Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

Victor Mancini is a sex addicted med-school dropout who pays for his mother’s deteriorating condition by working at a colonial theme park and with money that he scams other people to give him. His risky scam includes intentionally choking on food at restaurants so that someone will save him and then, feeling responsible for his life, start sending him money. He justifies it by making those people feel better about themselves by giving them a sense of heroism. He also plays savior at the hospital his mother stays at, however he doesn’t use his medical training to do it, for this is a different kind of hospital. This hospital takes care of the elderly who have lost their minds. Thinking he is the person who ruined their lives, they unload their burdens by blaming him to give closure to their problems. Chuck Palahniuk shows his brilliance, once again, at orchestrating an edgy novel with multiple subplots that all culminate into a mind-bending, psychological thriller based on cognitive reality.

Reviewed by David Downes