The relationship between the stories is also confusing. Stories like вЂњPunch DrunkвЂќ and вЂњThe Nightmare BoxвЂќ just try too hard and are the worse for it. Readers quickly learn that each story will contain a Shocking Twist, and while always inventive, the twists are sometimes desperate in their outrageousness. The final story, вЂњObsolete,вЂќ is an allegorical tale of speculative fiction that would have been at home in the best of the вЂ™70s sci-fi pulps, and вЂњHot PottingвЂќ would make the high point in any horror anthology. Included is the notorious вЂњGutsвЂќ-which, along with вЂњExodusвЂќ and вЂњSpeaking Bitterness,вЂќ shows Palahniuk at his provocative best. Most of them, thankfully, are at least worth reading, and some are even great. But while predictable, the real reason that this structure proves problematic is that it places total reliance on the individual stories, which are a decidedly mixed bag. In between stories we learn how the group is coping with confinement in the face of ever increasing privations (this connective tissue is told in collective third person, the same вЂњweвЂќ that presumably narrates the poems). Each story is prefaced by an unremarkable prose poem that introduces the character and establishes the circumstance of the story. It allows Palahniuk to explore his major themes from multiple angles, but despite this freedom Haunted feels almost mathematically rote. The stories that they produce, masterpiece or no, comprise the text. There the novelвЂ™s 18 narrators spend three months in isolation in hopes of creating their magnum opus.

Whittier-who, in the grand tradition of wealthy eccentrics given to odd experiments, is not who he seems (his secret being, in the tradition of Palahniuk, bizarre enough to make one simultaneously laugh aloud and squirm)-in an abandoned theater. The storytellers are all participants in an unconventional writers' retreat, held by the extremely wealthy and aged eccentric Mr. What differentiates HauntedВ from his other fiction is that it is a collection of short tales told by disparate, desperate characters, much like the classical works of literature that it so conspicuously mentions. HauntedВ is, despite all indicators otherwise, a black satire, like most of PalahniukвЂ™s work. It isnвЂ™t: Haunted, while often disturbing and occasionally disgusting, it is not a very scary book. Similarly, early reference in the text to PoeвЂ™s вЂњThe Masque of the Red DeathвЂќ and the Villa Diodati-the country house where Mary Shelley and friends created, among other tales, the story of Frankenstein and the modern vampire archetype-might make one expect the book to be a horror novel. It doesnвЂ™t: HauntedВ is no more or less literary than any other book by Palahniuk. From the references to The DecameronВ and The Canterbury TalesВ in the jacket copy, one might expect Chuck PalahniukвЂ™s HauntedВ to establish mainstream literary credibility for its author.

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