February 21 was Chuck Palahniuk's Birthday. Garrison Keillor did a short piece on Chuck on the Writer's Almanac for that date.
At the time that I heard the Writer's Almanac piece, I was reading Chuck's Haunted and wrote a comment on my brother-in-law's blog. After reflecting on the book, I want to revisit my thoughts. At that time, I wrote,
While I really like some of the characters' short stories, I am struggling through the book itself and the main storyline that links the characters together. I expect Chuck will throw in a nice twist that will bring things together and leave me feeling good about the book on the whole, but it has not happened yet.
I wish I could say that Chuck Palahniuk delivered for me, but even after finishing Haunted, I found the main storyline lacking.
Even though the storyline is unsatisfying, the book is worth reading because the individual stories written by the characters in the book, and even some of the poems, are great.
True to form, Palahniuk spins some outlandish tales. One character tells the story of how he loses his colon to the pool vaccuum. Another character's story is about how he murders food critics with a particular brand of knife, then blackmails the knife manufacturer.
As with Rant, Choke, and Fight Club, the storyline is graphic and disturbing at times. In Haunted people are cutting off ears, fingers and toes and one character even slices her nostrils from the bottom to the bridge (and every time she laughs the pus and blood sprays out of the wounds that won't heal); gross huh?
XML Feeds
