Rapid Review: Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff
Last week columnist Jeri Rowe stopped me in the newsroom with a huge grin on his face.
"I've got something for you," he said. "It's for the blog, but I'm going to need it back."
"Okay," I said.
"No, really," he said. "I'm going to need it back."
"Fair enough," I said, a little curious now.
That's when he hit me with this -- an advanced copy of Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, Snuff.
Jeri needn't have worried: I finished it in one night.
If you're not a hardcore Chuck Palahniuk fan (and there are plenty of rabid ones out there), then you probably know him primarily from Fight Club.
I liked that book and loved the movie, but I was boxing when it came out and it spawned this whole legion of whacked out meatheads who wanted to get into boxing or mixed martial arts as some sort of existential/psychological exercise. You didn't want to fight these guys -- they didn't acknowledge that boxing has (and should have) rules, might bite you or start crying about their daddies in the middle of a sparring match.
I mention this because, though it's not his fault, Palahniuk writing so well about the unstable in off-kilter situations seems to attract a lot of unstable, off-kilter people. Like hardcore Hunter Thompson or Charles Bukowski fans, there is a certain segment of the readership that can't appreciate the writing without feeling they should emulate the lifestyle (even the fictional or mythological lifestyle) of the author or his characters.
Which is why I can't wait to see what sort of crazies Snuff inspires. It's a book about 600 men who set out to film the world's largest gang-bang with one female porn star -- and maybe kill her.
The book is just 208 pages and as its told in short bursts of first-person narrative by various of the men waiting their turn with the porn star and a woman helping with the production, it flies by. One of the men is a washed up male porn star hoping to revive his career, one a scandal-ruined TV star hoping to get the female star to marry him so they can bag a reality TV show, and one disturbed young man waiting in the long line suspects the porn star is his mother.
Some of it is camp -- the porn star in question has starred in such movies as World Whore 1-3, The Wizard of Ass and The Italian Hand Job -- but even as dark comedy it relates a lot of truths about modern media and how, strangely, the larger culture has become more perverse and cruel than even the worst porn. There are few people more qualified than Palahniuk to point that out for us.
The book's in stores May 21 -- buy it, keep it hidden from the kids, and enjoy. But you may need a shower afterward.
Comments (3)
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