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Palahniuk's Choke chock full of humor
 Harold John Behling
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Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. You can't resist this hook: Victor Mancini is a sexaholic. Victor Mancini is a Irish indentured servant in a re-creation of a colonial village. Victor Mancini is a con artist. Victor Mancini is quite possibly a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.
What a way to start a book. Choke is the fast paced and utterly hilarious journey of one man trying to find out what his place in life is. The story is told at breakneck pace in Chuck Palahniuk's clever and original narrative style. The author is best known for his novel Fight Club that was modified into a feature film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt and directed by David Fincher.
Choke contains much of the same radical social-commentary and outrageous humor that propelled Fight Club, but exceeds its predecessor by its outrageous subject matter and brilliant originality.
The book sputters back and forth between flashbacks of Victor's childhood, when his terroristic mother boosted young Victor out of foster homes in between jail terms and Victor's present, where he pretends to choke at restaurants in order to defraud good Samaritans to pay for his mother's health care bills. Victor finds himself lost in his seemingly pointless life and tries desperately to discover his true nature. But this secret is held by Victor's mother and her alzheimer's disease has made the truth all but impossible to discover.
Choke is a gluttonous fistful of information rammed down the reader's throat just as fast as he or she can turn the pages. Chuck Palahniuk fuses humor, social commentary and excellent story-telling to make this book enjoyable on many different levels. The story is ambitious and operates on a grand scale, while at the same time only filling 293 pages.
Choke is a good book to rediscover the joy of books. It accomplishes the job of a dirty joke, a suspense thriller and a reflectional meditation, all in one.
Harold John Behling can be reached at: [email protected]
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