First of all I have to warn readers about the disturbing content in
this book. This book is not for the weak stomach....
It has been
reported that when Chuck has read the short story "Guts" from this
novel, there have been injuries with people passing out.
To me this book
reminded me somewhat of the setup of "The Canterbury Tales". The frame
style of this book consists of each chapter starting out with what is
going on in the story with the 17 would be authors who have signed up
for a "Writers Retreat", then it follows with a poem about the person
who will tell a story and then the story. There are 23 stories and the
motifs of these stories consist of sexual deviance, sexual identity,
homosexuality, desperation, social distastefulness, disease, murder,
death and existentialism.
The satire of this book is "the battle for
credibility" that has resulted from the ease with which one can publish
through the use of modern technology but some say it is a satire of
reality television.The main story centers on a group of 17 individuals
who have decided to participate in a secret writers' retreat. They are
only allowed to bring one piece of luggage. They are all picked up by
bus and brought to an abandoned theater and are locked inside for 3
months.
During this time each participant is to write a work of art.
They start out having enough food and water along with heat,
electricity, bedrooms, bathrooms and laundry facilities.The group starts
out innocent enough but then they decide that they could make a better
story of their own suffering inside the theater and become wealthy from
their story of fate. They then start to individually sabotage the food
and utilities with each character trying to only destroy one food or
utility to increase their drama slightly. Since each character does
this individually and don't work as a team, they end up destroying all
the food and utilities forcing them all to struggle with starvation,
cold and darkness.
Oh, but they don't stop there. Each character wants
to out-do each other with their suffering (just so they are cast as the
main role of their suffering) so self-mutilation, murder, suicide and
cannibalism.
OK - I'm stopping there so I don't give away too much of the
book. The short stories are sick and demented but all tie back to the
story and each deals with the sick mental psyches of people today.
This
book may have taken me over a day to read but it was so worth it!!
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