Austinist Book Review: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (Yeah, the book is 6 months old, so what?)

Dear Chuck:

Chuck, buddy, you suck man. We were enjoying a pleasant Sunday morning breakfast of goat cheese frittata and bread pudding at Pacha as we started your latest novel (a novel of stories), Haunted. Half way through our meal we had to give up, both on the meal and on the first story because if we didn't, we would surely throw up. We are by no means exaggerating. We really wish we were. We were nauseaus, sweating, breathing rapidly. We tried to think the most pleasant thoughts possible so that we wouldn't have to spew in the Pacha bathroom. It's a gruesome first story. It's gruesome in a way that attempting to describe what occurs would hardly give justice to its gruesomeness. Palahniuk has some kind of amazing talent for making one feel like spewing. From what we've read, we aren't alone. Palahniuk has said that on his book tour at least a couple of people have fainted at every reading.

It took us a few days to recover and get back to the novel. And then, months to get through it. It was a painful read, to say the least.

Haunted centers around a group of unusual characters trapped in a building as part of writer's retreat they had signed up for. All seem to be escaping from something, even if it's just the boredom of an ordinary life. All write autobiographical stories which make up half the novel. In between Palahniuk explored what happens when desperate people make certain they have extraordinary experiences. According to these folks if you ain't rich, famous, or fodder for a lifetime movie of the week, then you ain't much at all. While every one of the characters in the book has suffered through unusual--if not downright ridiculous--circumstances, they've all got it in their heads that only major suffering, trauma, and tragedy will give them a story people will want to listen to. Life as a globetrotting foot massager is no match for severed limbs and starvation.

This was our first Palahniuk novel, and likely our last. We loved the movie version of Fight Club, but have to suspect that its director David Fincher infused that story with a humanity that Palahniuk seems to have trouble finding.

Haunted is about being despicable, disposable, and disgusting. The characters murder, lie, maim, and, good god, become cannibals. To read Haunted is to be at turns nauseous, angry, repulsed, and, finally, fed up. Oh the humanity.