Choke

Description

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother's hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who 'saves you' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out. Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer's disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.

Reviews

A fascinating satire on modern life, Palahniuk's protgonist is Victor, who fakes choking in a restaurant so that people will save him, thereby assuming responsibility for him and sending him money. Palahniuk is so self-aware and in on the joke that this is a fun, quick and interesting read.

Elisa, Book Grocer

 

"Palahniuk's grotesque, exaggerated portrait of American society certainly isn't pretty, but it grips like a vice all the same" The Times "A wonderful writer with a raw take on modern woes" The Face "Mining a dark vein opened by Bret Easton Ellis and George Saunders, Palahniuk specialises in producing nightmarish visions of American society that manage to be both repugnant and hilarious - the reckless brilliance of his imagination keeps you turning the pages" Literary Review "A raw and vital book, punctuated with outrageous, off-the-wall moments" New York Times "The pungent imagery, the witty twists, the chunky rhythms are great" Financial Times