Chuck Palahniuk strana 8 z 8

V barvité galerii Palahniukových vyšinutých hrdinů zaujímá jedno z předních míst protagonista románu Viktor Mancini. Aby mohl platit nákladnou lékařskou péči své matce, vymyslí důmyslný plán: v restauracích předstírá, že se zalyká jídlem, a lidé, kteří jej pak zachrání, jsou tak nadšeni svým hrdinstvím, že jej po léta finančně podporují. Dochází také na terapeutická sezení, kde se lidé chronicky závislí na sexu snaží své mánie zbavit - Viktor zde ale spíš než léčbu hledá nové partnerky a nezvyklé sexuální techniky. Roku 2008 byl podle scénáře Clarka Gregga natočen stejnojmenný film.

Nové vydání již kultovního románu, který proslavilo neméně úspěšné filmové zpracování. Příběh mladého muže, odkojeného televizí a opuštěného Bohem, je hlubokou sondou do nitra člověka, který jednoho dne zjistí, že hněv nad tím, že zdědil svět plný lží, přetvářky a proher, neutlumí život k prázdnotě konzumní společnosti. Nekonvenční vyprávění s rychlým spádem, místy prostoupené černým humorem, končí deprimujícím vyvrcholením, které je ovšem jen logickým vyústěním dané situace v dané době, dnešnímu čtenáři tak známé...

Rant is the oral history of one Buster ‘Rant’ Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, detractors, lovers and relations have their say on the man who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time. Rant is a darkly glittering anti-hero whose recreational drug of choice is rabies, and whose own personal Viagra is the venom of a black widow spider. He soon leaves his half-feral hometown for the big city, where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. On designated nights, the Party Crashers chase each other in cars in the hope of a collision, and all the while Rant, the 'superspreader', transmits his lethal disease...

From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple-X novel that goes where no work of fiction has gone before. 'Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic.' 'Didn't one of us on purpose set out to make a snuff movie?' Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother's hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who 'saves you' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out. Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer's disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.

The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem. In his previous works, including the cult favorite Fight Club, Palahniuk has demonstrated a fondness for making statements about the condition of humanity, and he uses Lullaby like a blunt object to repeatedly overstate his generally dim view. Such dogmatic venom undermines the persuasiveness of his thesis about mass communication and free will, but thankfully, Palahniuk offers some respite here by allowing for sympathy and love, as well as through his razor-sharp humor, such as his mock listings for Helen's possessed properties: "six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls...." At such moments, Lullaby casts a powerful spell. --Ross Doll

From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, this is a full-frontal Triple-X novel that goes where no work of fiction has gone before. 'Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic'. 'Didn't one of us on purpose set out to make a snuff movie?' - Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera with six hundred men, "Snuff" unfolds from the perspectives of Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

"A határsértésben mindig élen járó Palahniuk összetéveszthetetlen stílusú novellái egészen különböző léthelyzeteket és problémaköröket tárgyalva érintik az író kedvelt témáit. A "Kísértettek" gyomorforgató szatírája, ez a stilizált nyelven előadott beszámoló a színházban rekedtek televíziós valóságshow-kat idéző kálváriájáról egyrészt írói erőfitogtatás, az olvasói ingerküszöb feszegetése, másrészt élcelődés a szerző saját hivatásán és a játszi könnyedséggel alakítható igazságverziók örök szkepszist kiprovokáló világán." (Roboz Gábor)