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Chuck Palahniuk's recent collection of short essays, STRANGER THAN FICTION, was not. Not stranger than his fiction, that is. Palahniuk, perhaps best known for FIGHT CLUB, is the author of several witty, original novels, all of which have characters engaging in taboo activities and challenging social norms and values. Often full of sex and violence and free-thinking individuals, Palahniuk's tales are much stranger and more interesting than the topics he covers in his essays. His latest novel, HAUNTED, shares much with his earlier ones, but unfortunately lacks some of what made those books memorable and unique.
HAUNTED is labeled a "novel of stories." It is, in fact, comprised of twenty-three stories as well as twenty-one poems and chapters that unify and explain the whole. The premise of the book is a group of aspiring writers gathered for a writers' retreat where they have agreed to isolate themselves for three months in order to devote their energy to composing their masterpieces. We know immediately that something has gone horribly wrong at the retreat: the writers are victims of Mr. Whittier and the opening poem alludes to violence and gore.
We learn from an unnamed narrator that the participants of the writers' retreat, almost twenty of them, were picked up on a bus by Mr. Whittier and his assistant, Mrs. Clark. But instead of being taken to a tranquil place to write and reflect, they all are locked in a huge, bizarre theater. Like the cast of "The Real World" or "Big Brother" they are forced to live in close and uncomfortable quarters, but here for the one-man audience of Mr. Whittier.
The prisoners do begin to create: not only do they tell their stories (these are the short stories within the novel), they begin to create an alternate account of their imprisonment, one that has them further victimized and one that they hope will make them famous with the blood-thirsty and tragedy-hungry media and public after they are rescued. Their kidnapping by Mr. Whittier, a shadowy sadist, inspires them to ensure that they are remembered as heroes and martyrs. They resort to horrific means in order to ensure that their suffering is extraordinary.
The short stories by each writer tell the tale of his or her life before the retreat and are usually that person's deep secret or life-defining moment. Mrs. Clark tells three stories, each describing the sad path that brought her to Mr. Whittier. These stories are racy, sometimes funny, always sad and uncomfortable. A few of the stories are the highlights of the book; glimpses into the odd lives of lonely and desperate people. The narrative between these stories that describes this retreat from hell also is funny in places, but overall the novel is lacking cohesion, probably because Palahniuk is trying to do too much. Alluding to literature's finest examples of group storytelling, especially the writers of the Villa Diodati where Frankenstein was created by Mary Shelley, and also satirizing America's obsession with both tragedy and fame, Palahniuk seems to lack focus, even though moments in the book are entertaining and successful. By the end, he has introduced too many disparate ideas and fails to unify any of them or make one overall point. Furthermore, he seems to care little about the fate of his characters, and so obviously the reader will have even less regard for them.
HAUNTED is mostly about the intersection of reality and fiction, and when Palahniuk puts his creative energy toward this theme the novel is funny, scary and thought-provoking. Othertimes HAUNTED seems to be about gratuitous violence and grossing out readers. Palahniuk's latest is not the best of his work, but it is not the worst, either. Devoted fans of his creepy hyper-reality fiction will surely find something in it to recommend this work, but others may want to check out FIGHT CLUB or CHOKE for an introduction to Palahniuk's fiction.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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