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''Haunted'' ( 2005 ) is a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk that was released on May 3 , 2005 . The plot is a Frame Story for a series of 23 Short Stories (most of which are preceded by a Free Verse poem) with a chapter in the main Narrative before and after each one. Each of the stories are written by the characters of main narrative, and each ties back into the main story in either important or minor ways. The synopsis on ''Haunted'''s dust jacket describes the book as a satire of Reality Television . According to Palahniuk, though, the novel is actually about "the battle for credibility" that has resulted from the ease at which one can publish through the use of modern technology. THE MAIN NARRATIVE The main story centers on a group of 17 individuals (all of which go by nicknames based on the story they tell) who have decided to participate in a secret writer's retreat. After having noticed an invitation to the retreat posted on the bulletin board of a cafe in Oregon, the characters follow instructions on the invitation to meet Mr. Whittier, the retreat's organizer. Whittier tells them to each wait for a van to pick them up the next morning and bring only what they can fit into one piece of luggage (in particular, only what they feel they need most). The next day, the 17 characters, Whittier, and his assistant Ms. Clark are all driven to an abandoned theatre. There, Whittier locks all of them inside the theatre, telling them they have three months to each write one story before he will allow them to leave. In the meantime, they will have enough food and water to survive, as well as heat, electricity, bedrooms, bathrooms, and a clothes washing machine provided. The characters live under harmless conditions at first. However, the characters (not including Whittier or Clark) eventually decide that they could make a better story of their own suffering inside the theatre, and thereby become rich after the public discovers their fate. They then begin to individually sabotage the food and utilities provided to them, each character trying to only destroy one food or utility to slightly increase the drama of their stay. However, as no single character is aware of the others' plans, they end up destroying all their food and utilities, forcing all of them to struggle to survive starvation, cold, and darkness. CHARACTERS The following are the 19 characters in the main narrative, along with the stories they tell:
"GUTS" The book is best known for the short story "Guts", which had been published previous to the book in the March 2004 issue of '' Playboy '' magazine as well as on Palahniuk's website (Palahniuk offered to let them publish another story along with it, but the publishers found the second work too disturbing). It is a tale of violent accidents involving masturbation. While on his 2003 tour to promote his novel '''' in the summer of 2004, he read the story to audiences again, bringing the total amount of fainters up to 53, and later up to 60, while on tour to promote the softcover edition of ''Diary''. The last fainting occurred on September 25 , 2004 , in Ann Arbor , Michigan . Palahniuk is apparently not bothered by these incidents, which have not stopped fans from reading "Guts" or his other works. In a September 2004 reading of "Guts" at Cooper Union in New York City , no listener admitted to fainting. When Palahniuk showed surprise, many members of the audience replied, "This is New York!" in a nod to the alleged inability to shock the city's denizens. "Guts" begins with the narrator telling the reader to hold their breath for the duration of the story, which may have something to do with the faintings. The narrator then describes three unnerving incidents involving adolescent boys masturbating. First, he describes a boy inserting a carrot into his rectum to stimulate his prostate while masturbating, and then hiding the carrot in a pile of laundry. His mother later takes the laundry away and presumably discovers the lubricated carrot, but never mentions it to him. Next, the narrator describes a young boy inserting a thin stick of candle wax into his urethra to stimulate it while masturbating. The wax slips back into the boy's bladder, requiring surgery to remove it. Finally, the narrator describes an incident in which he sat on the water intake at the bottom of a swimming pool while masturbating. The suction caused his rectum and lower intestines to Prolapse and become tangled in the filter, forcing the narrator to gnaw through his own innards in order to free himself and avoid drowning. The narrator's sister later becomes impregnated by semen deposited by the narrator in the pool, which results in her having an abortion. In all three cases, although the parents of the boys involved knew about the incident, they never discussed it afterwards, causing all three to figuratively "hold their breath" while they waited for the reaction that never came. Purportedly all three of these incidents are based on true stories. According to Palahniuk, the first two tales came from his friends' experiences and the third he heard while shadowing Sexual Addiction support groups. In one of these groups, he met an extremely thin man. When Palahniuk asked him how he stayed so thin, he told him "I had a massive bowel resectioning." When Palahniuk asked what he meant, he told him the story which was the basis for the third episode in 'Guts'. ISBN NUMBERS
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