Literary Misery, Please...

[LittlePrecious]

I like dark, disturbing, atmospheric and/or miserable fiction books. I veer towards literary fiction.

As a flavour of where I'm at;
I love everything that Hanya Yanagihara has written.

I love most of Siri Hustvedt's fiction books, even if the art bits are a bit pompous.

I love most of Ottessa Moshfegh's books.

I love Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" though struggled with his other works.
I love "My Dark Vanessa" by Kate Elizabeth Russell.

I love "The Handmaid's Tale" but hate everything else Attwood has ever written. I've never tried "The Testaments" because HMT ended perfectly for me.

I love most of Kazuo Ishiguro's books but was taken completely aback at how shit "The Buried Giant" was and so haven't gone back to his works.

I love "Washington Black" by Esi Edugyan but hated "Half Blood Blues" and so haven't tried anything else from her.

Not quite as dark, by other favourite authors are:
Isabelle Allende
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Bernadine Evaristo
Karen Maitland
Yaa Gyasi
Sarah Waters

Currently waiting be read I have:
"Shuggie Bain" by Douglas Stuart
"The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides

Wise readers of MN, do you have any recommendations for other dark, atmospheric, disturbing and/or miserably novels which veer towards literary fiction?

Antonia White's Frost In May quartet. The last two - The Sugar House and Beyond The Glass are chilling and beautiful.

Have you read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy? It isn’t dystopian but there is a lot of misery.

Both of these recommendations look amazing, thank you!

Keep 'em coming.

Placemarking shamelessly.

Burntcoat - Sarah Hall
Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa (and possibly also The Memory Police by the same author)
The Vegetarian - Han Kang
Addlands - Tom Bullough
Ghost Music - An Yu
How to be Human - Paula Cocozza
Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss
My Year Abroad - Chang Rae Lee
Starling Days - Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Intimacies - Katie Kitamura

Young Mungo is even grimmer than Shuggie Bain imo

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola sprang to mind when I read your thread title - sorry don't know how to do the accents.

One more:
The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki

Little Dorrit. Charles Dickens

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë. Totally different to other more dramatic / flamboyant Brontë sister novels. Must be one of the earliest books on insidious creeping domestic abuse written by a woman.

Oh, I should've said that I've not long finished that book. Fantastic. I loved "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver. My friend told me about "Demon Copperhead" and I was really unsure because I hated everything that she wrote since "The Poisonwood Bible" but I'm glad I gave it a go.

So many to go on here, thank you

I think I might've read "The Vegetarian" a while back.

[Potential Spoiler Alert]

Is that the one where a woman turns into a pot plant? And her husband puts her on the balcony? Is that the same book, or a different book by the same author?
I hated that book, I was completely lost all the way through.

So many great ideas here, thank you all!

"Is that the one where a woman turns into a pot plant?"

She gradually tries to become more plant/tree like, but I don't think she actually succeeds in becoming a pot plant!

But if it is the same book you are thinking of, I can definitely see how it would not be everyone's cup of tea. Most of the others on my list are not quite so out-there.

😅 See - I was completely lost. I thought she actually turned into a plant.

Thank you - I've heard of a few of your other suggestions and they don't seem as wild, so shouldn't get me too confused! Thank you!

Burial Rites should be a good one for you.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

It doesn't get much more miserable than that.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Any Daphne Du Maurier. I am thinking especially Jamaica Inn. That's very dark, bleak and brilliant!
Burial rites by Hannah Kent, wonderful book.

I've recently read Boy Parts and Penance by Eliza Clark, which I think meet the brief? She creates voice amazingly, I think. And it's definitely dark/ miserable/ verging on horrible. But it doesn't have the intense broodingness of the other stuff you're describing. You kind of have to bring that aspect yourself, if you know what I mean?

Can't believe no one has mentioned Thomas Hardy. It doesn't get much darker than Jude the Obscure.

Wilde's Dorian Gray is surprisingly dark, and so is early Evelyn Waugh. J G Ballard disturbs me too. I also find Tolkien's description of Mordor horrible.

Cormac McCarthy is beyond dark. He's utterly horrific, frankly. In fact, he makes Hardy look like P. G. Wodehouse!

Cormac McCarthy?

Hamnet is pretty bleak.

I like southern gothic with a twist of sadness so recommend Carson McCullers.

David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas’. Absolute genius.

@CrepuscularCritter - god yes. I don’t many people who have read these. I was obsessed with them as a teenager.