Diary: A Novel (Paperback)

The story starts off being a dark comedy, with tragic reflections on inspiration, art and hope dried up. Art is the focus of the main character, and clearly, Chuck has done his homework. As an artist, I found Chuck's statements about art to be laugh out loud funny, insightful, cynical, and well...downright realistic. There are few likeable characters in this book, aside from the main character (who is only likeable in that readers will feel sorry for her and be rooting for her to overcome circumstances), who is the "author" of the diary. As you dig deeper into Diary, you will find that these unlikeable characters are downright evil, as the story cascades into a bizarre, twisted, and frightening close.

Palahniuk's new novel, DIARY, has most of the author's signature verbal tics, such as his habit of starting every other sentence with "And" or his aggravating reliance on casual (or lazy, depending on your view) sentence structures like "Peter and Misty, they'd go to art museums and galleries." But the characters in DIARY refuse to be obscured by any mere stylistic distractions. They pop out of the word-cages Palahniuk writes around them in a way that seems almost in spite of their creator. (He doesn't, after all, tend to invent particularly nice, meek little people.) And they drive the oddly enthralling story along toward ever- creepier territory.

Misty Kleinman was your average homely loser in art school when she met Peter Wilmot. She knew of him before, of course. Everyone knew of him --- he was the campus weirdo. He came from Waytansea Island, a former rich-family hideaway turned tourist trap, and he wore gross baggy sweaters with pieces of tacky old costume jewelry. He courts Misty with a bizarre combination of aggression, encouragement and hostility that only makes sense much later --- when it's far too late. By that time, Misty is married to Peter, living on the island and working as a waitress/maid at the historic Waytansea Hotel. They have a young daughter and are also looking after Peter's mother. Or rather, Misty is. Peter is in a coma after a suicide attempt, and this novel is Misty's diary, which she is writing in case he ever wakes up. But that's only the beginning of the story.

Things start getting weird when homeowners around the coast begin to call Misty, outraged that rooms in their recently remodeled houses are missing. Peter, before he went comatose, had a habit of scrawling violent, deranged messages on the walls of rooms in houses he was remodeling, then blocking off the doorway and plastering over the room. Vacationing homeowners would turn up at their summer places to discover their closets and breakfast nooks missing; eventually they'd find the room, see the messages, call Misty and threaten to sue.

One such homeowner is Angel Delaporte, who starts visiting the houses along with Misty on the pretense of analyzing Peter's wild handwriting. Meanwhile, Misty's imperious mother-in-law keeps demanding that she get back to painting; when Misty finally does pick up her sketchpad again, in a fever of hallucination brought on by Grandma's picnic lunch, she paints so frenziedly and so compulsively that she stops eating, stops leaving her room, stops speaking to her kid, and stops showing up for work. It's clear she's headed for something seriously catastrophic --- but whatever you might think is going to happen, the truth turns out to be weirder.

If you like Chuck Palahniuk generally, you'll love this novel. If you usually find him annoying, give this one a chance. Misty's hypnotic voice and the story's slowly building creepiness are powerful enough to overcome any stylistic trickery that might otherwise be off-putting.

--- Reviewed by Becky Ohlsen

Diary continues in the tradition of Lullaby - novels that are surreal and could be shelved in the "horror" section. An important bit of information to know is that the format of this book is a "coma diary" written by a woman to her husband. It is NOT a book written in the second-person, despite the liberal use of the word "you."

The book starts like all of Mr. Palahniuk's books do, with plenty of interesting trivia. In this case it's about art history, human anatomy, and graphology. I won't go into to the plot of the novel - which is impossible to describe - but it fits into the category of "one sane person in a town full of crazies."

The best part about reading a Palahniuk novel isn't the story, but all the interesting asides and digressions along the way. There are plenty of them here to keep the reader interested. (BTW, look underneath the dust cover).