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Choke
by Chuck Palahniuk
A med school dropout and his con of choking in order to pay his bills
Most people whose first novel sky rockets to fame would take a break from writing, but not Chuck Palahniuk. The author of “Fight Club” has done it again with his latest book about sex addicts entitled, “Choke.” Though there are some who may find the content of the novel offensive, I thought it gave a beautiful insight into the lives of people that may often be found as disgusting.
The novel centers on the life of Victor Mancini, a medical school dropout who works in an 18th century Colonial America reenactment village. He spends most of his time avoiding the watchful eye of his neurotic boss and keeping his friend Denny protected while he’s in the stocks. You quickly discover that Denny and Victor met in a sex addict meeting.
The beginning of the novel is spent between Victor explaining why his life sucks and flashing back to show how his head case mother treated him when he was very young. The novel progresses to show Victor’s struggle to care for his dying mother who doesn’t recognize him and lives in a very expensive hospital, minimally trying to recover from his sex addiction over an extremely prolonged period of time—Victor only attends the meetings to meet girls—and ultimately Victor’s struggle to discover who he is.
The title of the novel comes from how Victor pays his bills. Every night or so he goes to a fancy restaurant and pretends to choke. He discovered that if you act helpless it makes people feel important and they want to take care of you. He has tons of people who “saved” him that send him checks all the time to continue to take care of him. He says it’s easy to get people to take care of you just “remain humiliated and say I’m sorry, I’m sorry”.
I found this book to be extremely interesting. It will fascinate you from cover to cover, even if the subject matter is taboo. You keep rooting for Victor and hoping maybe he won’t mess up this time or he will commit. This intense novel will tug at your heart strings as you see how easy it is to become a Victor. I recommend this book to everyone who can handle the subject.
Title: Choke
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385720920
Review written by: Beth Bowers
Reviewer's Rating:9.5
Reader's Rating: 9.00
Reader's Votes: 2
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