Choke: A Novel

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Lots of sex, violence, money and backstabbing set in a tropical paradise in the keys, with the requisite boats and tennis pros abounding throughout. The title Choke comes from an opportunity incident at a tennis pro competition when Chuck was in the verge of winning the championship, before without an an explanation, he choked in the final shots. With Chuck's love interest, Meg, waiting for her not-so-faithful boyfriend to be free of this crime, Chuck struggles to find out who the killer is, and why they chose him for the pit-fall. If you would like to have your belief structures and social conventions challenged by one of the best new voices around, I highly recommend this book.

This and his constant moves from one home to another have left Victor unable to form lasting and stable relationships with women. As a result, Victor finds himself getting sexual gratification from women on a solely superficial level. There's probably a lot to be said about the merits of populizers of previously obscure movements, which I won't get into.His mother tried to kidnap him from his foster parents several times but every time they would be caught after a short period together, and he would be sent to the child welfare agency again.

I actually think characters living on the fringes of society (and their disreputable adventures) can make for interesting, thought-provoking reading. For the first time, Palahniuk (Beautiful You) collects his short stories, which feature his signature humor, horror, and grit. The two of you sharing ends of your fat hot slider, you could be on the cover of some paperback bodice-ripper.

It is during sexual exercises that a story of emotional abuse by his mentally sick mother reveals through the flashbacks. Loved or hated, probably both, but do yourself a favor and read his works now while he's got his little cult following, this way a few years down the road, when everybodies on the literary band wagon, you can laugh and tell everyone, "I TOLD YOU SO. He's dropped out of medical school, he's broke, and his mother will die unless he can make some more money to get her the care she needs in her nursing home. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. The theme park that was full of drug addicts pretending to be members of a feudal society represents Victor's denial in life.

In fact, I often feel about him the way I felt about the band Rush in high school--I could agree with every statement they were trying to make while being totally bored with the dull literalism of how they made them. Victor is even more pathetic than Palahniuk's previous antiheroes, in that the world he creates for himself (a carnivalesque mélange of theme park, geriatric ward and asylum) is actually more horrific than the one he seeks to escape. His mother is sick and he pays for her healthcare by pretending to choke on food then making the person who “saves” him feel responsible for his life.I can’t really agree with the opinion you have, but maybe it is because it is only the second book i’ve read of him (first one was snuff). In an interview he mentions that "I went to the Wednesday night group and a Friday night group, and mostly because I wanted to see the structure of the groups, how they were conducted, and what the atmosphere was like, and also to be able to describe the people as human beings, rather than as the dirty jokes that they are in our culture, you know? You wear a foofy linen shirt, a cravat, and some breeches, and the whole world wants to sit on your face. And I ask them, hey kids, can anybody here tell me how people in the eighteenth century used to abuse naked little boys to death. While on a boat trip on their expensive yacht, Harry mysteriously ends up dead, and Chuck is the prime suspect.