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?

Philippe Claudel sounds up your alley!

Broedeck’s Report
Monsieur Linh and his Little Girl
Grey Souls

Anything by Carson McCullers, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor

Also Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, Anna K

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Q by Christina Dalcher - I stopped reading because it was too depressing.

Ooh I'll have to take that challenge and see if I can finish it.

It looks interesting!

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy.

Home Fire
Little Scratch
My Dark Vanessa
The Hearts Invisible Furies

History by Elsa Morante

Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt - more a biography

ive just listened to an audiobook about a Glasgow probationer dealing with sex abusers leaving jail- narrator had an appropriate Scottish accent but I think it would be ok to read. Very black humour but an unusual subject if you want something different -Worst Case Scenario by Helen Fitzgerald - got it randomly from my library.

After reading several Sarah Moss books on the recommendation of this thread (Ghost Wall, Tidal Zone and Night Waking) I have loved them all and am looking forward to continuing to read through her back catalogue.

I've just read this today and it fits the brief of literary misery as well as being very, very good. Highly recommend: England is Mine by Nicolas Padamsee

Under the skin by Michel Faber

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor - set on a coffin ship to New York during the 1840s famine, carrying starving Irish evicted from their land and a handful of upper class passengers, and how their lives intertwine.

Joseph o'Connor is brother of the late Sinead.

Another Sarah Moss book - Bodies of Light, and its sequel Signs for Lost Children.

The first of these gave me the same feelings as A Little Life.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue was pretty bleak

The Four Winds by Kirsten Hannah was also thoroughly depressing.

Tender is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica
Night Bitch - Rachel Yodel
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Anything by Cormac Mccarthy

I’ve just read The Last Passenger which was completely grim

You were right. Q is a slog. I'm not sure I will make it. I've read 80% and it just gets worse the longer it goes on.

I'll let you know if I do manage to finish it.

Ben Myers, especially Pig Iron and Beastings.
Witch Bottle, by Tom Fletcher.
Andrew Michael Hurley, especially Starve Acre.
Carys Bray, When The Lights Go Out. One particularly smackable character and a last miserable twist.
Jenn Ashworth, A Kind Of Intimacy and Fell.

Cormac McCarthy. My husband is a big fan.