Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk's thing is the colorectal shelf. Other writers have their "thing" - John Irving has his bears and his Austrians - but based on reading one Palahniuk novel, one Palahniuk short story and one Palahniuk magazine interview I'd say his thing is definitely pushing things up your bottom to the point where it's hard to get them out again.

Choke's narrator Vince is attending sexaholic sessions in the evenings and working at a colonial-era Americas theme park during the day. His friend and fellow theme park worker Denny is collecting rocks and storing them in Vince's fridge. Vince's mum is institutionalised and close to death and to help pay for her care Vince stages fake choking fits in restaurants and tricks the first-aiders who rescue him out of small sums of money. Vince's mum's physician becomes convinced Vince has been conceived using the fossilised tissue of Christ's foreskin and begs him to sleep with her. The colorectal shelf comes into play when a fellow sexaholic leaves a foreign object up Vince's arse and the resulting anxiety and discomfort leads indirectly to novel's climactic resolution of the question of Vince's paternity.

All this material should have been a rich comic stew but it's surprisingly patchy. Some parts, like the stuff set in the old people's home, are a scream. The idea of a colonial-era Americas theme park, which is intrinsically hilarious, works and is funny. The sexaholics stuff, which ought to be intrinsically funny, doesn't work and isn't particularly funny (apart from one scene which I won't even attempt to describe because it sounds thoroughly sick - nevertheless it's a hoot).