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I recently read Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. I was both pleased and saddened to see that the movie was very faithful to the book...devastating.
I really enjoyed 1984 by Orwell and The Outsider by Camus. They were both pretty grim. And it's hard to go past Lord of the Flies for a very bleak view of humankind.
I only just finished Blindsight by Peter Watts and was so-so on that. I guess it was pretty brutal and being narrated by a character who was only somewhat human gave it a very flat tone which added shade more than light. But it was also a bit of a challenge. I guess if all the characters are brilliant it shouldn't be a surprise that I struggled to follow their thoughts and conversations and the jumping around from past to present to hypothetical and back again didn't exactly help.
One author who paints a pretty damn bleak picture of life is Australia's Christos Tsiolkas. I've read Loaded, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe and all three make you wonder why you'd want to bother living at points.
I'll also give a shout out to an indie novella which I loved for its bleakness: The Speed of Winter by B Morris. A very dark look at the hazards of colonising a distant planet.
What else...
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is not only dark, but beautifully written.
The Survival of Thomas Ford by John Logan is another dark favourite.
Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist has that bleak feel that Scandinavian authors excel at.
Elizabeth Hand gives good bleak. Generation Loss was a great example and there's a sequel called Available Dark that I'll be reading shortly.
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