"The Invention of Sound" by Chuck Palahniuk

 Year of Publication:  2020

Length:  228 pages

Genre:  Horror, satire

Foster Gates has spent seventeen years trawling the very darkest corners of the internet searching for his missing daughter, and revenge on those who took her.  His quest leads him to Hollywood foley artist Mitzi Ives.  Mitzi specialises in providing screams for horror and action films.  She is the best in the business because her screams are so real, in fact they are harvested from people who are brutally murdered just for their death screams.  Mitzi realises that she has inadvertently come across the perfect scream, one so powerful that it could have potentially deadly consequences.

Since his 1996 debut novel Fight Club, which was made into the classic 1999 film, Chuck Palahniuk has explored the darkest excesses of our modern world in shocking and savage funny novels, comics, journalism and adult colouring books.  The Invention of Sound may not be Palahniuk's best book, but it is a well-written, disturbing and bleakly funny novel, which takes as it's basis one of the most ubiquitous but frequently overlooked aspects of filmmaking, the foley, which is basically creating ordinary sound effects for film and television.  The novel moves between Foster Gates' dark quest for his daughter, the story of possible serial killer Mitzi Ives, and the experiences of former horror star Blush Gentry, who is kidnapped during a Comic Con.  It's written in a fragmented, staccato prose, and is always readable, although it may be too bleak for some readers.  Palahniuk over-eggs the pudding somewhat, piling twist upon twist, particularly at the end, with the introduction of a shadowy conspiracy.

   

"Beautiful You" by Chuck Palahniuk

Year of Publication:  2014
Length:  222 pages
Genre:  Satire

Naive, ambitious Penny Harrigan, from Omaha, works as an assistant at a prestigious law firm in New York City where she meets Cornelius Linus Maxwell, the richest man in the world, known to the press as "Climax-well" due to his string of famous glamorous girlfriends. He sweeps Penny off her feet, and soon she finds herself living a jet-set lifestyle meeting the most powerful and beautiful people in the world, with every luxury she could possible want.  However Penny immediately realises that she is not Maxwell's girlfriend, but a guinea pig for his experiments in sex and sensuality, and he is using the results of his experiments to devise a groundbreaking range of sex toys for women, marketed as "Beautiful You".  As the women of the world become addicted to the extreme pleasures of the Beautiful You products, Maxwell's darker purpose becomes clear.

This is the fourteenth novel from cult American author Chuck Palahniuk, who is probably still best known for his debut novel Fight Club (1996).  Like most of his books, this is a contemporary satire, in which an aspect of modern life is take to apocalyptic extremes, notably sex and consumerism, and the exploitation of women's sexuality.  This is not one of Palahniuk's best works by any means, the ending in particular is disappointing, but it is well-written and raises some compelling themes, even if they could be explored further. 

       

"Damned" by Chuck Palahniuk

Year of Publication:  2011
Number of Pages:  247 pages
Genre:  Comedy, horror

This is the story of thirteen year old Madison Spencer, the daughter of a world famous movie star and a billionaire, who dies and finds herself condemned to Hell, a place where  the newly dead are locked into filthy cages, there are mountians of toenail clippings and used razor blades, along with lakes consisting of insects and seas of various bodily fluids.  Grotesque demons munch on damned souls, the only currency is candy and the only jobs are internet porn or telemarketing.  Also the only entertainment on offer are endless showings of The English Patient.  However, Madison is not sure why she is there and so she, along with some new friends that she meets along the way, travels towards the centre of Hell in order to find her answers.

This book basically mixes the Dante Alighieri's Inferno with The Breakfast Club and Judy Blume novels.  It's told in the first person by Madison and moves between her adventures in Hell with her life on Earth.  Frequently very funny, it is highly readable and very imaginative.  It might not rank as one of the best of Palahniuk's works, but it is entertaining, and his familiar style is very much in evidence.  The book pokes fun at the lifestyles of the super rich and famous, as well as teenage fiction and Hell itself.  The lead character of Madison Spencer is engaging and likeable, even if few of the secondary characters really register.  Even if you are not a Palahniuk fan, this is enjoyable enough to make it worth checking out.   

"Tell-All" by Chuck Palahniuk

Year of Publication: 2010
Number of Pages: 179 pages
Genre: Satire, Hollywood, comedy

Summary: The story is narrated by Hazie Coogan who has devoted her life to fulfilling the every whim of her employer, Hollywood star Katherine "Miss Kathie" Kenton who at the height of her glittering career was one of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and has subsequently survived numerous failed marriages, countless cosmetic surgeries, career setbacks and comebacks, as well as alcohol and drug addiction, and now lives in the serene retirement of a movie legend.
Until Katherine falls for a young suitor named Webster Carlton Westward III. Hazie immediately pegs him as a would-be writer who wants a few lurid personal detials for a "tell-all" celebrity biography which is just lacking a final chapter before it is sent off to the publisher.
Until it turns out that Westward's book already has a final chapter written, describing the exact circumstances in which Katherine will meet her violent end.
As always it is up to Hazie to protect Katherine, and Katherine's reputation, for posterity.

Opinions: In the course of his ten previous novels and two non-fiction books, Chuck Palahniuk has taken numerous bitterly funny and savagely satirical swipes at the nightmarish world of modern life. In this one he turns his attention to the world of movies and in particular the Hollywood "Golden Age", the period of Hollywood movies which lasted from roughly the end of the Silent Film era at the end of the 1920s to the early 1960s.
As usual with Palahniuk, the book utilises a number of stylistic tricks, for example the novel is written in the style of a screen treatment (the chapter headings are all numbered with "Act" and "Scene" such as "Act One, Scene One" and so on), all names are written in bold type, the narrative flits frequently between past and present and there are numerous lurid fantasy sequences (including frequent extracts from a Lillian Hellman penned screenplay which depict Hellman (in reality a well-known playwright) as a kind of superheroine.
The book is not one of Palahniuk's best and lacks some of the wild inventiveness of his best works and reading it I got the feeling that Palahniuk's heart wasn't really in it. The book will feel like very familiar territory to Palahniuk's fans. However, despite that, it is an entertaining, funny and disturbing work, which reads like a mash-up of the movies All About Eve (1950) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Fans of old Hollywood movies will enjoy it, with it's repeated references to classic movie stars.