Oh, Blood Meridian: read it @ 8 years ago, still haven’t recovered. NOT for the faint of heart.

@jellenp, i was just about to say the same thing. blood meridian is utterly brutal. i almost quit reading it several times along the way, but somehow forced myself through it. gruesome.

Where’s “The Lottery”?

I’d imagine that the “Hell Passion” in Sade’s 120 Days has no match in world literature for its horror. Only real life can come close to its extinguishing remorseless depravity (Holocaust, Rape of Nanking, Mi Lai, Rwanda…and so it goes…)

The Lottery, the one by Shirley Jackson, is a short story.

Forgot to add the queen of disturbing, Joyce Carol Oates.

Under the Volcano.
The Tunnel.

What about 2666

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy should be on this list. Of all the depravity in his writing this one takes the cake with a big set of wolverine jaws.

The Kindly Ones

I’m sure House Of Leaves is far more disturbing than many of these on the list.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn– it will twist you in ways you never knew you could bend.

Jude the Obscure. That is one of the most depressing and disturbing books ever.

“Tropic of Cancer”?!?! Have you people READ Tropic of Cancer?? It’s one of the most joyous, exhilerating and UPLIFTING novels ever written!

Sophie’s Choice is so creepy. Redemption? No. Handmaid’s Tale boring.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” is not a novel. It is the title story of a collection of short stories.

“Tiger, Tiger” is like nothing I’ve ever read. Graphic pedophile sex. eew. (Yet incredibly well written)

I think this a fairly accurate representation of areas of the “Old West.” Read about the Texas Ranger’s treatment of Native Americans.

The Collector bY John Fowles is the most chilling book I ever read as it was so easy to comit the crime he writes of and indeed many men have done so.

Last Exit to Brooklyn\Requiem for a Dream? A Clockwork Orange? Girl Next Door? Rape: A love story?

To be honest, the story the disturbed me the most (probably because I read it when I was really young), was Stephen King’s Lawnmower Man. That made me physically ill.

Wise Blood by O’Connor, The Penal Colony, Pet Semetary (unbearable), Naked Lunch, Troia (Bonnie Bremser–young woman gives up her child to strangers and prostitutes herself in Mexico so her heroin addict boyfriend can write bad poetry when not on the nod), The Old Testament (Genesis is enough, but there’s more), any memoir by the Bush Administration, just the cover of Laura Bush’s book, The Jolly Corner (Henry James), The Diary of Malte Laurids Brigge (Rilke, will make you feel crazy), Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, etc

I also thought of “The Collector”, which I read in high school, but the one that disturbs me still, more than the others on this list that I’ve read, is “Never Let Me Go”.

I second “Never Let Me Go.” yikes.

Were is “Night”, the german novel detailing the holocaust.

I agree, Under the Volcano is rough, and that middle section of 2666 is rougher (only one that competes with Blood Meridian, in my experience), and Tropic of Cancer does not belong on this list at all. I’ll throw two more on the pile: Appointment in Samarra, the book that introduced the reading public to a novel way of suicide (carbon monoxide poisoning in your garage), and Day of the Locust.

Flowers in the Attic and the Cement Garden, too.

House of Leaves

Surprised to not see “Bastard out of carolina” that book haunts me to this day.

*Lord of the Flies* and *Heart of Darkness*

“Blood Meridien”? Not nearly as bleak as McCarthy’s “The Road.”

Oh yeah, *1984*. Complete terror,

A sadly lacking addition ‘Les Chants de Maldoror’ by Comte de Lautreamont. In it, Maldoror seeks to find and murder God, along the way having questionable interactions with children, ticks, chairs and finally faces the brutality of the God he seeks. Possibly the father of all Surrealists to follow, the brutality of the book is unquestionable. That it is entirely sacrilegious only compounds the effect of its brutality.

The Long Walk by Stephen King. Read it as a child and would love to read again, but can’t find it… Anyone know? Haunting story.

Tobacco Road, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Deadwood, James Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy, anything by Robert Cormier (come on, I Am the Cheese? The Chocolate War? Tenderness? They’re all BLEAK)

A newcomer to this genre, but absolutely disturbing and beautifully written – Room: A Novel – by Emma Donoghue

Game of Thrones really doesn’t belong here.

Clockwork Orange, Naked Lunch, The Prestige, Ironweed (which won the Pulitzer Prize) and The Life of Pi are all very creepy, disturbing works of literature. Tropic of Cancer is not as much creepy as it is sexually “out there,” especially for its time. Today it would seem rather tame by comparison to most of the writing on the shelves.

The End of Alice by A. M. Homes, Cruddy by Lynda Barry, and The White Elephant by Barbara Gowdy would be on my list.

Oops – make that The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy. (It’s been a while since I read it.)

“Perfume” by Patrick Suskind

House of Leaves, most certainly, if I had to pick just one. Red Dragon and Clcokwork Orange come in close behind.

“The Road”, yes, definitely; and what about “Time’s Arrow” by Martin Amis? That one was like eating broken glass. But really, really delicious broken glass. (“Arrow” tries to make sense of the Holocaust by telling the story backwards…literally, time flows in the opposite direction…)

Deadwood–good. I like Pete Dexter’s Paris Trout for this list, too. You know, the Japanese hold the market on this stuff. All kinds of horrible manga out there.

Life of Pi is not for the faint of heart. I found that a pretty disturbing read.

MacKinley Kantor’s Andersonville – almost forgotten but a deep exploration of man’s appetite for cruelty and unfortunately based on Civil War history

The Girl Next Door. I second that. When you’re wishing a character would JUST DIE ALREADY so the misery of reading about it can end? Rough.

read 3 (psycho, handmaid, disgrace.) didn’t find any as disturbing as a book called Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack. here’s the summary from wiki:

he novel is told in the form of a fictional diary by the 12-year-old protagonist Lola Hart, and details Lola and her family’s experiences in a near-future Manhattan in which violence, rising unemployment, and riots are commonplace in the city, as well as the rest of the United States.[2] As the novel progresses, Lola transforms from a student at one of Manhattan’s most privileged private schools to a street-wise gangster as she and her family struggle to survive the despair of a crumbling government and economy.[2]

it’s completely scary and heartbreaking; basically the definition of disturbing.

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite.
About two homosexual serial killers that meet and fall in love. Very well written, has many graphic, morbid, gruesome scenes. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

@AndytheLawyer: The list is of disturbing books, not bleak.

I agree with sjlbk, Game of Thrones shouldn’t be here. It isn’t disturbing so much as it’s bleakly real- the good guys don’t always win, things that you think are impossible are not, and things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. Kushiel’s Avatar by Jacqueline Carey is disturbing and extremely well written.

Jesusland, by Julia Scheerer…..I was utterly disturbed by this book. I guess because I know that somewhere it is someone’s story!

The long Walk was a short story written by Stephen King under the pen name Richard Bachman. Excellent story

By far the most disturbing novel I have ever read was called “The End of Alice” by A.M. Homes. It is essentially a written dialogue between a man who is in prison for life for gruesomely slaughtering a 12 year old girl and a young woman who wants his advice on how to lure a young boy who she is obsessed with. Also, I would think that the novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbé, on which the movie The Vanishing was based would be extremely disturbing as well.

Geek Love was an awesome read. My first try at it failed. A few years later I was able to make a go of it and am very glad I did.

Intensity by Dean Koontz is awesome. I love his books and this one there were actually times I had to put it done because it was so scary. Best book I have ever read.

David Wingrove’s “The Middle Kingdom” (a series of 11 books)is another that gets my vote. Set in a Malthusian future where China rules planet Earth, the depths of misery and depravity he portrays are horrendous, very disturbing to read/comtemplate, yet extremely well written. And I think “A Song of Fire and Ice”, George R.R. Martin’s as yet unfinished series, in which “A Game of Thrones” is only the first of 4 books so far published, is very well included in this list.

House of Leaves is the most horrifying novel I have ever come across and I have read many. The book is hard to get through at first, but then grabs you and won’t let go. This author tried to recreate the magic in a second novel but did not succeed. Pick up House of Leaves and don’t be put off by the strangeness of how it looks. Great story!

On The Beach. The ultimate end of everything story.

Yes, how isn’t the road on this list? It’s the only apocalyptic book I’ve ever come across that actually reads like reality. It’s brilliant, brutal, and terrifying. Also, as some others have mentioned: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is a short story. If you’re going to include short stories then you would have to add “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” “The Lottery,” and anything Kafka ever wrote.

I’m reading American Psyco right now (almost finished) and it is very disturbing, much more so than the movie.

I’m pretty sure The Long Walk was recently published as a story by itself. It was originally a novella put together with Rage, Roadwork, and The Running Man. And yes King used Bachman as a pen name. Rage was way more chilling than The Long Walk. All four were great though.

Darkness Visable

Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain and her 2 sequels were outstanding….
also… In The Woods by Tana French

Disturbing, you say? My two cents:
“We Have Always Lived in the Castle” – Shirley Jackson
“Ubik” – Philip K. Dick
“G.B.H.” – Ted Lewis
“Haunch, Paunch And Jowl” – Samuel Ornitz
“Twilight” – William Gay
“As I Lay Dying” – W. Faulkner

“Red Dragon”, the prequel to “Silence of the Lambs”. Chilling account of a serial killer who murders whole families.

The Long Walk by Stephen King is available at amazon.

I don’t get the George R.R. Martin inclusion. Also, I have had the idea for years that AMERICAN PSYCHO is actually a satire on 80s financial industry life. By the time you’re a third of the way through (okay, I read true crime, so my tolerance is high), the bloodshed has gotten so over-the-top and unbelievable I stopped taking it seriously.

LORD OF THE FLIES definitely should be here, and ON THE BEACH. Unlike GAME OF THRONES, there’s no hope or salvation in either of these.

@ Joon Look for the long walk in the Backmen books King wrote it under Richard Backmen and yes very disterbing story loved it.

The Long Walk was in Different Seasons with Stand by Me, Shawshank, and Apt Pupil. Best collection of shorts I’ve ever read

I have found a number of Don DeLillo’s books disturbing: White Noise is the one that stands out as it was the first book of his that I read. Also Isiguro’s The Unconsoled is really disturbing until you realize that it is all dream logic, then not so disturbing.

Did anyone mention Chuck Palahniuk? The Fight Club author? OMG… His stuff is so disturbing, its a wonder he hasn’t been “put away.” I mean, I love him & all, and this is America, but jeeeeez looouise! DISTURBING!!!

What about Level 26: Dark Origins by Anthony Zuiker?

The Shoemaker. My step mother let me read it when I was about 11 or 12. It still haunts me to this day. Wish I had never read it, or at least not at such a young age. I can’t really comment on the writing (I was only a pre-teen), but the mental images the story invoked are beyond disturbing and stay with you – even 20 years later.

Room: A Novel, yes, exceptionally disturbing, Also, When Rabbit Howls…can’t remember the author….

@Charles – that is not correct. The Body (Stand By Me), Shawshank, Apt Pupil, and The Breathing Method make up Different Seasons.

Johnny got his gun.

There are a few others that should be on the list:

1. “The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles, particularly the third section. Bizarre and disturbing beyond words (though Bowles apparently had no trouble summoning them).

2. “Child of God” by Cormac McCarthy about hillbilly necrophiliac in rural Tennessee and takes the usual Southern Gothic tropes to an entirely new level of grotesque.

3. “Easter Parade” by Richard Yates, a novel that truly shows us all how bleak and hopeless middle-class existence has become and how its petty, banal, trivial, soulless people are totally beyond redemption or even the hope of redemption.

GEEK LOVE – love love love EET!

disturbing? for short stories none is better ( or worse – this tory has haunted me for years) than
Rasberry Jam by Angus Wilson

Many good books on this list – thanks everyone for some good/(scary) memories and some new ones to be found – i am glad that Random Acts of Senseless Violence was mentioned – was just a great read all around, especially the writing style.

I wonder if Watchmen can make a list like this – nothing happy at all in that graphic novel.

I was glad to see Saramago on the main list – Seeing is a loose follow-up to Blindness and bleak as well.

I know Watership Down might not be that disturbing but it still haunts and resonates in me to this day after reading it 30 years ago.

I just finished The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and I would venture to call it Indonesia’s Blade Runner. After spending some time in his world, I felt dirty and unbearably hot and confined.

oh, forgot to mention City of God by Paulo Lin – sad.

The Twilight series is pretty disturbing by how ridiculously awful it is.

The Twilight series is disturbing by how ridiculously awful it is.

I would put Flowers in the Attic in there. Scared the absolute hell out of me when I read it at age fifteen.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn was quite disturbing. It’s about a journalist (a “cutter”) who goes back to her hometown to write an article about an adolescent girl that was killed. It’s exceptionally graphic and includes sex, murder, psychotic family members, self mutilation… just brutal. Also, the author’s prose (harsh, direct, and unapologetically crude at times) makes it difficult to read.

I can’t believe “Geek Love” isn’t on the list…

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks out-disturbs any & all comers, imo.

sorry to keep posting but more books keep popping into mind -

Spider by Patrick McGrath

@zach went to bookshelf and pulled. Mine has The Long Walk as fourth (actually first). Mine is not realeased under Bachman though so it is probably a rerelease.

Room 186 (may have the room # wrong) was another of his shorts that freaked me out. Terrible movie though.

In that same collection was the “10 oclock people” the inspiration for “They Live”

My children had to read “The Giver” when they were in 4th grade. Color no longer exists and one can only see in black and white. Babies that do not progress and the elderly are “sent away”(euthanized. Tough to read especially with a child. If this is required reading for your child…please read with them.

To not include Stephen King in this list is a travesty.

“It’s impossible to sort out how you feel about that. The emotion this brilliant and disturbing novel leaves you with is like the spooked feeling Leonard experiences at the sudden intimation of “some essence, some hidden principle” in the world: “It takes your breath away, but you don’t know if that comes from awe or terror.” “The Glister” is that kind of story. It’s terrifying, and it feels like a gift.” Quote from NYTimes about the Glister by John Burnside…found this book one of the most disturbing and terrifying I have ever read.

Seriously? Game of Thrones? Me thinks I smell a plug plug.

Last Exit To Brooklyn

Michel Houllebecq’s “Elementary Particles” is the most bleak and disturbing novel I have ever read. It’s a black-black satire of modern western society. An unforgetable novel.

PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Didion. Sheer bleak genius and possibly the best opening sentence in 20th Century lit.

Cormac M’s “Blood Meridian” rightly makes the list, but one of his others: “Child of God” should at least get an honorable mention.

Tropic of Cancer? Really? Something tells me you guys haven’t actually read that one and just included it because of its reputation. Transgressive? Yes. Disturbing and cold? Hardly. It’s about finding beauty and hope in the midst of despair and far more hopeful than any of the other books you mention.

I’d be more impressed with novels that warmed the coldest of hearts. O’Connor and Ellison are dealing, each in her/his own way, with grace and salvation.

As a teenager in the sixties I read Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got A Gun”. Though written fifty years previous, and once banned in the United States, it is still the most serious and most disturbing novel I have ever read. I am positive it influenced many, many generations of young men.

Most of you probably have not or will not read The Coldest Winter Ever by Sistah Soldgier ( not spelled correctly), however, the book is not for the faint at heart. Very bleak, bad things happened that only got worse til the very end of the book. I was so upset that I wanted to vomit.

No Exit – Satre (yes i know it’s a play but still quite depressing)
naked lunch anyone?

Anything by Dennis Cooper

Wow ~~ Great list… Adding comments:
Yes to Clockwork Orange; Pet Cemetary; 1984; American Psycho…
To this day haunting: House of the Scorpion; The Stand (too scary to finish); and A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley.

on the beach. brrr. so cold and so possible!

Johnny Got His Gun – That’s all I need to say.

I’m baffled by some of these comments. “Life of Pi”?! What a beautiful book!! Ok, the turn at the end is a stunner, but still…

“2666″? I had no problem with it. Nor with “Blindness”.

I think both “Blood Meridian” and “The Road” can classify as disturbing. Not sure which is more disturbing… probably “Blood Meridian”. “The Road” is just dark.

Never read “House of Leaves”. Isn’t that by the brother of Poe, the brilliant musical artist?

“Never Let Me Go”… Haven’t read the book, but GOD!@!# The movie broke my heart.

I have some GREAT recommendations for future reading though!!

The Stand – Stephen King
On The Beach – Nevil Shute
…and Then There Were None – Agatha Christie

Steven King’s writings are fake terror. For the real thing, read any of Shirley Jackson’s horror writings or most of Cormac McCarthy’s novels with Blood Meridan being the most chilling. My favorite is a short story by Jackson entitled One Ordinary Day with Peanuts.

No Clive Barker, really? I mean I have to admit the books I’ve read off this list are disturbing, but especially if we want to talk about splatterpunk, Barker is the King!

i would say, go ask alice and a book called testimony by Anita Shreve also atonement by Ian McEwan. these last two books bother me because in each one, it is one decision that can never be fixed and it is heartbreaking.

Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler

This is a short story, not a “novel.”

Thanks for the warning – 10 to avoid at all costs.

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosisnki is another disturbing novel

I have to agree on Johnny Got His Gun,Flowers in the Attic and The Girl Next Door,with honorable mention to Red Dragon..

Having read every book on this list but Disgrace, I can’t quite see Game of Thrones here.. especially with “it’s popular” as the main argument! Yes, the book is darker than the tv show in many ways (a young girl, raised by her abusive brother, is sold off in marriage at age 13), and the following books even more so, but in the end, most of the characters have hope, or at least grit. Disturbing at times, yes, but bleak? Ermm..

Ms. Massara,

I did so enjoy your list of the ten creepiest novels. I was more than surprised to see several of my favorite books found their way to the collection. I did not recognize my own morbidity.

Several commenters placed “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson at the top of her or his list for creepy stories, not noting the author’s focus on novels, with the exception of O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

Please consider compiling a list of short stories, following the criteria for the novels. A few suggestions:

1. Dorothy Allison – “River of Names”
2. Joyce Carol Oates – “Where Are you Going, Where Have you Been?”
3. Robert Coover – “The Babysitter”
4. Louise Erdrich – “Saint Marie”
5. Francisco Hinojosa – La Muda Boca [The Muted Mouth] tr. Thomas
Christensen

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

I expected to see The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath on the list, but perhpas that’s only me…

Flowers in the Attic – V.C. Andrews

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

Why is Invisible Man on this list? It is intense, but not bleak. It takes on the existential bleakness of race and finds answers. The invisible man keeps his humanity in the face of pervasive insanity of racism. I’ll admit it could be seen as bleak if you are white and have not dealt with your whiteness. If you can’t find an identity outside of the culture your white heritage has given you, this book is kick in the gut. But the point is that we can break out the way society wants to construct us. That is the core of constructing a new reality, and that is not bleak.

I agree about Clive Barker. And no Octavia Butler? I’ve never come across a person who wasn’t profoundly disturbed by her work. I still have nightmares about Kindred and the Parables are two of the bleakest books I’ve ever read.

@lalee. I’ve never read Butler, but I might have to now. I’m thinking for Barker specifically “The Great and Secret Show” but I mean so many of his works could be on that list. The Books of Blood too. I could go on.

Great suggestions–I agree with most of them. I have 3 to add….The Bone People by Keri Hulme, Everyman dies Alone by Hans Fallada and Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers.

I second Dennis Cooper! Frisk was utterly disturbing and yet amazing…

A couple of the “novels” I see mentioned in these are actually non-fiction: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and When Rabbit Howls which was either by or about Truddi Chase. But they ARE both quite disturbing! I’d love to see a list of creepy short stories as well, and would definitely include Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery on that one.

Hows about Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk?

I just read the Stieg Larsson trilogy, “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” and I found them very disturbing. So disturbing that I went into a deep depression when I found out that Mr. Larsson died right after they were published, I slept for days!!!

Clockwork Orange and Rosemary’s Baby

Let’s Go Play At The Adams’ by Mendal W. Johnson. I read this in 8th grade and I still think it is the most disturbing book I have ever read.

um, you forgot Murray Silver’s “When Elvis Meets the Dalai Lama” (Bonaventure Books, 2005)…

I agree with The Handmaid’s Tale. Also The Lottery, The Road, and Joyce Carol Oates’ short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? which was made into a movie with Laura Dern and Treat Williams, also good, called Smooth Talk. Did anyone say Sophie’s Choice? I hated The End of Alice. It was disturbing but boring. This is a great list. I can’t wait to start reading!

“Blood Maridian” was the most disturbing book I ever tried to read. I had to put it down because I simply cannot have those gruesome, cruel images imbedded in my mind.

Incredible that McCarthy wrote “All the Pretty Horses” which I found to be beautifully written which is why I picked up “Blood Maridian” in the first place. My husband tried “Blood Maridian” too and had the same response — the stuff of nightmares. Who needs it?

How could anyone NOT include Scott Sigler’s Infected and Contagious?
Those are creepy as hell. Stephen King doesnt even compare.

Blindness is near impossible to read because of a lack of things like, oh, punctuation, etc., but still, it stayed with me. But, did you even see the movie? It came out amazingly well given the source material and it’s on my short list of “movies that you only need to see once” (goes on there with Requiem for a Dream, Shindler’s List, The Apartment, etc.) – great, but way too heavy for a repeat viewing.

Gotta include “Johnny Got His Gun” (as three others indicated). To me, the greatest horror novel written! It is as appropriate today (if not more so) than ever.

John Fowles ” The Collector ” is definitely an omission, brilliant, i recommend to everyone but extremely disturbing, you will cringe reading, also ” What is the What ” by Dave Eggers if only for its true recounts of a child in a war

Clive Barker-The Great and Secret show was VERY intense a must read if you ask me. Also anything by Jack KIllborn or Black Crouch are completely terrifying and filled with an unforgiving amount of gore.. they will keep you up with a night light on.

Another seriously distrubing book is called “Feed” by M.T. Anderson. It gives a view of the near future that sounds very possible and (have to say it again) “disturbing”.

‘Salems Lot by Stephen King is the scariest book I ever read. Handmaiden’s the second. It could happen…

Jude the Obscure – bleak
The Mysterious Stranger (Mark Twain). Haven’t read it in 35 years but remember being depressed for weeks afterward. May have read it when too young.

I would add Celine’s “Voyage au fond de la nuit” -I don’t know how it’s translated in English, but it is a very cynical and disturbing book.

Where is Palahniuk?

Add “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “The Painted Bird”

Blood Meridian is both beautiful and cruel.

thanks for reminding me of ‘the sheltering sky’ and ‘comfort of strangers’. both disturbing and shocking and great books.

“Battle Royale” should be on this list. I second “The Road” and “The Collector”.

This list would have been impossible without Blood Meridian. Dark, but will stand as one of the greatest explorations of the Old West. Brilliant, disturbing and original. I’m glad I read it. I agree, though. Not for the faint of heart. It’s such an epic book, I don’t think it would be possible to turn it into a movie. I’m not sure if there are any living actors who’d have the chops to play any of the characters.

Got to give a third…fourth nod to Sophie’s Choice. Still haven’t gotten over it. As an English teacher, I love to say to my students, “Oh, don’t write this one down. You should never read this one!” Of course, students love that and write down whatever title I might have mentioned as if I can’t see them scribbling it in their notebooks. However, I never even mention Sophie’s Choice!!! Really don’t want them to read it.

Wingshooters

“Blood Meridian” is like a lost book of the Bible.

Let’s not forget Peter STraub: Koko, Ghost Story, Floating Dragon, Shadowland.
Also: The Secret History
The Color Purple
The Beans of Egypt
Angela’s Ashes – the most relentlessly heartbreaking book I have ever read.

Many good suggestions. A few additions:

Jim Harrison’s Revenge, one of three novellas in Legends of the Fall. Vicious and gruesome.
Gravity’s Rainbow. Not much hope and very little humanity in the postwar Zone; Pynchon’s imagination is what the appreciative reader celebrates.
Stanislaw Lem’s brilliant, devastating, frightening science fiction. The dyspeptic Pole thinks we can’t stand the alien truth, and puts us to the test.

omg the white hotel,a novel about ww11

“The Hook” by Donald E. Westlake

Not as grotesque as some of the novels on the the list but very disturbing. Ironically, the author’s superior writing skills make it a hard read.

I love King and Straub and enjoy Sigler, but I don’t think their names belong in the same conversation as Faulkner or McCarthy.

Books are not dead, that’s for sure. You have all given me great ideas for my next read. I agree, Game of Thrones probably doesn’t belong. Great book and series, but “disturbing”? Not the description I’d give it. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Johnny Got His Gun? Not saying they should be in top 10, but great.

Red Badge of Courage
also many mentioned here – On The Beach,The Collector, The Road….

Forget about it. See the movie, A Shine of Rainbows. Why do dark, when you can do light?

Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves should be on this list

Never Let Me Go. Heartbreakingly disturbing.

The 120 Days of Sodom is definitely one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. The movie is pretty perverse too (which I watched, totally unaware of what it was, as a college freshman). Someone should compile a list of disturbing movies too.

What about Lord of the Flies, by Willaim Golding?

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima. Beautifully written, but disturbing.

This list has unforgivable sins of ommission. No Guy de Maupassant? No John Fowles? No Paul Bowles? No ‘The 7 Days of Peter Crumb’? Heck, in spite of all its humour – or because of it – I’d even include Catch 22.

@Joon – The Long Walk was written under Richard Bachman’s name. You’ll find it in the collection The Bachman Books. And yeah, that’s a great pick too. All 4 of the Bachman novellas are extremely disturbing.

“1984,” more relevant than ever.

“Filth” by Irvine Welsh (he also wrote “Trainspotting”) paints a fairly bleak picture of events in a darkly comic manner, but it is the ending that I felt (and maybe still feel) pretty much tops it all in terms of a bleak remembrance of daddy’s antics.

“Zombie” by Joyce Carol Oates.

Nabakov?

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We Need to Talk About Kevin is very disturbing.

Definately “The Painted Bird” has no one considered “The Bad Seed”?

How about “Blackwood Farm” by Anne Rice. Quite disturbing.

Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim
Joseph Gordon Levitt was excellent in the (very disturbing) film, too.

Stephen King’s short story collections usually have a few really disturbing bits. I remember being really disturbed by “I am the Doorway” in Night Shift and “The Jaunt” and “The Raft” in Skeleton Crew.

House of Leaves was disturbing at points, I just wish it had maintained that feeling more throughout the entire novel. There were things I was just bored by, but I can’t go too deep into details. A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite books and didn’t disturb me all that much. The movie did, not the book.

Instead of “The Raft” in my previous post I meant “Survivor Type” Sorry.

Interesting list – pleased I’ve read most of these, but I will read the others. My daughter is the editor on the TV pilot of Game of Thrones – interesting history behind how it came to be written. PS I think you’d like The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, if you like these.

Lord of the Flies folks.

“The Axe” by Donald Westlake. Truly harrowing from start to finish with a really disturbing ending.

Nabokov’s take on the horrific banality of totalitarianism, Invitation to a Beheading. Better than any Orwell.

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates

In the Cemetery where Al Jolson is Buried – Amy Hempel

For people who would think the Amy Hempel story is sad and simply not disturbing enough (though I would beg to differ), read this one: The Torture Garden – Octave Mirbeau

Blindness is a Day of Triffids ripp off

My ten:
Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Drood by Dan Simmons
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Breathing Out the Ghost by Kirk Curnutt
Koko by Peter Straub
Flanders by Patricia Anthony
Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright
Softspoken by Lucius Shepard

“Night” was written by Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. I haven’t read it; not sure I can handle it. I just mention it because someone asked about it.
“The Theory and Practice of Hell” was written by an Austrian sociologist who spent years in the Nazi concentration camps; I had to read it in college for a class in the history of Germany.

maiz — Thanks for mentioning Dan Simmons; you reminded me of “The Seed” also by Dan Simmons; definitely a wrist-slasher. Then there’s “Level 7″ — can’t remember the author. “The Destruction of Dresden,” by David Irving is the true story of the fire-bombing of Dresden by the U. S. and British in WWII; created a fire-storm and killed more people than the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The synopses for ‘Blood Meridian’ and (especially) ‘The Invisible Man’ are so at variance with the contents of either book that I have to question whether the author of this list actually read either of them.

Yes, I’m serious.

And the most disturbing work of Fiction is Hubert Selby, Jr’s ‘The Room’

“Russia has a terrible problem with abandoned children who live in the sewers. The Russian Mafia uses these homeless kids for organ transplants. An American reporter in St. Petersburg discovers what the Russian Mafia is doing but he only succeeds in bringing their fury down on his own head. In this fast-paced thriller, you will enter the raw underbelly of modern Russia. You will see depravity and vicious cruelty–things you cannot believe one human could do to another. You will see things that will shake you to the core of your being. By the time you come out on the other side of this thrilling odyssey into the dark heart of Russia, you will be changed forever.”

“The Butcher of Leningrad” (a thriller)

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/leningrad

[...] Take a gander at the Flavorwire’s complete list here. [...]

perfume, edible woman, needful things, metamorphosis….they are just as chilling!

I second Sophie’s Choice for the most disturbing novel ever written. I read it before I became a mother and it disturbed me even then. That was in 1983 and I still think about it and get sick to my stomach.

Blood Meridian is not a deconstructionist Western. Why do people keep making this assertion? That’s terribly minimizing its importance.

And No Country for Old Men? Try Child of God or Outer Dark. McCarthy has written much darker work than NCfOL (though nothing quite comes close to Blood Meridian).

Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko. This may be the most disturbing and most beautiful book I’ve read. Also, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. They beat out all books on the list except for Flannery O’Connor.

Has anyone ever read “Aztec” or “Aztec Autumn?” I cannot remember the name of the author — he also wrote a book about Marco Polo. All were so disgusting and the stuff of nightmares — torture, extreme torture and descriptive to where the reader feels ill. I read them when I was young and wish I had never put those images in my mind. All in the guise of “history.” That said, still nothing rivals “Blood Meridian” and I will never understand how people can describe something so cruel and base as “brilliant” no matter how extensive the vocabulary. My guess is that this is why some people enjoyed watching bull-baiting in past centuries and laugh at cruelty. Not literature in my vew.

Yes! I have read “Aztec” by Gary Jennings,one of the best, and I was totally engrossed by it, I could not put it down. Unforgetable imagery, debasement and torture, suprising twists, at time feelings ill over it all, as if I were there…. no thanks to a steady diet of that!

Recital of the Dog by David Rabe

The Demon by Hubert Selby jr makes you say, Oh the humanity. Bleakest of all bleaks.

The Demon by Hubert Selby jr makes you say, Oh the humanity. Bleakest of all bleaks. Ugh.

The Girl in a Swing, by Richard Adams
The Way the Crow Flies, by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Intensity, by Dean Koontz
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
The Comfort of Strangers, by Ian McEwan
Looking for Mr. Goodbar, by Judith Rossner
The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt
The Collector, by John Fowles
Lie Down in Darkness, by William Styron
We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver (HATED it!)
The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst

[...] month, we ran a highly contentious list of disturbing novels and short stories, from Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 classic, “A Good Man is Hard To Find,” to [...]

[...] 10 disturbing novels [...]

I second the nomination for In The Woods. Gorgeous writing, intense mystery and unsatisfactory ending (at least I thought). Not to mention a seriously disturbed protagonist who is hung up on a past unsolved mystery, and of course the child murder that is the central plot…

[...] month, we ran a highly contentious list of disturbing novels and short stories, from Flannery O’Connor’s 1955 classic, “A Good Man is Hard To Find,” to Bret Easton [...]

[...] chapter, thanks to one distraction or the other. Then a few months ago, I came across this list of 10 Novels That Will Disturb Even the Coldest of Hearts, and I was immediately intrigued. Most of the books were ones that I’d only heard of, except [...]

We have been making money and marketing on the net for above a yr and also have discovered it unbelievably satisfying although also becoming eye opening. I want to proceed on my journey and learn additional techniques and ideas so I can grow to be far better and even more productive.

It is rare for me to read a book that truly horrifies me.

However, the painted bird was gruesome and dismal as it gets. I feel like it should have been mentioned more.
It was so well written and engrossing that i couldnt put it down.

Ive read geek love and enjoyed it but it didnt seem to invoke that disturbed feeling. Im always on the lookout for a good, disturbing book that really makes you think. Kafka seems to always leave me feeling unsettled without really knowing why.

Just bought Blood Meridian, looking forward to a light read over Christmas! Recently re-read High Life by Matthew Stokoe. Still one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read.

@AndytheLawye

The Road? I found nothing disturbing about the book, I only found the prose to be quite lyrical

I don’t find Invisible Man disturbing, at least not enough to be on this list. Of course there is racism, but if that’s a criteria for a disturbing novel, than Morrison’s “Beloved” would be a far better choice!

Excellent choice with Blood Meridian though, one of the most disturbing novels of all time, but also one of the greatest!

Child of God..brrrr.

Agree with those who suggested “Lord of the Flies,” and, to a lesser extent, “1984;” the sheer bleakness in each one makes for a very rough read.

I would also ditto “Haunted” by Chuck Palahniuk. I know a lot of people don’t like Palahniuk and while the book as a whole is far enough out there that it may not disturb you too much, there are a couple of chapters where he turns the disturbed dial WAY up – and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that those chapters could happen. Pool scene be damned; the cops and dolls chapter makes me want to retch every time.

The most disturbing books I have read…Exquisite corpse and 120 days of Sodom…

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinsky, or whomever it was written by. Horrifying.

as I went through this list from top to bottom I wondered if anyone would mention The Painted Bird and several people did–for good reason: extremely disturbing and depressing book, misogynist as hell, especially to a very young girl who happened upon it by accident. Also, Gertrude Stein, absolutely unbearable (the things we have to study to get a degree in college, honestly).