuk book you meet some really weird people who do some crazy stuff but it manages to barely stay within reality. Not this book. I just can't picture people hacking off body parts, ruining their food supply, eating each other, and intentionally sabotaging their escape just to be able to cash in on the book and movie royalties about their experiences when they finally "get" out. It has some classic Palahniuk moments, but the plot is just too unreal. Also, I never found myself caring even the slightest bit for any of the characters. They could have all died or all lived and I would not have cared.

However, the book is not without merit. The characters who attend this retreat write some stories and it is these short stories that are the shining light of this book and the reason that I rated it a 4 instead of a 3. Almost all of them are good and some of them are just plain great. The now infamous story "Guts" is included, along with others that are almost as nuts.

I find it hard to criticize an author whom I enjoy so much, but I know he has the talents (proven in the past) to write something much better. The book is worth buying for the short stories (I am sure many people will also like the main story) though I can't help feeing that it could have been one of his best books if the main story had been more realistic.