![]() ![]() Unfortunately, the rest of the novel paled by comparison and Palahniuk played his strongest hand too soon. It was truly stomach churning and horrific. I’ll admit that this graphic story of masturbation gone wrong made my palms sweaty and hooked me quickly. Palahniuk starts his haphazardly assembled and brutal collection of short stories with the appropriate titled ‘Guts’ which, I gather from the Author’s Note at the end, is famous for causing fainting spells among readers. This pattern through the novel – Main Story, then Character Poem, then Character Backstory, repeat ad nauseam – might have worked, had the main story been stronger. The progressively awful living conditions in this writers’ retreat are returned to between each character’s respective poem/short story. ![]() Each character with a poem and story to tell throughout the novel apparently answered a mysterious advertisement to attend an isolated retreat for writers. The backbone of Haunted that ties each poem and short story together is a horrific three-month-long “Writers’ Retreat”. ![]() **trigger warning** this review mentions some extreme and horrific aspects of the book, including miscarriage. Haunted is a series of short stories and poems, loosely related insofar as each is written from the perspective of different member of a group of degenerate sociopaths locked together in a masochistic “Writers’ Retreat”. ![]()
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