Disturbing Books

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I was debating about starting a thread on books about 9/11 and what to call it (9/11 literature? Terrorist literature?) and decided it probably just belonged in disturbing books. I read Windows on the World recently and God, was that disturbing. The author alternated chapters between his own narrative as a French native writing in a Parisian skyscraper, trying to come to terms with the attack on the World Trade Center, and a minute-by-minute account of what happened to three fictional characters, a father and two sons who were having breakfast at Windows on the World when the plane struck the North Tower. It was very hard to read; I don't think I'd ever be ready to read something that graphic. I've read a few other books on 9/11. Dear Zoe, which was about a teenage girl whose sister died in an unrelated accident on 9/11, was very good, and The Usual Rules, which was about a teenage girl whose mother died in the attack was also pretty good, probably because both focused on the survivors getting through the aftermath. Walking With Her Daughter, which was about a mother whose daughter died in the bombing of a nightclub on Bali, was not very good. I like Jessica Barksdale Inclan's writing a lot, especially In Her Daughter's Eyes and The Matter of Grace, and she seems to typically take ideas from the news and fashion stories around them. Walking With Her Daughter, however, just didn't ring very true, somehow.

I've never read any novels about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which I guess is the closest parallel, but I wonder how long afterwards the first novels were written and how they were received at the time; if they found an audience that found the books cathartic or if the subject was just too raw in the immediate aftermath to read about.

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After reading a certain chapter in Jim Grimsley's dream boy I had to put down the book for a few days. The rape and almost murder of the main character is described in such a horrifying way (and of course it's just such a horrible thing to happen, especially because the character - Nathan - is also being abused by his own father) that it made me physically sick.

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Milkweed, by Jerry Spinelli. I don't know why, because I've read a lot of books on the Holocaust, and this was a fictional book, but it seriously depressed me. Anyway, I don't think it's really necessary to write fictional Holocaust books when there are so many books about real people who went through it, but that's just my opinion. (I had no idea what the book was about when I picked it up; just noticed excitedly, "Ooh, a brand new Spinelli book" and started to read it right away. I'm also a compulsive reader, and once I pick up a book I find it hard to stop reading, if it's well written and compelling, even if it is disturbing. So I guess it's sort of my fault for finishing it and getting so depressed by it.)

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jensational said:

Less Than Zero disturbed me.

Oh yeah. I rarely read disturbing books because I'm in the phase where I still like me some chick lit and Harry Potter, but this book sounded interesting. By the end of it, I was really sad and depressed. I mean, in Hollywood do people really go to parties and watch 12 year olds get raped? It wasn't the drugs or anything that bothered me, but I really couldn't get that image out of my head after reading it.

I'll go back to the Sisterhood of the Traveling pants, thanks.

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Sybil really creeped the shit out of me, especially when her mother used to rape her with a button hook when she was only an infant! And then there were the enemas, when she was hung in a little suspension harness from the light fixture.

And as much as I loved the Anne of Green Gables books, the one part in Rilla of Ingleside when little Bruce Meredith drowns his kitten because he thinks if he gives up his kitten, God will allow Jem to come home from the war just really disturbed me. In fact, in order to get over it, I had to actually keep looking at that passage, until it just didn't matter anymore-otherwise, I was haunted by it.

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Also, "Goodbye Mr. Tom" which for some really odd reason is in the children's section and which details some of the most gratuitous and graphic child abuse I've read about.

Aaaah, Goodnight, Mr. Tom.....

I don't remember much about the details, except one scene where he's first discovered in the London house, and is he chained to something? And the baby has died in his arms because he had no food and no water?

My boyfriend likes a lot of H.P. Lovecraft, but after he's read some of it he often can't sleep. I haven't had the nerve to go near any of it, but is that author really that creepy?

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Guinastasia -- That method of reading something disturbing over and over again till it becomes meaningless sounds very effective. I might try that next time I come across something that mentally torments me.

A few years ago I was babysitting some kids at someone else's house and came across a small book-case which obviously housed their c-list books, or maybe books destined for a rummage sale. Out of boredom I read something called (I think) Let's Go Play at the Adams House. I'd bet money no one's ever heard of this piece of trash. Anyhow -- It was about these pre-teen, wealthy suburban kids whose parents all go on vacation together and hire a babysitter to look after the kids for a few days. The kids, out of hideously morbid curiousity decide to overpower the baby-sitter and torture her to death. Which they do. And it went into rather a bit of detail.

This was awhile ago, and I still get a quiver in my stomach thinking about it. (And yet, for some reason, writing about it is rather cathartic...)

Holy shit! I just reviewed my post in Preview and realized I was babysitting and was reading about a tortured babysitter! Duh! No wonder I've never gotten over that!

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Out of boredom I read something called (I think) Let's Go Play at the Adams House. I'd bet money no one's ever heard of this piece of trash.

Actually, I have this book on my Disturbing Books list as one to avoid. I don't remember where I first heard of it - maybe on The Site That Once Was?

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It didn't disturb me when I was ten years old and in love with the book Of Nightingales that Weep by Katherine Paterson, but thinking about it recently, I reflected about the fact that the main character married her stepfather after her mother and brother died. Something about that seemed a little...off... to my adult mind. Especially since he helped raise her from when she was a pretty young kid.

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I was just watching a documentary on TDC about Multiple Personality Disorder, and they said the real life woman that the book Sybil was based on didn't even have MPD. She had the symptoms of MPD, but only after her therapist convinced her that she had these symptoms. She did have tons of stuff wrong w/ her, but (according to this show), MPD wasn't one of them.

Now, not only is the abuse she suffered disturbing, but so is the fact that her shrink wanted to make a name for himself and used his client by convincing her she had more wrong w/ her than actually was wrong. Makes me afraid of psychiatrists now.