Haunted

By: Chuck Palahniuk

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

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)

A must for Chuck fans . . .

. . . because we have the stomach for it. After reading the reviews I have to wonder if they have ever read any of his other books. I mean really . . . no one who has read Choke, Fight Club or Lullaby could say that this book is stomach tuning. I only gave Haunted 4 stars because it lacks the flow of his previous works (Stranger than Fiction excluded). It's choppy in parts and briefly slow. It is however, a cunning way to package your short stories in an original setting. I read "Guts" when it was first published and am happy to see it surface in this collection. If you love Chuck, you'll love this book, but if you're a Koonts/Bush fan it will probably be more than your mind cand handle.

R.I.P. H.S.T. 7/18/37 to 2/20/05

Ahh...

Although, the main story is over the top in it's believabilty, it puts the reality of the individual stories in a bright light of insight to everyday life to the reader(listener). I find myself looking for the beautiful play on words/suggested phrases that makes one question the "haunted" reality of everyday life. This is not for the prude or narrow-minded reader by any means, and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt to interpret the author's inferences. This book is a refreshment for those who look(listen) from outside the lines of "everyday" reading.

Some what good

I love Chuck Palahniuk's books. The gore and stories where graphic and unexpected with some Halirous sceens in it. The narrators were awesome, but the story just didn't make enough sense and all flow together in the end. I was slightly dissapointed.

Not as horrifying as I thought it might be

I read reviews when I was considering this book, and, due to the perverseness of human nature, I bought it anyway. When enough people tell me how horrifying and disgusting something is, I just naturally have to check it out for myself. It was not the kind of thing that gives me nightmares, nor did I find in it anything more disgusting than I've seen in other C.P. novels. I guess maybe it being all pulled together in one book is what disturbs some people.

I don't think I'm any more twisted than any other Palahniuk fan. I do have the ability to remind myself that I'm only suspending my disbelief, so I can hear and read things that I really would never want to see or know about--hear without really taking it on board, if that makes any sense. For me, this was a collection of horror stories held together with a hilarious "glue."

I think another reviewer said something about not caring about the people at this workshop. Right. I don't know who could care about this bunch of nincompoops. I think that's partly the point. How can you not laugh when you think of the situation they've gotten themselves into and the things they are doing about it and why? I'm about three books down the road from this one, and I'm laughing right now.

This may not be the book for people who are sensitive or squeamish and can't turn it off. I don't think C.P. fans can be in that group, though. I found it thoroughly entertaining.

Do you like ickiness?

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes - but only those who like to get down and dirty with their morals!

Who was your favorite character and why?

I don't think you can go past St Gutfree and the opening story. Listen and squirm! The story about the anatomically detailed dolls runs a close second - I almost had to pull my car to the side of the road at certain parts of that story - its hard to drive, squirm and cringe at the same time!
The one thing I would add to this is that there are really no "likeable" characters in this book, and as a group they become despicable. Thats what makes it fun ;)

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Narration was excellent - probably the best I've heard in an audiobook. Perfect.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Icky!

Any additional comments?

I really enjoyed this book, and intend to go on a "Chuck-a-thon" over the next few months!

A Disturbing Listen - In a Good Way

If you are in the mood for something different, disturbing, and profoundly upsetting, you should give this book a listen. I'm a big fan of the horror genre, and this book delivers in terms of good, gruesome, and deeply upsetting horror. You should be warned that this book may be a bit explicit for some, and if you have a tendency to be upset by horror you should give the preview a listen before buying.

The powerful imagery in this book will likely stay with you for a long while after you have put down the headphones and walked away. Each short story delivers its dose of horror efficiently and with its own unique style. Some are better than others, but each is unique and fascinating in its own right.

Perhaps the greatest part of this work is that the deepest horror has nothing to do with the stories, but with the people telling them. They are deranged in a wonderful way, and they won't fail to upset you. For a horror work, I'd give this an A+.

Definitely not for those who despise gore horror!

For those of you that do, this is the book for you. It will make you uncomfortable, and oh my God is this a page turner. 5 stars!!

Narrator’s dry mouth is more horrifying than any story

Fun, surprising stories. Most narrators are fine, but the narrator for Mrs. Clark desperately needed water. It was as if she coated her mouth with mayonnaise before reading. How did this get past the Audible producers????

Tests the reader/listener, Gross & Satirical

First and foremost, if you are squeamish do not listen to this book. Not just squeamish at things like grisly details of death and other horror norms, but of gross-out details of sexual perversion and violence. Also to note, this “horror” novel barely fits the description of horror in my eyes so if you’re looking for a more typical horror tale, this is not it.

I’ve never seen a book so willfully test the limits of the reader. Palahniuk pretty much relishes in the fact that he is inciting a visceral reaction out of the reader, as is given away by the end of the first short story, he’s almost mocking the viewer. Nonetheless, I applaud it for that, as I’ve never had an experience like that.
Beyond the sheer gross-out nature of the book, it takes an extremely satirical and exaggerated look at many societal ills. The characters within this book are all morally empty caricatures of their archetype. Each character has a unique and varied short story such that they never felt repetitive but some are much tougher to digest (pun intended) than others.
In the end, you have an extremely satirical and gross novel that delves into short stories about the most awful people you could imagine often making damning indictments of our society as a whole. Or just grossing you out.
A unique experience of a novel, at times I hated listening to it, at times I relished in the satire and sheer absurdity of the content, but I will definitely always remember this novel.

A wild book

Everything in this book was so unexpected. I listened to it over a week and hardly wanted to turn it off.