Product Description

The bestselling author of Lullaby and Choke continues his twenty-first century reinvention of the horror novel in this homage to Rosemary's Baby. Diary takes the form of a 'coma diary' kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at art school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she's been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he's refurbished and scrawling vile messages all over the walls - an old habit of builders but gone nuts on his part. Angry homeowners are suing left and right, and Misty's dreams of artistic greatness are in ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. The canvases are taken away by her mother-in-law and her doctor, who seem to have a plan for Misty - and for all those annoying tourists...A dark, hilarious and, this time, poignant act of storytelling from America's favourite, most inventive nihilist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #534658 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Palahniuk's latest novel is centred around the mysterious island of Waytansea and its enclosed, eccentric community. Among them is Misty Marie Kleinman, a hotel worker and failed artist whose insane husband now lies in a coma. Naturally all is not well on this strange island, and Misty is plagued by her unexplainable automatic writing and painting abilities, strange clues left for her by previous artists who lived and died on the island, and the messages hidden for her by her husband before his collapse. The islanders are holding a secret - and Misty discovers she is part of an age-old masterplan to ensure that the secluded community stays that way.... As we would expect from the author of Fight Club and Choke, this tale is genuinely unsettling from the start. Diary gives us a cast of strange, inbred islanders; Misty's husband boarded up people's rooms and hid cryptic messages behind the wallpaper, and her grandmother keeps a diary whose entries predict Misty's every move. The tension rises as we realize Misty is a prisoner not just of the island, but of a cosmic cycle from which she cannot break free and which will sap her life. For Waytansea Island, the belief that the artist should suffer for her art is the key to salvation. Given his success at creating an ominous setting, Palahniuk rushes the finale somewhat, and the story of an enclosed, secretive island with a mysterious past is hardly original. The idea that Misty is somehow the inheritor of the essence of the world's greatest artists and their suffering also falls slightly flat. This is a highly competent horror story, but ultimately it cannot escape the shadow of Twin Peaks and the Twilight Zone. (Kirkus UK)

From the Publisher
The bestselling author of Lullaby and Choke continues his twenty-first century reinvention of the horror novel in this homage to Rosemary's Baby.

About the Author
Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club (made into a film by director David Fincher), Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke and Lullaby. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Customer Reviews

He writes like a pro
Chuck Palahniuk is one of those writers who, after you've read one of his books, you have to read all the others. It's the same way with the works of David Sedaris and Jackson McCrae; Christopher Moore, too. And so I came by way of Diary through Fight Club and Survivor.

Palahniuk's works are dark and disturbing, but there's a wry, cynical humor there also. He obviously owes a debt of gratitude to Kurt Vonnegut and the likes of even Oscar Wilde, but he's made his style his own and it's one heck of a style.

As usual, the author wraps his books around some theme (infanticide, choking, etc) but the ideas go deeper and more complex than you can imagine. Much in the same was as McCrae's Katzenjammer does with its odd twists and turns. Or the way Martin Amis convolutes his plots in his Money and Success. If you want a book like no other--if you want a lot of them--then read Diary and all other C.P. books.

Chilling
This book is the most darkly compelling novel I have ever read. I would read, disgusted, almost unwilling to continue, but nevertheless unable to stop; something that I share with the main character of the book. If you enjoyed Fight Club, and Chuck's perfect little narrative soundbytes, you will love this book as much as I do. Here is a classic example:

"Just for the record, the weather today is bitter with occasional fits of jealous rage".

The book is graphic, gritty, and overwhelming. Chuck's repetition of phrases throughout the book such as the one above give it an almost hypnotic quality. You will see where the story is going long before the main character, you will scream for her to stop, to run, praying that she will evade the inevitable.

Books this involving may just save us all from illiterate damnation :)

"Everything is a self-portrait"
Chuck Palahniuk's sixth novel takes the form a 'coma diary' written by Misty Wilmot, a washed-up art student whose husband, Peter, has been left unconscious after a botched suicide. Long-time readers of Palahniuk will immediately recognise the author's distinct, so-called nihilistic style, and like Fight Club and Lullaby before it, Diary is both blackly comic and astoundingly original. Take for, example, the opening line from the book's second entry (June 22): "By the time you read this, you'll be older than you remember." In the four pages that follow, Palahniuk succeeds in identifying Peter as a rather despicable character and eliciting sympathy for the long suffering Misty - all by way of a simple science lesson about the movement of the facial muscles.

In truth, there is nothing pretty about Palahniuk's writing, and his 'informative', minimalist style - not to mention a cast of rather bizarre characters - will turn off as many readers as it will attract. The author makes little attempt to hide the fact that he is trying to deliver his own message; indeed, sometimes he seems at pains to get his point across - to the slight detriment of the narrative's flow. And while the numerous artistic and historical references scattered throughout clearly serve a purpose, there is occasionally a sense that ol' Chuck is being a bit smug. For example, the name of the island on which Misty has wound up - the place that still, in spite of everything, holds the key to her dreams - is called Waytansea. Geddit?

And yet this is a beautiful book; an intricate, well executed piece of fiction-writing with a plot that unfolds in an intriguing and twisted manner, as Misty makes one unpleasant discovery after another about her senseless husband. Once again, Palahniuk manages to take the reader and show them a world beyond life's little tragedies, wherein his characters find inspiration from the most unlikely of sources and discover the true strength of the human spirit. Diary is an ambitious, transcendent and inspiring book, and as such, it's one that I highly recommend.

Matt Pucci