Choke
Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday)
Broadway Books, 284-1726
Tuesday, May 29

This week, Portland's literary star and Mercury's own contributor, Chuck Palahniuk, unveils his latest novel, Choke. For ten years, I've been writing alongside Palahniuk, thrilled with his sentences, his quick moves, his ideas. Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor--they've all shown Palahniuk's ability to spin a twisted plot and keep language new. While other novels may drift into passages of ruminating blather, his single sentence paragraphs cut clean, swift strokes, always reminding me why I liked writing and reading to begin with.

I can't help but feel some kind of vicarious pride in his success. I'm a fan, and always grateful for an opportunity to discuss ideas with Palahnuik. Instead of a review, I'm offering a preview, as a celebration of another one of his books in print. With much appreciation, here's a toast, to a daring piece of work and an author not afraid of taking risks, ever willing to challenge social convention.

If you're ever in a big hotel lobby, and they start to play "The Blue Danube Waltz," get the hell out.

Don't think. Run.

Anymore, nothing is straightforward.

If you're ever in a hospital and they page Nurse Flamingo to the cancer ward, do not go anywhere near there. There is no Nurse Flamingo. If they page Dr. Blaze, there is no such person.

In a big hotel, that waltz means they need to evacuate the building.

In most hospitals, Nurse Flamingo means a fire. Dr. Blaze means a fire. Dr. Green means a suicide. Dr. Blue means somebody stopped breathing.

This is the stuff the Mommy told the stupid little boy as they sat in traffic. This is how far back she was going nuts.

This one day the kid had been sitting in class when a lady from the school office had come to tell him his dentist appointment was canceled. A minute later, he'd raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom. There never was any appointment. Sure, somebody had called, saying they were from the dentist, but this was a new secret signal. He went out a side door by the cafeteria, and there she was waiting in a gold car.

This was the second time the Mommy came back to claim him.

She rolled down the window and said, "Do you know why Mommy was in jail this time?"

"For changing the hair colors?" he said.

See also: The malicious mischief.

See also: The second-degree assault.

She leaned over to open the door and never stopped talking. Not for days and days.

If you're ever in the Hard Rock Cafe, she told him, and they announce, "Elvis has left the building," that means that all the servers need to go out to the kitchen and find out what dinner special has just sold out.

These are things people tell you when they won't tell you the truth.