re:mote voices

Title: Diary
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher:Vintage

This girl, her latest "work" was stuffing a teddy bear with dog shit... in her studio, she had the little teddy bear already gutted out, its fake fur spread open autopsy-style, ready to turn into art.
-diary
-chuck palahniuk

diary is the sixth novel by chuck palahniuk, which like his previous novel lullaby sees him slip more subtle weirdness into his regular style. undoubtedly this reads like palahniuk, featuring most of his regular tricks and mannerisms. written as a coma diary by misty wilmot - keeping track of events since her husband's attempted suicide. through the pages of her diary we learn how the couple met, and go through the disintegration of her life past this suicide attempt. caught up in the flagging fortunes of a once rich island community misty is an alcoholic waitress, trying to bring up their daughter. while at the same time the state of mind of her husband becomes clear from rooms he has hidden in houses he was redecorating - filled with scrawled vitriol. between these things palahniuk does what he does best - speaks with his unique voice, expressing a vicious view on life, with which he practically creates his own narrative tense. but in the subtext, in the glances and statements that bypass misty it becomes clear there is something more going on. the slow revelation of conspiracy acting against misty. in amongst that there is the suggestion of something weird, the combination of warnings and what is really behind the plot. the culmination of lullaby was the first place palahniuk really went into this kind of territory, but on reflection he perhaps overstepped the mark, losing some of the subtlety he manages to retain in diary. with the result that diary is perhaps palahniuk's best work since the film of his fight club novel raised his profile to a new level.