Diary: A Novel
Type
Book
Authors
ISBN 10
0385509472
ISBN 13
9780385509473
Category
813 Fiction
[ Browse Items ]
Publication Year
2003
Publisher
Pages
272
Subject
Women painters -- Fiction. Suicidal behavior -- Fiction. Coma -- Patients -- Fiction.
Tags
Abstract
Working as a hotel maid despite her dreams of being an artist, Misty keeps a diary as she sits by the side of her husband, comatose after a suicide attempt, which unlocks Misty's creative energies and causes her to paint compulsively.
Description
Publisher Comments
“CAN YOU FEEL THIS?”
Chuck Palahniuk, the bestselling author of Fight Club, Choke, and Lullaby continues his twenty-first-century reinvention of the horror novel in this scary and profound look at our 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. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at 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 remodeled and scrawling vile messages all over the walls—an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter’s case. 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. But can her newly discovered talent be part of a larger, darker plan? Of course it can …
Diary is a dark, hilarious, and poignant act of storytelling from America’s favorite, most inventive nihilist. It is Chuck Palahniuk’s finest novel yet.
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
Review
"[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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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)
Review
"[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
Review
"[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
Review
"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
Review
"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
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 Portland, Oregon.
“CAN YOU FEEL THIS?”
Chuck Palahniuk, the bestselling author of Fight Club, Choke, and Lullaby continues his twenty-first-century reinvention of the horror novel in this scary and profound look at our 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. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at 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 remodeled and scrawling vile messages all over the walls—an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter’s case. 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. But can her newly discovered talent be part of a larger, darker plan? Of course it can …
Diary is a dark, hilarious, and poignant act of storytelling from America’s favorite, most inventive nihilist. It is Chuck Palahniuk’s finest novel yet.
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
Review
"[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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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
Review
"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)
Review
"[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
Review
"[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
Review
"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
Review
"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
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 Portland, Oregon.
Biblio Notes
Genre/Form: Psychological fiction
Humorous fiction
Fiction
Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Diary.
New York : Doubleday, 2003
(OCoLC)607006315
Material Type: Fiction, Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Chuck Palahniuk
ISBN: 0385509472 9780385509473 1400032814 9781400032815
OCLC Number: 51810534
Description: 260 pages ; 22 cm
Responsibility: Chuck Palahniuk.
Number of Copies
1
