Synopses & Reviews
Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn't stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they've found on the walls of houses he remodeled.
Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America's most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk's most impressive work to date.
Review
"[R]emarkable....Palahniuk restrains his more comic voice to deliver moving passages on inspiration, art, and suffering as a driving force....A loose-limbed nightmare both vaporous and all-enveloping: awe-inspiring." Kirkus Reviews
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"[Palahniuk's] catchy, jarring prose, cryptic pronouncements and baroque flights of imagination are instantly recognizable, and...this twisted tale [is] one of his most memorable works to date." Publishers Weekly
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"[Diary] lacks the manic humor that makes his better novels so engrossing....Still, excellent plotting and a compelling allegory will satisfy the majority of Palahniukites." John Green, Booklist
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"For all his trademark toughness, Mr. Palahniuk has never sounded more like a latter-day Kurt Vonnegut than he does here....His use of singsong repetition...can be as soothing as a lullaby." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
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"This is Palahniuk at the height of his style....Diary may be trying to be too many things at once, but when it's on, it's on, and it could be Chuck Palahniuk's most ambitious novel to date, certainly the most ambitious since Fight Club." Marc Nesbitt, The Washington Post Book World
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"While the book suffers some of the usual shortcomings of genre novels...it is far more inspired and philosophical than one would expect from even a top-drawer horror novel." Mark Lindquist, The Seattle Times
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"Misty's narrative voice is funny and urgent, tragic and clear, and Palahniuk draws from a strange palette of worldly nihilism and supernatural conspiracy to paint a compelling portrait of the artist as an unwitting conduit of evil." Adam Mansbach, The Boston Globe
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"Though absurd and darkly humorous at times, Diary is no joke. Palahniuk has had great success with dangerously madcap characters and situations. This novel taps a similarly wild vein..." Douglas Levin, The Oregonian (Portland, OR)
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"Palahniuk delightfully pushes Diary into the ludicrous, but his restless intelligence coheres plotwise....The pleasure here resides in his awesome ability to transform gleeful absurdities into a well-sculpted riddle." Michael Miller, The Village Voice
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"Diary really hits its stride when the blood starts flowing....Palahniuk is better at sensation than philosophy, a pulp writer who excels when he stops worrying the big ideas and channels his wild, misfit heart." Taylor Antrim, The New York Times Book Review
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"Just for the record, Diary is as hypnotic as a poised cobra. Chuck Palahniuk demonstrates that the most chilling special effects come not from Industrial Light and Magic but from the words of a gifted writer." Ira Levin, author of Rosemary's Baby
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"[P]aranoiac horror along the lines of Rosemary's Baby....Neither plot nor theme is brought to a persuasive conclusion, but the journey is consistently engaging. Recommended." Library Journal
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"A deft meditation on great art and the toll it takes, the book is sometimes easier to admire for its literary daredevilry than it is to enjoy." James Sullivan, Book Magazine
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"Palahniuk constructs his story as precisely as a stage magician's grand illusion, building to a powerful climax that leaves the audience stunned and breathless. Diary triumphantly exposes the evil that lurks in the banality of everyday life." L.D. Meagher, CNN.com
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"Madly inventive....It simply, exuberantly, escapes literary categorization." Los Angeles Times
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"Palahniuk is a bracingly toxic purveyor of dread and mounting horror. He makes nihilism fun." Vanity Fair
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"To read a Chuck Palahniuk novel means being shocked, enlightened, disturbed, buoyed, horrified, delighted and perplexed sometimes on a single page." Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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"The closest thing to a plain old mystery Palahniuk has ever written....Stunning, funky stuff." Entertainment Weekly
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"Reading Chuck Palahniuk's sixth novel, Diary, one can almost hear in the background, as if from a great distance, the theme from The Twilight Zone. The book is creepy fun accent on creepy." Michael Swindle, Dallas Morning News
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"This is just sloppy, invasive writing. It's as if Palahniuk simply enjoys the sound of his own voice as it were, and his gratuitous repetitiveness is his way of saying, 'get it?'" Kera Bolonik, San Francisco Chronicle
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"This is a very dark and not altogether logical tale, but Palahniuk's famously off-kilter imagination keeps disbelief suspended for the willing reader....Just for the record, this is a book you won't soon forget. Just wait and see." Carole Goldberg, Hartford Courant
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"Recalling such classic horror tales as Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery,' Diary's dark side reveals itself slowly, quietly, like a creeping fungus....[D]eliver[s] entertainment as well as enlightenment." Deborah King, Dallas-Ft. Worth Star Telegram
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"Palahnuik has the chops to deliver musical language when he wants. He can lock onto a physical scene and describe it in such a way that a reader will never forget the image. At his best, Palahnuik can deliver fiction as adroitly as any writer around." Eric Miles Williamson, Houston Chronicle
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"Another inventive page-turner that fuses eccentric elements of suspense with supernatural overtones to create a modern symphony of psychological horror....With its attention to detail, Diary rings with originality and realism." Michael Hopkins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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"The incidents may be bizarre, but you sure keep wanting to know what happens next and how it all turns out....Palahniuk is a fabulist. And an entertainer. Like every good entertainer, he knows his audience and gives it exactly what it wants." Frank Wilson, Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she s now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn t stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they ve found on the walls of houses he remodeled.
Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America s most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk s most impressive work to date."
Synopsis
The bestselling author of Fight Club, Choke, and Lullaby continues his 21st-century reinvention of the horror novel in this scary and profound look at mankind's quest for some sort of immortality. Diary takes the form of a "coma diary" kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in a hospital after a suicide attempt.
About the Author
Chuck Palahniuk's novels are the bestselling Lullaby and Fight Club (which was made into a film by director David Fincher), Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and Choke. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Reading Group Guide
“Some of his best work is here. . . . It could be Palahniuks most ambitious novel to date, certainly the most ambitious since
Fight Club.” —
The Washington Post Book WorldThe introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your groups reading of Diary, Chuck Palahniuks latest tale from the dark side. We hope they will provide interesting ways of thinking and talking about this chilling, hallucinatory, and compulsively readable novel.