by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday
2003
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Misty Wilmot is trapped inside her paintings. She sees only the cliché images of a childhood spent daydreaming of better things. Growing up in a trailer park with her trailer mother and not much else, her mind provided that much-needed escape we all turn to sometimes. Unfortunately, her utopia did exist, and now she can't get out.
Marrying a seemingly well-to-do artist from Waytansea Island after finding her birth control pills switched with little cinnamon candies and her belly growing ever larger, Peter Wilmot took her to the island, bringing with them her art supplies, his deception and latent mind sickness. He went off the deepest of deep ends and attempted suicide, leaving her to clean up his messes. Strange things are afoot on Waytansea Island. in all of the properties Peter owned, he had taken a kitchen here, a bedroom there, and made of them huge homage's to Misty's fat ass. "Where do you get your inspiration?" one wall asks, painted in huge accusatory black spray paint. The renters call Misty, threatening court and lawsuits, but nothing can be done. Peter is in a coma in the hospital, a result of his last attempt on his own life.
Reading someone else's diary is a dirty thing. We all think about it once in our lives, but we resist the urge, we do not do this bad thing for many reasons. The story of Misty Wilmot is a diary, her diary, the one she began keeping to tell Peter all of the details he missed by being in the hospital. Details like their daughter, Tabbi, and how she spends her thirteen year old days finding old china patterns with her grandmother. Such as how Peter never reacts when Misty pushes one of the old costume jewelry pins through the flesh above his nipple, just to see if he'll do anything. The handwriting is on the wall, and Misty is slowly comprehending what this island does to the artists who die here. Constance Burton, Maura Kinkaid. they, like so many others, died for this island and for all the upscale rich who lives there. There's no way out, everything is a self portrait.
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