Choke

By (author) Palahniuk Chuck
Short description/annotation:

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother''s hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who ''saves you'' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives.

Description:

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother''s hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who ''saves you'' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out.

Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer''s disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.

Review quote:
Palahniuk''s grotesque, exaggerated portrait of American society certainly isn''t pretty, but it grips like a vice all the same
Review quote:
A wonderful writer with a raw take on modern woes
Review quote:
Mining a dark vein opened by Bret Easton Ellis and George Saunders, Palahniuk specialises in producing nightmarish visions of American society that manage to be both repugnant and hilarious - the reckless brilliance of his imagination keeps you turning the pages
Review quote:
A raw and vital book, punctuated with outrageous, off-the-wall moments
Review quote:
The pungent imagery, the witty twists, the chunky rhythms are great
Biographical note:
Chuck Palahniuk is the bestselling author of fifteen fictional works, including Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, Haunted, Rant, Pygmy, Tell-All, Damned, Doomed, Beautiful You, and most recently Make Something Up. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Promotional headline:
''Choke is Fight Club for sex addicts'' Independent on Sunday BY THE AUTHOR OF FIGHT CLUB