Choke

Choke-Chuck Palahniuk

How I found this book:  It was suggested by one of my friends who loved Fight Club, and she loves the author.

Setting:  Los Angeles, the time is ambiguous.  I'm assuming 'now', whatever that means.

Main Characters:

Victor Mancini:  A former USC medical student and sex-addict with serious emotional issues, he pays for his mother's mounting health costs by pretending to nearly die in restaurants in order to gain money from unsuspecting good doers.

Ida Mancini:  Victor's mother who has had a lifetime on the run, thanks in part to her belief in conspiracies as well as her frequent attempts to kidnap Victor from whatever foster home he was in as a child while she was locked up.  She is now dying in a nursing home in Los Angeles, refusing to eat, and harboring a great secret about her son's existance.

Paige Marshall:  Posing as a doctor, she is actually a patient at the same home as Victor's mother.  She is both in love with Victor and more than a bit nuts.

Denny:  Victor's loser best friend who puts up with Victor and his hijinx.

Plot:  Victor Mancini is a failed USC med student who uses a clever con to get money to help take care of his dying mother, living in a nursing home where she refuses to eat.  His life seems to revolve around his efforts to keep his mother alive long enough to tell him the secret of his life, and the reason that he's as fucked up as he is.  He pretends to be a sex addict to have relationships with women at a help-group, so that he doesn't have to form permanent attachments.  His only form of real emotional connection to anyone comes through his romance with the equally nutty Paige Marshall, and his strange friendship with Denny, who if anything seems to be the only halfway stable person in the entire book.

Themes:

Parent/child relationships:  As any one of us could tell you, relationships with parents are often messed up.  Victor is no exception.  They make a mess of our lives, leave us to deal with it, and then we are left to take care of them when they are old.  And yet we can't help but feel a strange love and need for them in our lives, even when we hate them for it.

Emotional bonds:  Why bother making any emotional bonds when you know htat it's all going to fade in the end.  Better to make fake ties to people, those hurt less when they are broken.

So every book has to suck somewhere:  If you loved Fight Club, you can try this book, but I won't guarantee that you will like it, it's a bit out there even for Fight Club.  There was a certain empathy you could have for the characters of that book that I wasn't feeling for the characters of Choke.  What's more, the moment of suspense in the book isn't terribly surprising, given everything leading up to it.  I just don't think it's as good or as neat of a story.

For those who haven't read or seen Fight Club, I wouldn't read this.  You'll be turned off by the character as soon as you see him trying to pick up women at a sex addicts meeting.  I had trouble getting even as far as I did before I just gave up and read the ending.  Frankly, it's not that good of a book, the motivation of the main character is ambiguous at best for most of it, and part of me just wanted to kick him in the ass and tell him to get over it.

Rate this wormy book:  This book rates a MAGGOT, it sucks so bad, I'd put the rock back on top of it.  I had no  desire to finish the book, I hated the characters, and the story seemed sad and pointless rather than brilliant and ironic.