Haunted

By: Chuck Palahniuk

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Marc Cashman, Erik Davies, Kimberly Farr

Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter, sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined "Writers' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months", and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of "real life" that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them. But "here" turns out to be a cavernous and ornate old theater where they are utterly isolated from the outside world, and where heat and power and, most important, food are in increasingly short supply. And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more extreme the stories they tell, and the more devious their machinations become to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/nonfiction blockbuster that will surely be made from their plight.

Haunted is on one level a satire of reality television: The Real World meets Alive. It draws from a great literary tradition, The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, the English storytellers in the Villa Diodati who produced, among other works, Frankenstein, to tell an utterly contemporary tale of people desperate that their story be told at any cost. Appallingly entertaining, Haunted is Chuck Palahniuk at his finest, which means his most extreme and his most provocative.

©2005 Chuck Palahniuk (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[The stories] consistently, powerfully transcend their macabre premises to showcase the heart beating beneath the horrors." (Publishers Weekly)

Chuck at his best

This is probably Chuck's most profound work. The man is an honest to god national treasure.

Loved this book!!!

I believe I found my new Favorite Author!!! I’m going to read all his books

Grotesque

This book was grotesque in the most beautiful way. True to Chuck's style, he brilliantly shows humanity by conveying the true ugliness within us all. I loved it. If you don't want a book that promotes thought and critical thinking, this book is not for you.

Brilliant.

Challenging and original, but unrewarding

This is both one of the best and one of the worst novels I have encountered. But mostly it is one of the worst.

The writing is powerful and literally visceral. There are many startlingly and original ideas. At least three of the stories are true classics, as instantly iconic as, say, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery".

"Haunted" has incredibly tight thematic unity. The anthology-within-a-novel structure is not simply a framing device. The stories illuminate the novel and the novel reinforces the stories in an ascending spiral. Unfortunately the primary theme is not especially insightful. Palahniuk is saying that there is no need for supernatural monsters since human beings are themselves capable of the most monstrous acts. While there is some truth in this, he hammers away at it with such a relentless lack of nuance that the narrative becomes grim and tedious. It also makes his characters largely undifferentiated since they are uniformly selfish, cruel, myopic and perverse.

Yes, we get it. People are bad. Really, really bad. With so much repetition, "Haunted" at times becomes merely a tour of human depravity. And this is a tour that is conducted with a great degree of relish. He lingers so long over such truly hideous scenes that you wonder if he is making a point or just enjoys nauseating the reader.

There is a lot going on in "Haunted" and it is definitely the type of book that would otherwise be worth reading several times. But I could never bring myself to read it again; it is too humorless, too glibly cynical, and far too sickening.

Just ok

This book was ok but it wasn't what I expected. It wasn't scary at all but it was rather gory, in fact some parts were just gross. It showed good potential in the beginning but it fell short in the end. The characters were hard to keep track of and some of the individual stories within the main story were snoozers. I was tempted to put this one down but I wanted to see how it ended. I guess that counts for something.

great but maybe too long

loved how each character flashback writings to give them death, but at the end it was a little tough keeping everyone straight (not that it mattered too much). this is the first book I read of chucks besides fight Club. overall it was pretty good, the first couple chapters are amazing and unforgettable, as the story goes on it sort of drags though. should've been a bit shorter Imo. next up is rant

Not scary at all

Everyone keeps saying this was so scary. Not a single point in the entire book was scary. Still, with some very interesting, crazy stories, this book was OK. But trust me, nothing was actually scary in these stories, just grotesque, disturbing style of horror. Still a good read/listen.

Is Everybody Crazy?

I didn’t care for that ending but anything to keep their own story alive. I love the message at the end. Everybody to busy wanting to tell their story of them being a victim.

Hilarious and the darkest book I’ve ever read.

This book admittedly took a little while to get into and to figure out exactly what was going on, but once I did I became intrigued. I took a really really long time to listen to it all, and at first I was intimidated by the length of the novel.
But, at the end I wanted more!
This book is so dark in such a casual way and I’ve never read a book quite like it. It often had my jaw-dropping wide open while trying to imagine these horrific and yet mundane scenes that Mr. Palahniuk was describing.
Overall, a fantastic book and even made even more fantastic by the excellent, excellent voice acting.
Also worth noting: every single actor had their own style and really brought the words of this book to life for me.
So much so that I am considering listening to more of their books just to hear their voice acting.
Overall, a fantastic experience 10/10 would recommend.

disturbing

always a pleasure to hear the stories by this author. He never disappoints with his disturbing and morose tales.