Lullaby
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Contemporary
Lullaby is the story of Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter who has been assigned to write articles on a series of cases of sudden infant death syndrome, from which his own child had died. Streator discovers that his wife and child had died immediately after he read them a "culling song", or African chant, from a book entitled Poems and Rhymes Around the World.
Snuff
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Satire
The main characters certainly have had enough of the world, with what they have made of it, with their fortunes having turned on single instances and bad choices, in this case almost all of them sexual. Most everyone is ragingly bitter and resentful, untrue and self-serving, bent on rectifying only their problems, regardless of effects on others. The story runs on damaged adults hurting others, intentionally and instinctively, out of selfishness and revenge, or even to manufacture a more compatible companion. It's about the need for fame, the need for redemption, the resentment of future lost, and the clawing need to retain one's perceived best position, all taking place in arena of porn, the "...job you only take after you abandon all hope."
This is not a novel about the sex industry, but there is some behind-the-scenes detail. Palahniuk's detailed portrait of the washed-up porn star Miss Cassie Wright is not as complete and detailed as I had anticipated. I don't know why, but every time I pictured her, a strange combination of Kitten Natividad and Lisa DeLeeuw came to mind. Ah, but I digress. She is more or less the central character, at least that around which all others and the main story revolve, but I was a tad disappointed in that we didn't get more from her. Much of this was necessary for plot purposes, but I thought we'd get a bit more inside her head, and hear a bit more about what Palahniuk has observed about the porn experience. Cassie is a treasure trove of obscure Hollywood factoids, though, all of them thoroughly fun and enlightening.
Invisible Monsters
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Contemporary
This stories can't be boring. They hurtle headlong, changing lanes in threes and banging off the guard rails of modern fiction. Incredibly, Invisible Monsters makes...Fight Club seem like a leisurely buggy ride....It's Palahniuk's least successful effort to date, yet there are more than enough moments of insight to recommend Invisible Monsters. Just not in polite company.
Choke
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Contemporary
Choke is a rated-R half-satire, half-adventure story about Victor Mancini, a sex addict who attends 12-step recovery programs looking for an easy fix. He makes a living as an actor who appeals to heroes: He pretends to choke on his dinner in upscale restaurants and allows a Good Samaritan to save him. The hero follows up by sending Victor money for birthdays and holidays, because he or she feels responsible for Victor's life.
Survivor
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Satire
Tender Branson, the last surviving member of a religious cult, chronicles his entire life story as he is set to plummet to his death aboard a jet liner. He relives his childhood, his dull jobs cleaning rich people's houses, and how he came to be the pseudo-savior the world was looking for
Tell-All
- Author: Chuck Palahniuk
- Genre: Satire
Tell-All is told from the viewpoint of Hazie Coogan, a woman who has been taking care of actress Katherine "Miss Kathie" Kenton for ages. She's faithfully cleaned every spot in the house, watched every would be lover, polished every flaw in Miss Kathie's appearance. When a new man steps up to claim Kenton's love, Hazie just knows that he's out to use the aging starlet in some sort of scam. When Hazie & Miss Kathie discover a secret manuscript written by said lover, they find that he's planning to write a scandalous tell-all of his life with Miss Kathie- complete with a grand finale death scene.
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