Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

If Chuck Palahniuk seems fixated on violence and abandonment, he has good reason—his grandparents died in a murder-suicide, and his father was killed a few years ago by a jealous ex-husband. So the level of attention paid to confusion, loss, and anger in his books is totally understandable. There’s no denying the raw emotional turmoil—and Diary positively boils with it, more even than his infamous Fight Club. It begins with characteristic nihilism: Still reeling from her husband’s suicide attempt and subsequent coma, Misty discovers that he has also been abusing his job as a home remodeler by walling up rooms and leaving rude messages hidden inside. Crazed with grief, she begins painting obsessively—but even that act of frenzied creativity has secret roots in something very deep and nasty. As much as we admire Palahniuk’s craft, we can’t say we enjoyed Diary so much as read it with a growing sense of dread and disgust—which seems to be Palahniuk’s intention in the first place.