Product Description

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 under acknowledged 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?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392381 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Review
The notorious novelist's excursion into the world of porn might well be his most moralistic work to date.After reading the latest from Palahniuk (Rant, 2007, etc.), it might be difficult for anyone to become aroused from watching pornography or find any redeeming social value in it. The plot concerns an attempt by an aged porn queen, 20 years past her popular prime, to set a world record for most sexual partners in a single film. Like Rant, this novel is written from multiple narrative perspectives. At the beginning, the men who have enlisted to service Cassie Wright have numbers rather than names, though each of the narrators reveals some surprises about themselves and their relationship with (and attraction to) the actress. Mr. 600 is a veteran contemporary of Ms. Wright, perhaps reuniting for old time's sake. Mr. 137 is a recognized actor who lost his TV series under scandalous circumstances. Mr. 72, a hopeless romantic who brings flowers to the shoot, is young enough to be Cassie's son. Mediating among the trans-generational cast is the fourth narrator, Shelia, who has forged a bond with the actress and serves as the "wrangler" on the shoot. Beyond the usual associations of sex and death, the novel takes its title from the suspicion that no woman could survive such an exhaustive sexual grind. In fact, committing sexual suicide might well be Cassie's goal, though her perspective is generally missing from the novel. Real-time sex is mostly missing as well, with the men spending plenty of time watching her greatest hits from decades past on monitors, awaiting their turn. Bodies and their functions throughout the novel are grotesque rather than titillating, though the author has great sport inventing porn-film titles (To Drill a Mockingbird, Chitty Chitty Gang Bang).The sordidness might appeal to the Palahniuk's cult following, but it won't extend it. (Kirkus Reviews)

Esquire, Mark Lawson
'...if he set out to see if a novel could still shock, Palahniuk has succeeded'

About the Author
CHUCK PALAHNIUK's eight novels are the bestselling Rant, Haunted, Lullaby, Fight Club - which was made into a film by director David Fincher - Diary, Survivor, Invisible Monsters and Choke. He is also the author of the non-fiction profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, published as part of the Crown Journeys series, and the non-fiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Customer Reviews

This book pretty much sucked
This is the second Palahnuik book I read. I read Fight Club. I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy Snuff however.
It's just page after page of unconvincing, vacuous drivel. I can't stress how unconvincing the character's interactions are, in terms of both dialogue and behaviour. It's absurd. This reads like the work of an author who has all but given up. Just churning out another routinely 'shocking' piece of 'transgressive' fiction.
I tend to appreciate literary minimalism. I felt this technique was used to good effect in Fight Club. But in Snuff this same technique is executed clumsily at times. Which is very unsatisfying. Stylistically, this book attempts to be slick, like baby oil, but somehow falls short. Endless superflous detail is rendered with a nonchelance that comes across as affected and irritating. Also, Palahnuik is found of relaying graphic carnal/genital imagery with that same studied nonchelance. The effect is reminiscent of a self consciously jaded teenager casually boasting about various feats of depravity and/or rebellion.
The plot, with its annoying twists, is completely inane.
On the plus side, it's short and easy to read. And it may appeal to intelligent, wayward teenagers. In fact I could see myself possibly enjoying this book ten years ago. Than again, maybe not.

Twaddle, tosh, and nonsense
I'm not a particularly cerebral bloke, nor am I very picky about what I read. But this, folks, is pretentious, badly written, and utterly without a single redeeming feature. In case you're wondering, it's not titillating; it's not informative, and I'm sad if a single tree had to be pulped to print it. As a matter of interest, I tried to start a barbecue with it, and even that fizzled out.

Same old story for Snuff
Snuff suffers from the problems that Chuck's other books have as well: all the characters have the exact same voice and none of them are very likeable.

After about a quarter through way the book, I got tired of its formula: Character engaged in some outrageous activity being treated as normal. Same character spouting off facts (that, like all of his books, will come in handy at some further point conveniently further in the book) in the middle of a pointless conversation. Character having flashback to some "revealing" cliche'd past trauma. Over, and over, and over. Every character has at least one chapter like this.

I'm sorry... but random factoids, pointless twists, and a meandering plot just don't do it for me any more.

Pointless porno titles that the author obviously thinks are very cleaver, countless pointless synonyms for masturbators, and pointless facts spouted by every character where solid dialogue could have done much, much better.

Another gripe, overall, with Mr. Palaniuk's writing: I don't think the man will ever be able to write a single line of convincing female dialogue.

If you're an adolescent boy (age or maturity-wise) and like to snicker at countless different, "clever" ways to say "masturbator" and lame porno titles, then this is the book for you.