Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Even though this book came out in 2005, I think this is a really relevant time to talk about it, and I’m not just saying that because I didn’t read it until now. The news is full of memoir authors who embellished their life story with sensational details such as the holocaust survivor raised by wolves or the white gangsta from LA. Still up until the moment in which they are outed by the press we believe their every word and detail. How could we be so cynical as to doubt the story of a victim? Even in this context I find it impossible to discredit the story of that boy soldier who spent a year in the hell of ethnic cleansing, not three years as he claimed in his book. Still many of these authors lack the sort of talent that makes for a compelling read, so it’s really just the assumption that it is all true that keeps us going.

Haunted on the other hand is an extremely well written novel of short stories strung along by a central narrative about awful writers trying to cash in on their pain and misery. They have all been lured to a writers retreat for three months of uninterrupted isolation from outside distractions. Soon they understand that their host intends to keep them committed to their work, meaning they cannot leave until the three months have elapsed. Realizing they are all being held hostage and that this is a highly marketable situation they all pitch in to make their living conditions as miserable as possible, just to have more details to share with the evening news and screen writers once they are finally rescued. By sabotaging the food, plumbing, and heating and blaming their host they end up with a tragic story worthy of a movie, but of course it is entirely fabricated. Meanwhile to entertain each other they tell stories up on a stage, usually preceded by a bit of freeform poetry. These 23 stories make up the bulk of the novel and are much more entertaining than the cartoony and heavy handed main plot.

The first story sets the tone marvelously with its casual perversion, wealth of dark humor and massively shocking and disgusting punch line. As horrifying as this story is at the same time it is one of the best short stories I’ve read in years and certainly the one that’s affected me the most. People who have read the book know what I’m talking about, a story so shocking that large groups of people fainted during readings at auditoriums. Therefore I won’t say a word about it, so that the reader can be as surprised as I was. Overall this book is very much about surprises, about strange and funny twists leaping out and forcing us to laugh at the worse things that humanity has to offer. No taboo is left unexplored, but even horrible subjects such as cannibalism and pedophilia are turned into entertaining social commentary when presented by Chuck Palahniuk’s agile prose.

The rest of the stories play out like a cross between American Psycho and the Twilight Zone, mixing pop culture and ultra violence with absurd “what if” scenarios. Be it multi-millionaires living on the streets or serial killers considering product endorsements, every tale is completely absurd yet well rooted in tabloid and urban legend. Still it’s hard to dismiss as a work of pure shock value; Chuck Palahniuk skillfully frames stories within stories as people talk about anecdotes they overheard or old family jokes. And every last gruesome detail is rendered in a language that is simple, evocative and poetic; making grotesque mental images an inescapable cost of reading the book. Even though some events are endlessly drawn out and repeated just to keep the main characters alive long enough to tell all their stories I still feel that this little bit of fat makes the work more digestible as a whole. You know, if you don’t lose your lunch after the first bite.