What is the darkest most disturbing book?

[syrensong]

gravity's rainbow doesn't contain a single death scene, and it's still the scariest book I've ever read.

Who wrote Gravity's Rainbow? Why was it so scary? If I may be so bold as to ask?

 

[starchild42]

Going back a few pages:

one of the most disturbing books that i've read isn't fiction at all.
Patricia Cornwell, famed forensic crime novelist, wrote a book about using actual forensic evidence and fact from the Jack the Ripper case and comes up with a completely different killer than anyone really suspected.
the details in the book are nothing worse than any of us haven't seen or heard about in some context or another, but her dissecting of the case and the details of this murderer's life are particularly disturbing.
i had started reading it as my "lunchtime book" (i read pretty much solid for my 45 minute lunch) and had to stop several times because the details stayed with me and i started dreaming about them.
it is a truly horrific description of a person and his grusome habits.
the name of the book is "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed"

I read this a couple of years ago. To me, it wasn't hugely disturbing, more sensationalist. But then I've read alot of Ripper material and seen it all before and I guess I've become pretty immune to the shock value of the subject, although the photograph of the Mary Kelly murder scene is always a bit gruesome to look at. For the first time reader though, I can understand how it would be.

The first time I read about the Elephant Man, boy, that disturbed me to the point of nightmares. I was about 14 at the time and probably not able to process it particularly well, now I'm older and more mature (allegedly!), it doesn't have the same effect. Again though, since I've done my research on this subject now, I've become more disturbed by the shocking treatment this guy received than his physical appearance.

Fiction wise, I guess John Fowles "The Collector" is pretty disturbing.

 

[sally_sausages]

The book I found most disturbing was

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

I don't read horror so it may not be shocking or gruesome in the sense that horror fans expect. It is Capote's "factionilised" account of the murder of the Clutter family in smalltown America in the 60s (haven't read it for a decade and although it's still vividly in my head - details are sketchy)

 

[Libra6Poe]

One of the most disturbing things I've read have been short stories. I find it disturbing, not necessarily "shocking".

There's a short story in Marilyn Manson's "The Long Hard Road Out of Hell" that I read when I was quite young. At the time I truly regretted reading it, it made me cry, ha ha. I suppose my mind was too innocent then .

In high school I really enjoyed this horror anthology called "Splatterpunks" (edited by Paul M. Sammon). One story was quite jaw dropping, "Goodbye Dark Love" by Roberta Lannes. Unfortunately, that book is now out of print (it can be found online though). But the story is also in Roberta Lannes' "Mirror of Night" book.

 

[mojo]

What about Perfume by Patrick Suskind? It's shocking purely for the last chapter, wherever I thought the book was going, it wasn't there....

 

[Libra6Poe]

Actually, I thought A Clockwork Orange was a little disturbing too... The images I had in my mind were much more horrible than what I saw in the movie.

 

[lenny nero]

Edward Lee's The Bighead or Family Tradition come to mind. The pornographic violence in those books are so over the top that it's almost comical.

 

[joderu95]

And again for The Wasp Factory by Ian Banks.

 

[Libra6Poe]

Grimm Memorials & Grimm Reapings by R. Patrick Gates.
I can't stop thinking about the latter. Ugh. ::shudders::
Thanks a lot Lenny.

 

[jasmine99]

Whoever Fights Monsters by Robert Ressler

It is about serial killers and the inner workings of their minds, their habits and fantasies. The really disturbing thing about this book is that it's all true. The author claims to have come up with the term "serial killer" but there are others who claim the same thing.