Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk
Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk
127 Rating(s)
List: $19.98 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Haunted

Author: Chuck Palahniuk

Narrator: Various

Unabridged: 13 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/10/2005


Synopsis

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: Twenty-three 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.

About The Author

Chuck Palahniuk’s six previous novels are Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, and Diary. He is also the author of a profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. He lives in Washington State.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lex on December 04, 2013

Apparently working in a vet clinic for the better part of 5 years is precisely the recipe required to inure one to the effects of Palahniuk's writing. You'll see tons of "OMG SO GWOSS!!" reviews here, but this ain't one of 'em. I was entertained. All the blood-and-guts and bodily fluids in the world......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on December 04, 2013

This book is vile. It is disgusting. No matter how much you can take, you will squirm and say "Oh My GOD!" out loud on the bus or plane or couch or wherever it is you read. It is a nasty book. But Haunted is so much more than that and so worth reading. Haunted is set in a drab old theater, past it's......more

Goodreads review by Baba on November 02, 2022

The clue was in the title, a gore-fest, a book of horrors by the audaciously demented Chuck Palahniuk! Now think of the way Palahniuk writes, now imagine him writing horror? Yeah - that's what happens here. Answering an advert people agree to go to a writing retreat - people such as Lady Baglady, Sis......more

Goodreads review by Josh on May 11, 2008

This book is incredibly uneven, that's its downfall. There are some really good moments, some really bad moments, and one or two truly brillant ones. Looking at it as what it essentially is; a collection of short stories, it's really no better or worse than any other short story collection, and actu......more

Goodreads review by Marvin on February 01, 2013

Warning: The cover of this edition glows in the dark. Do not place on your bed stand unless you want to have a heart attack. I speak from experience. There are 21 short stories in Haunted. Some of them are amazing such as the notorious "Guts". Others are so-so. A couple of them are just boring. All o......more


Quotes

“Reading a Palahniuk novel is like getting zipped inside a boxer’s heavy bag while the author goes to work on you, pounding you until there is nothing left but a big bag of bones and blood and pain.” —The Miami Herald“To Palahniuk’s credit, there is something here to appall almost every sensibility. The author has a singular knack for coming up with inventive new ways to shock and degrade.”—The New York Post“Frequently entertaining [and] often appalling. . . . There are paragraphs here—entire pages, in fact—that are as disgusting as anything I’ve ever read. Truly vivid and harrowing (and often quite funny).”—Minneapolis Star Tribune“Summer reading for people who like their lit doused in bodily fluids.. . . Haunted has an anarchic sensibility that hurdles over the top.”—Time Out New York “Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most intriguing writers of our time. [Haunted ] is a blend of stories that are among the most horrifying, stomach-churning and mind-blowing tales ever encountered.” —Tucson Citizen“Chuck Palahniuk’s rightful place is among literary giants. He combines the masculinity of Ernest Hemingway, the satirical bent of Juvenal and the attitude of Lenny Bruce.” —Greensboro News & Record “To Palahniuk’s credit, there is something here to appall almost every sensibility. The author has a singular knack for coming up with inventive new ways to shock and degrade.” —New York Post “Funny, always on the edge of reality and bloodied by the profound horror of narcissism.” —Playboy “Place this bet in your time capsule: Chuck Palahniuk’s novels will be required reading in American literature classes 100 years from now.” —The Fort Myers News-Press “Palahniuk is as unique and colorful as ever.” —The Onion “Searing and honest. ...His nasty detail and unimaginably horrible scenarios will give some people nightmares. This creepy ?ction masterpiece could be the de?nitive novel of our time for its genre.” —The Cincinnati News Record “Chuck Palahniuk appears to be going around the bend. ...A satire of reality television–an effective one–but also an homage to horror stories and a meditation on pop culture.” —The Seattle Times “The most original work of ?ction this year.” —The Guardian (London) “Chuck Palahniuk is up to his old tricks. ...His prose is, as always, gorgeous.” —Entertainment Weekly “One part Canterbury Tales, one part Lord of the Flies, and 100 percent classic Palahniuk. ...[His] grisliest book yet.” —Broward—Palm Beach New Times