Diary of a Fat Man

Right now, I’m reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.  As I wrote last month, I’m a pretty useless source for critical analysis of anything because I’m easily pleased and easily distracted, but this book is so fucking brilliant that I had to write about it.

The summary from the jacket sets up the premise and format of the book pretty concisely.  It’s a selection of short stories (ala The Canterbury Tales) told by members of a group of people and is a satire of society’s fascination with reality based entertainment.  That’s a top-level, onion skin summary of the book.  But, start peeling back the layers and there’s a deep complexity that could be overlooked if you take it too seriously.

The book is twenty-three short stories as told by a group brought together by an advertisement for a three month writer’s retreat, where they could leave the world behind and do nothing but work on their craft.  Instead of the nice, rustic cabins they’re expecting, they get an old, deserted theater (as in drama, not movie) and are locked in by the (seemingly) ancient Mr. Whittier, their host (Smiles, everyone).  Mr. Whittier explains that they can’t get out for three months and when he is kind enough to die shortly thereafter, they have no way of knowing where he hid the key to the locks.  As the story progresses, we find they have no desire to get out either.

Each story is preceded by a poem that foreshadows some aspect of the story that follows.  The poetry (for the most part) is mediocre, but still a thousand times better than any of the “slam” shit that you may experience at your local coffeehouse.

The interwoven story of their existence in the theater is this phenomenally over the top satire of the fucked up things people will do to get their fifteen minutes of fame.  Everyone is focused on the same thing: how to be the most marketable lead character for the movie that is CERTAIN to be written about their horrible experience.  

They poke holes in all of the food bags to make them rot, they break the furnace, they mutilate the washing machines, they stuff anything and everything they can (including a cat) into the toilets to foul the plumbing, they systematically remove all of the light bulbs from most of the fixtures and destroy them in the basement (while crafting their stories about how all of this was done by the evil Mr. Whittier to torture them).  

Their efforts to get help consist pretty much of slapping the brick walls and softly whispering for help.  They invent these fantastic rape stories, remove their fingernails with knives, chop off fingers and toes, and skip happily down the path of cannibalism when they mistakenly harvest meat from a chick they think is dead, but who is just sleeping deeply.

The stories they tell (which are based on their lives) are even more twisted than the life they’re living in the theater.  From the kid who’s quest for self-satisfaction lead him to getting his intestines sucked out by the pool pump; to the woman who became a deadly assassin with skills she learned from her reflexology schoolmate; to the serial killer chef that blackmails a knife company into giving him money so that in the event he is caught, he would say he used a competing brand of knives to work his murderous magic; to the woman who thought that making amateur porn with her husband would leads to wealth and fame, only to find out it lead to super puffy lips and a missing husband; to a group of feminists who think a new member of their group HAS to be a transsexual because she is too perfect to be real and end up abusing her and raping her to prove their point; these stories are a brutal satire of modern society.

The book is amazingly disturbing, painfully funny, shockingly vulgar and depraved, and utterly, un-fucking-deniably, brilliant.  You MUST go get it today.