Expressions such as "swiftian gift for satire" -
San Francisco Examiner, "anarchic glee" -
Newsday, "A raw and vital book" -
The New Your Times are just some of the ones used to describe Chuck Palahniuk's 2001 novel
Choke.
The author of Fight Club (that were to become a
movie later on, directed by David Fincher) brings us the story of Victor Mancini, a sex addicted medical-school dropout, who spends his
Time visiting his ill-mental mother, working at Colonial Dunsboro theme park and trying to pass group therapy's forth-step. In between time, our antihero gathers an extra money by being rescued from choking to death at restaurants.
Palahniuk has created a complete new world to present real day-life characters: the psychopatic neighbor, the peverted couple next door, the sex addicted supermarket consumer, &c. At the same time that the story is hilarious and creative, it is realistic and a serious critic against American way of life. The cult writer undercovers the reality that most of people tries to hide - behind curtains, doors and vibrators - for most of their lives. The story of the characters, however, is not absolutely hopeless, which is one of the most exciting things on the book. When most of the books of its genre is set in a line of fine-not fine-fine again life,
Choke scapes the rule and shows that the "not-fine" is satisfying enough for a life.
Besides the excellent critics that
Choke has received, it also became a great story for Clark Gregg to turn into a movie. This production, which will probably be realeased in the US in 2008, will count with the acting of Sam Rockwell (as the main character, Victor Mancini), the brilliant actress Kelly Macdonald and the veteran Anjelica Houston (as Ida Mancini, Victor's sick mother). The only cast that has not pleased the public is the one of Brad Henke as the starving drug addict Denny.
All in all, Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most promising writers of our generation (and the biggest candidate to the prize of "The Geniously Sick Mind Behind the Book".
More reviews about the Choke