# What is the most disturbing book you know? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 12, 2002, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222 "2002-12-12T07:37:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![ratty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ccd318/32.png) [@ratty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratty)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/101 "2002-12-19T15:17:49Z")
Just remembered a few more: _Dr. Rat_ by William Kotzwinkle. It’s about the horrors of being a laboratory test animal, told from the perspective of a aged rat. If you read it, you will never support animal testing again. The rats (and other animals) have horrible and yet completely plausible things done to them, and they repeat the phrase “Death is the only freedom” as their mantra. It got so incredibly horrible after a while that I started crying uncontrollably. _Watership Down_ and _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_ are actually children’s books, but I found them extremely disturbing as a child, and I refuse to read them ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Parthol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Parthol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parthol)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/102 "2002-12-19T15:57:43Z")
My vote for most disturbing book is Iain Banks’ _The Wasp Factory_. There’s a certain scene involving a baby and maggots that made me fling the book across the room, such was my revulsion at the imagery. I’m sure there are books with worse, but that really pressed my “ooked out” buttons. -P ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/103 "2002-12-19T16:38:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ratty \* > \***_The Malleus Maleficarum_ is also very hard to get through, not so much for the torture descriptions as for the incredibly upsetting mindset of the people who wrote the book, and their absolute and blind faith in the things they believed. (And what they were willing to do to their fellow humans because of those beliefs.)** On Haloween night the History Channel had a documentary on about witch burning. They put it in a context I’ve never heard before. They described Europe as in the grip of the Black Death. But they had no understanding for it; they could only turn to the main explanation: religion. (Think about it–stuck in a world of Aristotlean phyiscs where physical events are associated with animistic causes, a literal belief in the bible and an orthodox Catholic interpretation, no viable theory of disease, and what disease theory they had was most likely rooted in religious faith and magic.) Anyway, they saw the terror of the plague and the only explanation their world view had to offer was that it was punishment from god. Certainly much punishment had been meted out in the Old Testament. So they undertook reform in the rather nasty approach of going after witches with real Old Testament vengence. I’m not trying to excuse what they did. But it does put it in a very, very different light. I think that’s why a little part of me _always_ roots for the bad guys: sometimes the good guys aren’t right. Sorry about the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/104 "2002-12-19T17:55:34Z")
Ian McEwan’s **The Comfort of Strangers**. I had to read it for an English class, and as all our books have been dull and somber, I expected this one to be so, too. I can not describe the creepiness of it. It was good though, go read it! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/105 "2002-12-19T18:07:21Z")
Here’s some more: **Flan** by Stephen Tunney A hallucinagenic post-apocalyptic Candide. The naive hero Flan wanders through a landscape of degradation and horror in search of his lost girlfriend. **Hiroshima** by John Hersey Chilling images of the aftermath of dropping the bomb. ---
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/106 "2002-12-20T15:29:33Z")
I agree about _The Girl in the Box_ and _Pet Sematary_. There’s also a kids’ book that I think is called _Children of the Dust_ about the aftermath of nuclear war that scared the bejesus out of me when I read it. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2002, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/107 "2002-12-21T11:14:14Z")
**American Psycho** –Merely repulsive and misogynistic. No discernable literary merit. I assumed it was published for shock value. **Under the Skin** , **Perfume** –Made me queasy, but in a literary way. Yes, **Doctor Rat**. I read it when I was 15. For my money, **Wuthering Heights** is still one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. ---
**Author:** ![JungleLove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/839c29/32.png) [@JungleLove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JungleLove)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/108 "2002-12-23T01:21:04Z")
\When Rabbit Howls\ an autobiography by Truddi Chase. She supposedly suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder & recounts severe abuse while a foster child & how her personalities were formed. ---
**Author:** ![DarRRva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/53a042/32.png) [@DarRRva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarRRva)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/109 "2002-12-23T01:25:33Z")
I’m gonna say American Psycho… way too graphic… I almost threw up in the middle of maths. ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/110 "2002-12-23T07:44:42Z")
Re: **Euty’s** “Raptor” spoilers… Good godlessness. Did you have to remind me? I’m going to have to block that out of my brain in order to sleep tonight. Thanks! Seriously though, “Raptor” is a great book, but that scene definitely ranks up there in the hallowed halls of the horrifying. It’s the whole package that got me – that unfortunate man, the pregnant woman, the little eunuch and what happens to them. Ugh. “1984” made me want to go smash my head against a wall. It drove me insane for about a week. All those questions about what truth is, whether history matters, the appeal of power… .:Nichol:. ---
**Author:** ![Giselle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Giselle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giselle)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/111 "2002-12-24T05:49:25Z")
Okay, another vote here for _Santa Steps Out_. _shudder_ I read a few pages of that in the bookstore and it just . . . ugh. _House of Leaves_ was recommended to me by a friend and it scared the hell out of me. It starts out sort of oddly, but it just spins out of control and the fact that the book is formatted in such a way that it completely disorients the reader is really frightening. ---
**Author:** ![Misha77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Misha77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misha77)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/112 "2002-12-24T06:20:49Z")
“The Girl in the Box” freaked me out too. In fact, it was the first book I thought of when I saw the thread title. The premise didn’t really make much sense (she was kidnapped with a typewriter?) but I was so creeped out that I used to imagine rescuing the girl just so I could get to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/113 "2002-12-24T16:49:54Z")
On The Beach by Nevil Shute is really good and disturbing. It’s probably not as bad now that the Cold War seems to have faded, but it should make you think nonetheless. It’s about the Australian populace waiting for the post WWIII radiation cloud to drift down to swallow their continent. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is another great book about a super-plague that pretty much wipes out civilization. The main character is a graduate student in geology who is forced to fight to save humanity’s greatest acheivements, i.e. literacy & knowledge. Very, very good book. ---
**Author:** ![PublicBlast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/779978/32.png) [@PublicBlast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PublicBlast)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/114 "2002-12-24T18:20:13Z")
Don’t know if short stories count. Both of these were in _Tales by Moonlight II_ ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Tor 0-812-55371-3, Jul ’89 [Jun ’89]. 1. Mr. Templeton’s Toyshop Hard to describe. A series of paragraph-long vignettes about a diabolical toyshop owner who casually murders all the children in his town. 1. The Eldritch Horror of Oz I know we said no Lovecraft, but this story REALLY bothered me. It’s only really effective if you’ve actually read L. Frank Baum’s first several books in the Oz series, as opposed to just seeing the film. In short, a regular old mainstream Oz citizen is reading an Oz history book in a library at the Emerald City. Some of the pages are stuck together, and reasoning that some sticky-fingered kid was responsible, the hero takes out a pocket knife and is able to pry apart the pages in question. He then reads about the former inhabitants of Oz, grotesque arachnoid beings who worshipped Cthlulu and did the usual unspeakable Lovecraft drills. The good wicth Glenda catches him reading the book, and explains to him how she and certain other Oz characters have been battling the eldritch 8-legged beasts for ages, and are barely keeping them at bay in the great deserts. She also tells him that they have planted spies in Oz, and that he must tell nobody what he knows. The final scene has him pondering that the Woggle-Bug’s origin story (being magnified by a curious farmer, IIRC) seems kind of bogus. The hero then notices that the Woggle-Bug seems to have scars on his body where two extra legs have been removed at some point, meaning he once had eight legs…ick. ---
**Author:** ![Zanshin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e274bd/32.png) [@Zanshin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zanshin)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/115 "2002-12-24T18:37:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Giselle \* > \*\*_House of Leaves_ was recommended to me by a friend and it scared the hell out of me. It starts out sort of oddly, but it just spins out of control and the fact that the book is formatted in such a way that it completely disorients the reader is really frightening. \*\* I opened this thread with _HoL_ in mind – I just finished it last night. While some of the literary devices get kinda old (okay, enough with spreading out one word over four pages), the book itself is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever read. Not because of any booga-booga monsters jumping out at you, but because it posits one of the most frightening questions I can think of: _What if you couldn’t trust that the most basic things around you – space and time – were a constant?_ What would you do if you couldn’t trust that the physical universe you live in could change the rules from moment to moment? \ I’ll also put in a vote for _American Psycho_. Mainly because Bateman is able to describe some of the most horrific scenes with utter clarity and dispassion. ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Adam\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adam_P)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/116 "2002-12-24T21:52:54Z")
JUSTINE by the Marquis de Sade MOLLOY, MALONE DIES, THE UNNAMEABLE (a trilogy of novels) by Samuel Beckett THE LIME-WORKS by Thomas Bernhard THE END OF ALICE by A.M. Homes I second the vote for Lautreamont’s book. ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Adam\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adam_P)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/117 "2002-12-24T21:58:23Z")
Forgot one: NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN by Ben Marcus which was just published. Hysterical and utterly creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/118 "2002-12-24T22:20:39Z")
I’ve mentioned this book before and nobody has been able to identify it for me, but I keep hoping somebody else has read it. This may not be a novel, perhaps it is a short story, though I am pretty sure it was the entire book - see, I read this when I was about 7 or 8, and I can’t remember exactly, but I remember many details. NOTE: This book was NOT Dr. Rat, though there are similarities. The book was told from the point of view of a rat. He is the ‘pet’ of a demented teenage boy who is always performing cruel ‘experiments’ on animals. About the only one I can remember, though, is where the boy tapes the paws of several kittens to a cookie sheet and bakes them in an oven. The rat is the only animal that the boy hasn’t tortured and/or killed, and it has possibly been corrupted by the boy’s influence, he mentions at some point that every now and then the boy puts a female rat in the cage with him, but every time the rat kills and eats her. ---
**Author:** ![scablet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@scablet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scablet)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/119 "2002-12-24T23:19:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by unwashed brain \* > **The most disturbing book I’ve read is “Johnny Got His Gun” by Dalton Trumbo.** Dear LORD, my seventh grade English teacher gave me that when I told her I’d read everything on the book list. Much as it disturbed me at the time, I now have a strange urge to revisit it… _Red Dragon_ freaked me the hell out as I was reading it, but I can’t even imagine why in retrospect. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222/120 "2002-12-25T04:18:02Z")
THE DUALISTS (or THE DUELLISTS) OR THE DEATH-DOOM OF THE DOUBLE-BORN Two young boys, best friends, delight in taaking identical objects & smashing them against each other to see whose object will break first. They go from sticks & their toys to stolen objects, their homes furniture, then small animals. Thennnnnnnn- twins are born in the neighborhood! Utterly repulsive! You know old Bram was howling with laughter when he labored to make each sentence of the climactic scene more horrid than the prior sentence. It would be an EXCELLENT Tales from the Crypt episode1 EXCEPT the “moral” is actually an ANTI-moral which would have outraged William Gaines. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-disturbing-book-you-know/142222.md?page=7)