Donlee_Brussel's Full Review: Chuck Palahniuk - Survivor: A Novel
Survivor is the second novel I’ve read that was written by Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk, whose first novel Fight Club was one of the last decade’s best literary works, is all about do it yourself helpful tips and suggestions. He’s Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla’s Martha Stewart. The character Tyler Durden in Fight Club was filled with how to be an anarchist 411. Here we have Tender Branson, someone who knows how to handle domestic issues.
After seventeen years of working in private houses every day, the thing I know the most about are slapped faces, creamed corn, black eyes, wrenched shoulders, beaten eggs, kicked shins, scratched corneas, sexual lubricants, knocked-out teeth, split lips, whipped cream, twisted arms, vaginal tears, deviled ham, cigarette burns, crushed pineapple, hernias, terminated pregnancies, pet stains, shredded coconut, gouged eyes, sprains, and stretch marks.
Tender Branson is someone you want to have in case of everyday emergencies.
For stubborn protein-based stains, like semen, try rinsing with cold salt water, then wash as usual.
Tender Branson has a crisis hotline where he tells any and everyone who calls to off themselves. This crisis hotline’s second choice ad was: “If You’re A Young Sexually Irresponsible Girl with a Drinking Problem, Get the Help You Need.” A typical conversation that goes on during one of these calls might be something like this:
A woman calls to ask what time the late movie starts.
Kill yourself.
She says, “Isn’t this 555-1237? Is this the Moorehouse CinePlex?
I say, Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.
People who call sure don’t get MovieFone.
Meet Tender Branson. He’s one of the last surviving members of the Creedish Death Cult. He sees a social worker every week because he’s in the Federal Survivor Retention Program, he runs a crisis hotline, he’s a kleptomaniac, and that’s not all! He gives his own goldfish Valium, he quotes the bible, and most importantly, he’s got a crush on Fertility Hollis.
She’s the sister of Trevor Hollis, a fudge packer Tender told to kill himself. She’s a Cassandra. She calls Tender for phone sex to no avail. “She’s the blasé eye of the hurricane that’s the world around her.” Also along for the ride is an array of quirky supporting characters. Tender’s mysterious brother Adam, Tender’s caseworker, and Tender’s Arliss Michaels who plans on getting him his own exercise video and Christmas Special.
Survivor does not take place on an island with $1 million at stake. Survivor takes place on a 747 hovering above ground zero, about to crash in the Australian outback (the site of season two of the popular CBS show). Like Fight Club and Invisible Monsters, Survivor begins at the end. Everything we’re reading is in flashback to see what went wrong. What we’re reading is Tender Branson’s final testimony, his last confessional into the plane’s black box. We’re reading Tender Branson’s E! True Hollywood Story, from his disturbing childhood to his routine domestic servant life to his rise to media superstardom to his bigger they are, harder they fall, downward spiral that got him to where he is right now. The pages are numbered backwards to indicate what we’re reading is nothing more than Tender Branson’s countdown to oblivion.
Many have called Chuck Palahniuk our generation’s Jean Paul Sartre, Don DeLillo, Jay McInerney, or J.G. Ballard. And while it’s clear why they would say such a thing, they neglect to realize that Palahniuk’s anti-mass conformity satire has a mordacity to it that none of the above authors possessed or could ever duplicate. Whether it’s the pithy narration, capricious twists, or the over the top set pieces present here in Survivor, Chuck Palahniuk never fails to captivate us with his hardcore writing style.
Not since Vonnegut s Mother Night and Kosinski s Being There has there been as dark and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy o...More at Buy.com
From the author of the underground sensation Fight Club, a mesmerizing, unnerving, and hilarious vision of cult and post-cult life.More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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