Diary

By: Chuck Palahniuk

Narrated by: Martha Plimpton

“CAN YOU FEEL THIS?”

Chuck Palahniuk, the bestselling author of Fight Club, Choke, and Lullaby continues his twenty-first-century reinvention of the horror novel in this scary and profound look at our quest for some sort of immortality.

Diary takes the form of a “coma diary” kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in a hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she’s been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he’s remodeled and scrawling vile messages all over the walls—an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter’s case. Angry homeowners are suing left and right, and Misty’s dreams of artistic greatness are in ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. But can her newly discovered talent be part of a larger, darker plan? Of course it can …
Diary is a dark, hilarious, and poignant act of storytelling from America’s favorite, most inventive nihilist. It is Chuck Palahniuk’s finest novel yet.©2003 Chuck Palahniuk; (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House AudioBooks, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Just for the record, Diary is as hypnotic as a poised cobra. Chuck Palahniuk demonstrates that the most chilling special effects come not from Industrial Light and Magic but from the words of a gifted writer.”
— Ira Levin, author of Rosemary’s Baby

Interesting

…to say the least
I’ve always known Chuck was a peculiar author, but this one is a new level of creepy. I do enjoy the underlying message, however.

It's slow until the moment you can't stop

It took me 5 months to get through the first 4 chapters and 2 days to get through the last 3. Huge Chuck Palahniuk fan and this may be my favorite of his I've read so far. You don't know what the story is really about until over halfway through then it all comes together and I love that. Brilliant piece of literature, I hope it survives for generations.

Classic Chuck!

A short story, but just long enough. Lots of fun to listen to. Well read.

Voyeurism into madness

Diary is a brilliant journey through madness as a self portrait that is not for the faint of heart. It is one more masterpiece of satire and social commentary by one of literatures most important nihilist, Chuck Palahniuk. Unbuckle your seatbelt and let the ride take you as deep within yourself as you are willing to go.

The uninitiated need not apply

Palahniuk has a knack for writing with a kind of obsessive feverishness that bleeds into the novels and, usually, the readers themselves. A trademark of his previous novels (most especially Choke and Survivor) are twisted, alluring central premises that start out too bizarre to wrap your head around and slowly resolve themselves into a satisfying internally consistent logic. Usually, this process leaves a few plot holes and loose ends in its wake, but what the hell, it's a good ride.
Diary is more mature than Palahniuk's former novels: the thematic structure is strong, the trademark gruesomeness is more subtlely and effectively applied, even the phrase repetitions are more significantly placed, if still used a bit liberally for my taste. But the novel still falls into the trap of biting off more than it can chew, and it raises an awful lot of questions, about the protaganist's husband, the town's history, and its own internal logic, that it never gets around to answering. Palahniuk's fans are used to chalking a few up to surrealism and not letting it get to them, but anyone who hasn't read Fight Club should be prepared to have the hell bugged out of them by the niggling questions.
As for the narration, it's competently done, which is saying a lot for the work: epistolary pieces by ANYONE are tough to narrate without infusing an emotion that obfuscates the significance of the words themselves, and lumping the wry sarcasm of the main character on top of that makes for a fairly difficult narration. I would have preferred less colour to it, but it doesn't get in the way. What did bother me (and may bother others who have read Palahniuk before they listen) is the pace: the author often spends pages spooling out a single twist in the plot amongst a bevy of meaningless detail, a device which works well on the page where you're free to rush through it, heart pounding, to get to the end of the segment, but which is simply torturous in audio form.