I wasn’t all that disturbed by The Naked Lunch, I don’t know what that says about me…
I’d have to say Cruddy by Lynda Barry was really creepy, the thing that made it disturbing was that it was also funny as hell.
If you like psychologicaly creepy, as opposed to just gross, I cannot recommend highly enough the works of A. M. Holmes, especially Music for Torching and The End of Alice.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Man’s inhumanity to man.
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Celine
I read this book and I hate everyone for a month or so afterwards. Very Disturbing.
All the pedophilia in Gary Jennings’ novels.
One of the Tom Clancy novels that described in great detail the sinking of a sub, along with the sailors aboard.
Ivylad was on a six month Med run on a sub at the time, and it was NOT something I needed to read right then.
I threw the book across the room, burst into tears, and haven’t picked up a Tom Clancy novel since.
I was only 11 when I first read Orwell’s 1984, so I suppose I might be forgiven for having nightmares afterward. But it remains for me a horrific book on many levels.
Heartstones by Ruth Rendell. I loved everything I’ve read by her but still find many of her books/stories quite disturbing. Often it is a character or sequence of events I find disturbing because I know these (or their roots) are quite realistic. I also tend to find it a tad disturbing when I can identify with the thoughts and actions of a psychotic murderer, feeling sympathy and sometimes a little protectiveness.
I also found The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, somewhat disturbing.
I think the title is actually just Perfume, and I’ll second this choice. An excellent, disturbing novel.
Close seconds are the aforementioned Gerald’s Game (the only Stephen King book to make me not want to turn out the light), The Ideal Genuine Man by Don Robertson (the ending is a shock, to say the least), and Ordinary Horror by David Searcy (in which very little actually happens, but a great deal is suggested and hinted at).
So I haven’t personally read the book, but a friend described Helter Skelter to me, and it freaked me out. Of course she is a little bit in her own world as well, but it comes with the territory.
Geek Love by Catherine Dunne.
Basically the story of a carnival family who’s mom and dad decide to breed thier own freak show.
Disturbing on so many levels.
Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy(?)
Final Truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer, by Peewee Gaskins, who besides being a serial killer was an all-around lowlife. Don’t read it if you don’t want to be disturbed.
Oh my Gods, yes. How could I forget this one?
Silence, by Shusaku Endo.
Most disturbing account of martyrdom I’ve read.
Tim Cahill’s Buried Dreams, about serial killer John Wayne Gacy, a man almost inconceivably depraved.
I once read this book late at night before I went to bed–NOT A GOOD IDEA. Every pop, whoosh, or creak in the house was Manson coming for me!
Black Dahlia by James Ellroy - I don’t read too many disturbing books, but this one really made me sick.
Susan
Pretty much anything by Clive Barker. I like Stephen King, but he is tame compared to Barker.
Barker’s Weaveworld comes to mind, as does The Great and Secret Show
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.