It's been a long time since I read Choke and I don't remember much other than that I didn't really like it. Chuck Chandler is a one-time tennis pro who missed the big-time when he 'choked' in a match that could've put his name on the map. Palahniuk's grotesque romp aims to skewer the ruthless superficiality of the fashion world and winds up with a tale as savagely glib as what it derides. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk's controversial and blazingly original debut novel, introduced a fresh and even renegade talent to American fiction, one who has retooled the classic black humor of Terry Southern and Kurt Vonnegut for the lunacy of the millennial age.

Palahniuk's language is urgent and tense, touched with psychopathic brilliance, his images dead-on accurate. For those of you with the stomach, "Choke" is an often brilliant but occasionally overburdened novel that is worth the strain on your gag reflex. Nothing's locked or even closed, but he's bent over with his hands and neck where they've been for months. What I wanted to point out because I think you all might find it interesting is that Choke has actually been removed from the updated edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. An antihero for our deranging times, Victor's whole existence is a struggle to wrest an identity from overwhelming forces.In my efforts to explore my local library's offerings, I came across NYT Bestselling Author Stuart Woods. This is a perfect moment to take the iron pincers out of the coals and pretend to study their pitted white-hot points. There are a lot of great philosophical lines for quote enthusiasts like myself, which by itself makes the book worth recommending for me. Of course, minimalism I think is quite an acquired taste and one that many people aren't interested in and I see no crime in that.

From Tanya and her string of plastic balls to Gwen, who insists Victor wouldn't know how to rape a woman if he tried, Palahniuk presents us with incredibly memorable characters and scenes that will have you laughing long after you've closed the book. Also, Choke has got to have one of the creakiest plots I've encountered outside of a Dean Koontz novel. The premise of the book and one of it's strengths is the theory that if you make someone else into a hero, they'll love you forever.

But after 50 pages of Choke I began to realise there was more truth in those words then I was willing to admit. Find it refreshing to find that someone else is writing about these matters, in a way that just puts the conversation on the table and doesn't try to solve it.

Instead, I want to mention a favorite author of mine, also a minimalist, also into writing about marginal, self destructive characters.Still, when you compare this to other feelings, to sadness, anger, fear, worry, despair, and depression, well, an addiction no longer looks so bad. Chuck Chandler, a Key West tennis pro, tends to choke in his big matches, a tendency he must overcome when he meets Harry Carras and his beautiful wife Clare, and becomes a suspect in Harry's death. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Campbell Memorial Award (16) Jonathan Strahan (17) Ken Liu (18) Kirstyn McDermott (12) Locus Awards (23) Man Booker (21) Martin Lewis (9) N. Even though the author's excesses and repetitions occasionally grate on the reader's nerves, it's hard not to love a guy whose bordello of the subconscious spawns hypno lap dances with the likes of Emily Dickinson and Eleanor Roosevelt.