Diary (novel)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Diary: A Novel is a 2003 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. The book is written like a diary, its writer/narrator/main character being Misty Wilmot, a once-promising young artist currently working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt. According to the description on the back of Diary: A Novel, Misty "soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives."
Diary loosely falls into the modern horror genre, putting aside violence and shock tactics in favour of psychological scares and dark humor.
Plot summary
Diary takes the form of a "coma diary" kept by a Misty Marie Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in a hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she's been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he's remodeled and scrawling vile messages all over the walls - an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter's case. Angry homeowners are suing left and right, and Misty's dreams of artistic greatness are in ruins. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kincaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively.
Misty discovers the islanders, including her father-in-law (previously thought to be dead), are involved in a conspiracy which repeats every 4 generations. A young artist (in this case Misty) is lured to the island by old jewelry, becomes pregnant and has children. During middle age, her husband dies and all her children die resulting in a wave of creativity, the product of which is mesmerizing to the audience. The islanders then create an exhibition of the art work at the local hotel where a fire is started by Misty's daughter, who is revealed to be alive, and all the hotel's occupants are burned to death due to their mesmerization. The result is a huge insurance claim which leaves the remaining island citizens wealthy enough to support their luxuriant lifestyles for the next 4 generations at which point a new young artist will be found to repeat the cycle. Peter, Misty's husband, was attempting to warn her of this plot using his hidden writing and it is revealed his suicide attempt was in fact a murder attempt. It is never revealed in the end whether Peter recovered from his coma, but from Misty's descriptions of his state of health, he more than likely passed away.
