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Haunted
Chuck Palahniuk Book Review

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Plot Summary of Haunted
"A handful of aspiring writers see the same advertisement: that promises, if one chooses to engage in a "retreat," the facilities to work on the stories that these writers have been waiting to finish, but for whatever reason haven't. The different writers are simultaneously wildly diverse and incredibly mysterious; however, the mystery does not last long.

These writers are brought by bus to an old theatre and locked inside by an elderly man in a wheelchair, a writer himself who gives no apparent motivation. The writers soon realize that this is not the comfortable retreat they all expected. Instead, they are to live in this theatre, sleeping between aisles and eating pre-packaged rations in a place without heat or consistent lighting. The authors begin their writing nevertheless, and each takes the stage of the theatre to share their stories in succession. These are stories that reveal their true natures, and stories that may or may not reveal their deepest secrets.

Even among the storywriting and sharing, Palahniuk reveals his own hypothesis for what might happen in such a situation: each writer also tries to make the situation slightly more uncomfortable to make their struggle--when they emerge--that much more marketable. In sharing the short stories as well as dissecting claustrophobic human interaction, Palahniuk creates a social commentary that also happens to house short stories that graphically describe murder, abuse, and a particularly harrowing tale involving a teenage male biting through his own intestine. "

Christine, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Haunted
Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - present (2000-2010)
Life of a profession: - writer
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Job/Profession/Status story Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - writer
Age: - 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Eccentric: - eccentric
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - society
Profession/status: - mastermind
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 7 ()
United States Yes
Misc setting - fancy mansion

Style
Person - rotating 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - very explicit references to deaths and torture
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - licking - descript. of female anat. (the big V) - rape/molest (yeech!)
Lot of foul language? Yes
Unusual Style: - a lot of flashback and forwards - No single main character?
Amount of dialog - significantly more dialog than descript
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Click here for more information about this book


Chuck Palahniuk Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Colin Kehm  

SCHOLARS:
Christine  Ryan Holden  Zahra  kenny bates  


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