Diary is a very Palahniuk story, containing a variation on the class war of Fight Club, mixed up with the magic and mysticism of Lullaby. I love the writing, the repetition and exploration of themes, the symbolism, that really builds up the foreboding. The combination of the scatalogical and the scientific. It's not really so much a plot as a journey, the temporal progress almost a backdrop to the filling in of details and twists.
The ending was a disappointment. I think the combination of the build-up of the story, and the writer painting himself into a corner might have made my disappointment inevitable, but it still feels like a shame. Surely we could have had another trick pulled out of the bag? Reading through, this was my favourite book of his, but as a complete book Lullaby wins.
Posted 2008-08-25.