The people of the Pacific Northwest have a certain kind of cynical sense of humor. And being that that is where the author of Fight Club resides, it is no surprise that another of his books carry the same dark, twisted sense about it.
"If you're going to read this, don't bother.
After a couple of pages you won't want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while your still in one piece.
Save yourself.
There has to be something better on television. Or since you have so much time on your hands, maybe you could take a night course. Become a doctor. You could make something out of yourself. Treat yourself to a dinner out. Color your hair.
You're not getting any younger."
Choke, follows Victor Mancini, a medical school drop out, as he pretends to choke on food in restraunts to get a free meal, give someone the chance to feel like a hero, and work off the angle that people feel responsible for the life they save and go on to send him checks for his birthday or just to make sure he can get by. The money they send, along with his paycheck from a colonial re-creation tourist trap, pay for his ailing mother's healthcare in a nursing home. When he's not scamming restraunts, or self loathing in his dead end job recreating 1774; he is cruising sex addict support groups, pretending to be a sponsor for some of the incarcerated prostitutes who get let out for their meetings, just to score a piece of ass.
Behind Victor's present life, his past is explained. How his mother would get arrested, he'd be put in foster care, and she would come back for him when she got out. She would teach him that he lived in a world of symbols.Like if you're in a hospital and they they page Dr. Blue, it means someone has stopped breathing; Blue Danube Waltz in a hotel means to evacuate. That kind of thing. Symbols ruled his childhood.
The book is so twisted, you can't stop reading. It becomes a train wreck. You can't look away, just because of that morbid curiousity. It holds you all the way through the anti climax near the end.
If you liked the movie Fight Club, then you are going to like this book. And don't worry, it's only 293 pages, so if you're intimitaded by books, this one shouldn't be too bad
Choke; Chuck Palahniuk
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