ix Cajun Gothic, the Marx Brothers, and Andy Warhol and you get “Diary,” a novel with the scratch-and-sniff charm of an infected hangnail.
Misty Marie Wilmot’s husband Peter is in a coma. Trailer-reared, she’s also a waitress (“Employee of the Month”) at the Waytansea Hotel on Waytansea Island — yes, Wait and See. But Misty is also an artist who is maybe a witch. What does that make daughter Tabbi? And why did pre-coma Peter, a builder, install scrawl-filled secret chambers when he renovated island property? And please, who are these French-murmuring pseudo-relatives selling Misty’s flashback art?
“Everything we say shows our hand. Our diary,” writes Palahniuk. But everything we don’t say is what matters. Wait and see.
