Choke, a review

There were no women eaten in this story

I recently finished reading Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk.  While it wasn’t my favorite of his works—that distinction goes to Lullaby—I really did enjoy it.  Even though it was nothing like the past few books that I have read, it seemed to follow in the steps of those, being a story about character growth.

Choke, like just about all of Palahniuk’s other books that I’ve read, unsettled me a bit.  I think Palahniuk has a way of relating details that is all too real, and a bit creepy to me.  Like the way the main character, Victor Mancini, describes his malnourished mother.  The description of her yellowed, sagging skin was a major creep factor.  Palahniuk has a great and terrible way of describing even the mundane.

Victor is a very interesting character.  He is a sex addict with mother issues that stem from his childhood.  All Victor is searching for is who he is as a person.  His mother cannot tell him, because she has Alzheimer’s disease and barely knows who he is.

Since his job at Colonial Dunsboro, a tourist destination, doesn’t net him enough money to pay for his mother’s hospital bills, Victor frequents restaurants and pretends to choke.  His goal is to get someone to save his life.  The people that “save” him, he finds, tend to care about his welfare (offering a bit of relief from his mother issues) and  often send him money (in the form of birthday gifts, etc.) whenever they can (this helps to relieve his money issues).

Most of the female characters in the story, aside from Victor’s mother, are seen as one of two things: sexual conquests, or possible sexual conquests.  Victor’s mother’s doctor, a character named Paige Marshall, offers herself as a sexual conquest, but with a reason: she wishes to get pregnant by Victor, and use their child’s stem cells to cure his mother.  Victor, however, continually fails to procreate with her.

The only other notable character is Victor’s best friend/coworker/fellow addict, Denny.  The two share a semi-brotherly relationship, with Victor watching out for Denny.  The rest of the characters aren’t filled out to a great extent, except for Denny’s (late coming into the story) stripper girlfriend Beth/Cherry Daiquiri.

The sexual encounters that are peppered throughout the story are pretty intense, at times.  The interactions between the characters are quite believable.  The story itself, which as I said is not my favorite, did drag a little (for a short book, I’d expect no drag), but it wrapped up fairly nicely.

Choke is still a worthy read, especially if you are a fan of Palahniuk’s.  I tried to watch the movie that was based on the book, and just couldn’t get into it.  The characters were nothing like they were described/as I pictured them.  I might give it another try, now that I have had a few days to let the book sink in.

Next week, I will be doing another 360, as far as genre goes.  The next book goes back to the young adult format, but takes on a whole new culture.  I will review Sung J. Woo’s Everything Asian.  Until next week, later!