History Literature / Haunted

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''Haunted'' is a unique collection of short stories by Creator/ChuckPalahniuk. Seventeen [[DysfunctionJunction unusual people]], all of whom happen to be [[MostWritersAreWriters writers]], sign up to attend a three-month writer's workshop courtesy of the mysterious Mr. Whittier. Acting on assumption necessities of toothpaste and toilet roll will be available, each writer brings a suitcase each of [[ChekhovsGun personal items]].

Given the ultimatum that leaving is not an option until the three months are up, the writers quickly learn that there's no escape and no help coming; under this knowledge, they instead concoct the ruse that they're all martyrs and victims trapped by Mr. Whittier, and begin to destroy themselves (both mentally and physically) between telling highly dramatized versions of their own life stories. What results is a {{deconstruction}} of reality TV shows, and a whole lot of {{squick}}.

While it never becomes clear how much of their backstories are true or made up, expect most of them to have BodyHorror, NauseaFuel, NightmareFuel and/or RapeAsDrama. It should also be noted that, whilst some of the tales seem downright impossible, quite a few are [[BasedOnATrueStory very closely based on real events]].

The novel's first chapter, "[[http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/shorts/guts Guts]]", was published in Playboy magazine well before the book came out proper [[ShmuckBait presumably as a warning]]. Palahniuk did readings of it during his worldwide book tour for ''{{Diary}}''. [[BrownNote Over 80 people fainted.]]

----
!!This book features examples of:

* AdamAndEvePlot: [[spoiler:The end of Mr. Whittier's second story, "Obsolete", with two kids literally named Adam and Eve. It's never clarified if it's really happening in-universe or it's just a story he made up.]]
* AllNaturalSnakeOil: Discussed in "Foot Work."
--> "All those cures and remedies that claim to be 100-percent natural ingredients, therefore 100-percent safe, Angelique laughs. She says, Cyanide is natural. So is arsenic.
* AlreadyMetEveryone / ForgottenFirstMeeting: A few times, it seems like characters from one story will show up in another.
** For example, in "The Nightmare Box" one of the people in the art gallery is described as having a ponytail and chewing gum... Just like The Duke of Vandals, who is perpetually chewing nicotine gum and, as an artist, would have a lot of reason to be hanging around an art gallery.
* AncientArtifact[=/=]ArtifactOfDoom: The Nightmare Box, possibly.
* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Lady Baglady, Duke of Vandals, Comrade Snarky, Miss America, The Matchmaker, Missing Link, Mrs. Clark, and Miss Sneezy. Most likely the rest of the cast as well if the ending is anything to go by...]]
* ArcWords: ''Onstage, instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment...''
** "The camera behind the camera behind the camera."
** "The mythology of us."
** Numerous lesser examples, phrases repeated in a new context to give a new, often darker meaning. This is a recurring theme in [[Creator/ChuckPalahniuk Chuck's]] work.
* AssShove: In "Guts".
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: When Missing Link discusses the idea of people protesting births, Mother Nature and Saint Gut-Free comment that "babies are wonderful."
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Mr. Whittier faked his death and watched the rest of the writers' ordeal from hiding.]]
* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: [[spoiler:Mrs. Clark.]]
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Mother Nature, who aside from cutting herself to appear more sympathetic and pretends to be love with Saint Gut-Free because 'every good story needs a romance plot', doesn't really do much through out the book. [[spoiler: Up until the last chapter where she stabs Miss Sneezy and drags her corpse back inside, all so her and Saint Gut-Free can stay in longer and get the most fame for when they're found. ''If they ever get found'']]
* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: "Missing Link" postulates that these creatures are actually humans with an odd genetic quirk causing were-creature-style transformation. The teller of this story belongs to a fictitious Native American tribe in which this trait is allegedly quite common, including a supposed case in the teller's own family.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: [[UpToEleven Good. Gravy.]] Absolutely NO ONE in this book gets off clean. The closest thing to a "good guy" we get is Ms. Clark and she [[spoiler:murdered her daughter]].
** There's also Miss America. Even though she's a catty bitch, the worst things she does is [[spoiler:state Comrade Snarky is dead when she's only fainted (though whether she intended to is dubious) and she eats Cora Reynolds the cat for no real reason]].
** Miss Sneezy is also fairly innocent. However, the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that, with the exception of Ms. Clark, even the ones who don't dirty their hands [[BystanderSyndrome just stand by while it happens]].
* BlackComedy: Some parts of the book can be construed this way.
* BodyHorror: Several instances. At one point, several characters want to seem the biggest victim, and they begin to compete in self-mutilation.
** "One stupid mistake, and now he'll never be a lawyer."
** The Baroness Frostbite applies from the beginning; her mouth has already been reduced to a greasy hole without lips due to...[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin guess]].
* BrownNote: A RealLife one, if you can believe it. [[http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/essays/guts-effect Chuck has read the short story "Guts" several times while promoting the book, and almost everytime, someone has fainted]]. There's also accounts of others reading this story to their peers with similar effects. Oddly, [[BigApplesauce New Yorkers]] seem to be immune to the story's effect.
** As an anonymous audience member responded when Palahniuk expressed surprise that no one had fainted: "*snort* [[WhereDoYouThinkYouAre This is]] UsefulNotes/{{New|YorkCity}} [[WelcomeToTheBigCity York.]]"
* BubbleBoy: Inverted. Miss Sneezy describes herself as the opposite of this phenomena.
* CallousnessTowardsEmergency: During [[spoiler:Mr. Whittier's alleged death]] everyone is trying to think of some way they can speed the process along, rather than try to help.
* CatchPhrase: Several (due to multiple narrators), such as "Don't laugh, but..." occurring frequently in Mother Nature's story.
* CharactersAsDevice: When the writers decide that they would rather sell their collective story than their own personal tales, [[DiscussedTrope they begin talking]] about who will fulfill which role in the story (SacrificialLamb, RomanceArc, etc.).
* ClosedCircle: The characters trap ''themselves'' in an isolated theater, each unwilling to leave until they're able to present themselves as the hero of the resulting news stories and Ripped from the Headlines movie.
%%* [[ClockKing Clock Queen]]
* ConjoinedTwins: Saint Gut-Free's "ghost" is a two-headed baby.
* CorrespondenceCourse: Agent Tattletale takes one to become a private investigator.
* CuriosityKilledTheCast: In "The Nightmare Box." We hear about the box being "ready" four times. Three out of those four times, someone looked in the box.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: "Guts". Horrifyingly (or [[BlackComedy hilariously]]) enough, all three accounts are based on true stories.
* DesignatedVillain: The writers decide that, in order to make their story marketable, they need villains. They designate Mr. Whittier for this purpose, and shortly thereafter, his assistant Mrs. Clark [[spoiler:when he dies]].
** Invoked and Discussed in Mrs. Clark's case: [[spoiler: Mrs. Clark hasn't actually done anything to the writers, but they still designate her as the villain because she wasn't one of the original writers.]]
--> "There's no point in blaming one of ''us'' for this. There are ''victims''...And there are ''villains''...Don't create shades of gray that a mass audience can't follow."
* {{Deuteragonist}}: ''Seventeen'' of them, all vying for the position of TheHero.
* DirtyOldMan: Mr Whittier appears to be one of these [[spoiler:[[YoungerThanTheyLook except he's actually thirteen]]]].
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale: Horribly averted in "Speaking Bitterness" when a trans-exclusionary radical feminist group suspects the newest member "Miranda" of being a postoperative transgender woman. Their response? [[spoiler: Strip her naked and force objects inside of her to see if she's a female as she claims. All the women in the group also act extremely misogynistic, claiming that Miranda was "asking for it" due to her provocative clothing and flamboyant style. In the ultimate twist of irony, it's strongly implied that Miranda is biologically female and that all the women of the group became the very thing they claim to hate.]]
* DownerEnding: It's pretty much hinted that [[spoiler:everyone dies]].
* DrivenToSuicide: One of the people who looked into the Nightmare Box.
* EatsBabies: [[spoiler: Miss America is pregnant at the beginning of the book and goes into labour around the time everyone has entered Donner Party Mode. And just because the situation wasn't horrifying enough, the others bring her some baby stew afterwards. Luckily(?) it's possible she died before eating it.]]
* EnfantTerrible: Brandon Whittier at age 13. [[spoiler:He has progeria, a disease which causes its victims to age at seven times the normal rate, becoming YoungerThanTheyLook. He tricks the female volunteers at the nursing home where he lives into thinking he's eighteen, begging them not to let him die a virgin, and then threatening to report them for child molestation unless they give him ten thousand dollars.]]
* EveryoneMeetsEveryone: The novel opens with Saint Gut-Free driving a tour bus around to pick up the other writers.
* {{Fingore}}: Wanting to play the biggest victim for when their story sells, quite a few characters begin lopping off their own fingers and toes.
* FootFocus: Mother Nature's reflexology requires a considerable amount of focus on feet.
* FormerChildStar: Kenneth Wilcox in ''Swan Song'', the Earl of Slander's story. Unlike most examples, Ken is well-adjusted and living a normal, if boring, life as a veterinarian, [[spoiler:until the Earl of Slander drugs him, stages his suicide, plants drugs and illicit pornography in his apartment, and fakes a tell-all interview of how his life went down the drain]]. Nobody wants to buy a boring, content-ever-after story...
* GagBoobs:
** Mrs. Clark... the story behind them isn't very funny, though.
** The new member of Comrade Snarky's feminist group, [[spoiler:while they ''may'' have been implants, the trans-exclusionary radical feminist group became convinced that was the case, and that she was really transgender]].
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: One of the stories involves something called a "nightmare box" which does this to whoever looks inside it.
* GranolaGirl: Mother Nature, who (despite being young) is pretty much a [[NewAgeRetroHippie full-on hippie]] neck-deep in the 21st century and in 21st century New Age movements.
* GroinAttack:
** Director Denial's story describes how a fellow Social Worker became so fed up with the local cops having sex with the anatomically-correct dolls she used with sex crime victims that she put [[VaginaDentata razor blades in its orifices]]. Not to mention the Matchmaker's story. ''Shoo-rook.''
** [[spoiler: How the Matchmaker dies, in an attempt to make himself the most sympathetic.]]
* HomePornMovie: "The Porn Stars". They started out making the movie as a labor of love and to make money. By the time they're finished, they've realized how artificial their relationship has become.
* IllGirl: Miss Sneezy.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: [[spoiler:Bowling ball?]]
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: {{Discussed|Trope}}, as everyone notes Miss Sneezy has poor health due to her sneezing all the time, and that she'd make a great martyr for their story. [[spoiler:Also Double Subverted as, in reality, she sneezes all the time because her sinuses are wrecked from her past; carrying a deadly airborne virus, she damaged her sinuses escaping island quarantine by walking several miles underwater in an airtight, anti-contamination suit.]]
* ITasteDelicious: [[spoiler:Comrade Snarky, having actually fainted instead of dying, awakens unaware that her ass has been carved off and follows the delicious smell of cooked meat. ''She keeps eating until she notices the rose tattoo on her butt is on some crackling.'']]
* FromBadToWorse: As you might predict, the story starts with 17 neurotic writers trapped in a building, and it slowly starts going downhill from there.
* JailBait: If anatomically-correct dolls count. [[spoiler:Also "old" Mr Whittier is actually a progeria-suffering thirteen-year-old who makes money by seducing wealthy women and then blackmailing them with the threat of turning them in for statutory rape.]]
* KnifeNut: Chef Assassin.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The seventeen writers, Mr. Whittier, and Ms. Clark.
* LonelyDollGirl: Cora Reynolds in "Exodus."
* MadArtist: ''Everybody.'' Each one of the protagonistic individuals are haunted by their own past, as well as aspiring writers.
* MagicalNativeAmerican: Missing Link.
* ManipulativeBastard: Mr. Whittier.
* MeaningfulRename: The first poem, "Guinea Pigs", discusses how they got their names: each of them was named after a sin or something that they did that got them in trouble. To quote the poem, "the opposite of superhero names".
* MindRape: Whatever the "Nightmare Box" does.
* MuseAbuse: The story is about a creative writing retreat wherein, instead of trying to come up with story ideas, the participants opt to torture each other so they can write a book... about their harrowing experience on the writers' retreat.
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: As the workshop group begin to sabotage their facilities to make a more dramatic, bankable story ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, really]]), they begin to suffer starvation. When it came to [[spoiler:finding the Duke of Vandals dead and putrefying]], Mrs. Clark told them not to eat the body. The group start to become more desperate, [[spoiler: starting by eating Comrade Snarky's buttock when they mistake her for dead and end up killing her for real]].
* OfficialCouple: Invoked. Saint Gut-Free and Mother Nature believe that a romantic couple will draw sympathy from audiences.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Everyone who isn't Mr. Whittier or Mrs. Clark.
** Some fractions of names are given in the stories, though. In some cases, we even get full names.
* PowerPerversionPotential: Mother Nature's backstory involves her remeeting an old friend who...misuses her reflexology training to give foot massages with er...[[TheImmodestOrgasm unusual effects]]. Mother Nature was pulled into the career until circumstances forced her to quit. This eventually culminates to the footjob she did for [[spoiler:Saint Gut-Free]] at the end of the story.
* PregnantHostage: Ms. America, who learns shortly after the story's beginning that she's carrying her boyfriend's child.
* PresentTenseNarrative
* RapeAsDrama: Invoked occasionally:
** Mr. Whittier: [[spoiler:Actually thirteen years old and suffering from a type of progeria. He tricks wealthy volunteer housewives into having sex with him, only to blackmail them as they've unknowingly committed statutory rape.]]
** Comrade Snarky: [[spoiler:She and her feminist group, believing the new, overly effeminate group member to be a male-to-female transgender, proceed to remove her clothes and sexually assault her to "check" if she's really a woman.]]
** Director Denial: Her story involves [[spoiler: the wrong type of anatomically-accurate child dolls being ordered for the county CPR training facility, and several police officers using said dolls for extremely questionable sexual purposes. Taken further as the protagonist of the story ''sees the dolls as living things'']].
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The boy and dog from "Hot Potting?" [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/hotspring.asp they're real.]]
** At least part of "Guts" is true: Faulty pool drains can and have sucked out people's intestines. Former politician John Edwards made his name [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards#Legal_career representing a three year old girl]] who suffered that fate.
*** Actually, all three stories in "Guts" are true stories recounted to Chuck, the first two by friends, the third by a man he met at a Sexoholic's meeting when researching for ''Literature/{{Choke}}''.
* SacrificialLamb: The characters [[InvokedTrope choose]] Miss Sneezy on account of her IncurableCoughOfDeath. [[spoiler:Lady Baglady actually ends up being this, and Miss Sneezy survives until the end of the story.]]
* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: The workshop is really a derelict building in the urban hinterland, sealed up and kept locked. For three months.
* SlummingIt: Lady Baglady, her late husband, and friends of theirs made a hobby of pretending to be street people for a change of pace from their ultra-luxurious "real lives". Then someone started killing off street people to eliminate potential witnesses to a bloody kidnapping...
* SmallNameBigEgo: In-universe, Chef Assassin. He doesn't like critics.
* SnarkBall: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOntheTin Comrade Snarky]] spends the entire bus ride to the theater riffing on everyone around her.
* StepfordSmiler: Miss America. She acts at all times like she is on camera.
* StrawFeminist: Comrade Snarky and her group. Granted, many of them have good reasons for being distrustful of men, but it really doesn't give them the excuse to [[spoiler:rape a new member they suspect is transgender]].
* SurrogateSoliloquy: After [[spoiler:her daughter]] is killed, Mrs. Clark goes to the place her body was found to talk to "her" [[spoiler:and that's how the police know that she was the murderer]].
* TakingTheVeil: Mother Nature tried to enter a nunnery in order to hide from [[spoiler: the Russian mob]].
* TeenagePregnancy: The end of "Obsolete", as part of the AdamAndEvePlot, Eve is a school-age kid, who's pregnant with the child of Adam, another school-age kid.
* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: According to the museum curator, the Nightmare Box [[spoiler:contains the truth of reality, which drove three people into a state of near-madness]].
* TorturePorn
* * TyphoidMary: Miss Sneezy
* UnreliableNarrator: Possibly. There is the potential for tons of it. Keeping in mind that these people are writers, it's easy to start second guessing their stories. When the stories first acquire an air of MagicalRealism and then become increasingly fantastic, it is left up to the audience to decide what to believe (if anything), and what to doubt (if anything).
** Especially considering that two of the stories are about biological mutations and psychic abilities.
* UnusualEuphemism: Saint Gut-Free referred to his attempts at underwater masturbation as "Pearl Diving".
** Specifically the act of collecting the little "pearls" of ejaculate from the pool.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:Mr. Whittier is a thirteen year-old suffering from progeria.]]
** [[spoiler: Miss Sneezy is actually only twenty two, she just suffers from extreme sinus problems.]]
* ZipMeUp: A somewhat disturbing example. Mother Nature asks her self-appointed love interest to help zip her up... because she doesn't have enough fingers to do it herself, as she and her companions have been cutting off parts of their fingers to garner sympathy from others.
----

* AdamAndEvePlot: [[spoiler:The end of Mr. Whittier's second story, "Obsolete". It's never clarified if it's really happening in-universe or it's just a story he made up.]]

* CallousnessTowardsEmergency: During [[spoiler: Mr. Whittier's alleged death]] everyone is trying to think of some way they can speed the process along, rather than try to help.

* DesignatedVillain: The writers decide that, in order to make their story marketable, they need villains. They designate Mr. Whittier for this purpose, and shortly thereafter, his assistant Mrs. Clark [[spoiler: when he dies]].

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The boy and dog from "Hot Potting?" [[TearJerker Sadly,]] [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/hotspring.asp they're real.]]

* YoungerThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:Mr. Whittier is thirteen year-old suffering from progeria.]]

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnFemale: Horribly averted in "Speaking Bitterness" when a trans-exclusionary radical feminist group suspects the newest member "Miranda" of being a postoperative transgender woman. Their response? [[spoiler: Strip her naked and force objects inside of her to see if she's a female as she claims. All the women in the group are portrayed as abusive, misogynistic, and creepy as the men they claim to hate. In the ultimate twist of irony, it's strongly implied that Miranda is biologically female and that all the women of the group became the very thing they claim to hate.]]

* DoubleStandard:RapeFemaleOnFemale: Horribly averted in "Speaking Bitterness" when a trans-exclusionary radical feminist group suspects the newest member "Miranda" of being a postoperative transgender woman. Their response? [[spoiler: Strip her naked and force objects inside of her to see if she's a female as she claims. All the women in the group are portrayed as abusive, misogynistic, and creepy as the men they claim to hate. In the ultimate twist of irony, it's strongly implied that Miranda is biologically female and that all the women of the group became the very thing they claim to hate.]]

* DoubleStandard:RapeFemaleonFemale: Horribly averted in "Speaking Bitterness" when a trans-exclusionary radical feminist group suspects the newest member "Miranda" of being a postoperative transgender woman. Their response? [[spoiler: Strip her naked and force objects inside of her to see if she's a female as she claims. All the women in the group are portrayed as abusive, misogynistic, and creepy as the men they claim to hate. In the ultimate twist of irony, it's strongly implied that Miranda is biologically female and that all the women of the group became the very thing they claim to hate.]]

* EnfantTerrible: Brandon Whittier at age 13. [[spoiler:He has progeria, a disease which causes its victims to age at seven times the normal rate, becoming YoungerThanTheyLook. He tricks the female volunteers at the nursing home where he works into thinking he's eighteen, begging them not to let him die a virgin, and then threatening to report them for child molestation unless they give him ten thousand dollars.]]

* GoMadFromTheRevlation: One of the stories involves something called a "nightmare box" which does this to whoever looks inside it.

* FootFocus: Her reflexology requires a considerable amount of focus on feet.

* '''FromBadToWorse''': As you might predict, the story starts with 17 neurotic writers trapped in a building, and it slowly starts going downhill from there.

** There's also Miss America. Even though she's a catty bitch, the worst things she does is [[spoiler:state Comrade Snarky is dead when she's only fainted (though whether she intended to is dubious) and she eats eat Cora Reynolds the cat for no real reason]].

* {{Lolicon}}: If anatomically-correct dolls count. [[spoiler:Also "old" Mr Whittier is actually a progeria-suffering thirteen-year-old who makes money by seducing wealthy women and then blackmailing them with the threat of turning them in for statutory rape.]]

** At least part of "Guts" is true: Faulty pool drains can and have sucked out people's intestines. Former politician John Edwards made his name [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards#Legal_career representing a five year old girl]] who suffered that fate.

* GagBoobs: Mrs. Clark... the story behind them isn't very funny, though.

%%* GenreSavvy

* GroinAttack: Director Denial's story describes how a fellow Social Worker became so fed up with the local cops having sex with the anatomically-correct dolls she used with sex crime victims that she put [[VaginaDentata razor blades in its orifices]]. Not to mention the Matchmaker's story. ''Shoo-rook.''

** At least part of "Guts" is true: Faulty pool drains can and have sucked out people's intestines. Former politician and current scumbag John Edwards made his name [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edwards#Legal_career representing a five year old girl]] who suffered that fate.

'''This book contains examples of:'''

Whilst it never becomes clear how much of their backstories are true or made up, expect most of them to have BodyHorror, NauseaFuel, NightmareFuel and/or RapeAsDrama. It should also be noted that, whilst some of the tales seem downright impossible, quite a few are [[BasedOnATrueStory very closely based on real events]].

** The new member of Comrade Snarky's feminist group, [[spoiler:while they ''may'' have been implants, the group uses are convinced that was the case, and that she was really a transvestite]].

Whilst it never becomes clear how much of their backstories are true or made up, expect most of them to have BodyHorror, NauseaFuel, NightmareFuel and/or RapeAsDrama. It should also be noted that, whilst some of the tales seem downright impossible, quite a few are [[BasedOnATrueStory very closely based on real events.]]

The novel's first chapter, "[[http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/shorts/guts Guts]]", was published in Playboy magazine well before the book came out proper [[ShmuckBait presumably as a warning]]. Palahniuk did readings of it during his worldwide book tour for ''{{Diary}}''. [[BrownNote Over 80 people fainted]].

* AncientArtifact/ArtifactOfDoom: The Nightmare Box, possibly.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: [[UpToEleven Good. Gravy.]] Absolutely NO ONE in this book gets off clean. The closest thing to a "good guy" we get is Ms. Clark and she [[spoiler:murdered her daughter.]]
** There's also Miss America. Even though she's a catty bitch, the worst things she does is [[spoiler:state Comrade Snarky is dead when she's only fainted (though whether she intended to is dubious) and she eats eat Cora Reynolds the cat for no real reason.]]
** Miss Sneezy is also fairly innocent. However, the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that, with the exception of Ms. Clark, even the ones who don't dirty their hands [[BystanderSyndrome just stand by while it happens.]]
* BlackHumor: Some parts of the book can be construed this way.

** As an anonymous audience member responded when Palahniuk expressed surprise that no one had fainted: "*snort* [[WhereDoYouThinkYouAre This is]] UsefulNotes/{{New|YorkCity}} [[WelcomeToTheBigCity York]]."

* IllGirl: Miss Sneezy

* KnifeNut: Chef Assassin
* {{Loads and Loads of Characters}}: The seventeen writers, Mr. Whittier, and Ms. Clark.

** Comrade Snarky: [[spoiler:She and her feminist group, believing the new, overly effeminate group member to be a {{MtF}} transgender, proceed to remove her clothes and sexually assault her to "check" if she's really a woman.]]
** Director Denial: Her story involves [[spoiler: the wrong type of anatomically-accurate child dolls being ordered for the county CPR training facility, and several police officers using said dolls for extremely questionable sexual purposes. Taken further as the protagonist of the story ''sees the dolls as living things.'']]
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The boy and dog from "Hot Potting?" [[TearJerker Sadly,]] [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/hotspring.asp They're real.]]

* {{Shotacon}}/{{Lolicon}}: If anatomically-correct dolls count. [[spoiler:Also "old" Mr Whittier is actually a progeria-suffering thirteen-year-old who makes money by seducing wealthy women and then blackmailing them with the threat of turning them in for statutory rape]].

* StrawFeminist: Comrade Snarky and her group. Granted, many of them have good reasons for being distrustful of men, but it really doesn't give them the excuse to [[spoiler:rape a new member they suspect is transgender.]]

* ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: According to the museum curator, the Nightmare Box [[spoiler:contains the truth of reality, which drove three people into a state of near-madness.]]

* BlackAndGreyMorality: [[UpToEleven Good. Gravy.]] Absolutely '''NO ONE''' in this book gets off clean. The closest thing to a "good guy" we get is Ms. Clark and she [[spoiler:murdered her daughter.]]

* BlackHumor: Some parts of the book can be [[{{YMMV}} construed]] this way.

** As an anonymous audience member responded when Palahniuk expressed surprise that no one had fainted: "*snort* [[WhereDoYouThinkYouAre This is]] UsefulNotes/{{New|YorkCity}} [[BrooklynRage York]]."

* BlackHumor: Some parts of the book can be [[YMMV construed]] this way.