Book review: Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk

Every now and then you read a book and it takes your breath away (ahem, I said the exact same thing about Rant). You turn page after page in anticipation of the next chapter, the next reveal or twist. You can’t put it down. It cries out “read me for if you don’t I may not be here when you get back.”

Invisible Monsters is possibly the best book I have ever read.

Chuck Palahniuk, he of Fight Club, Choke, Rant, Lullaby and Survivor fame, is a master. He creates unbelievably brilliant narrative viewpoints and in Invisible Monsters he has excelled himself. The name of the raconteur you don’t find out until the final couple of chapters, but no matter, she is remarkable. The story is told in a haphazard fashion, with ‘Jump to…’ scenes littering every page of the book – you need all your wiles about you just to stay on track. But it is a helluva journey as the storyteller takes you from one incredulous scene to another.

What you find out early about her is that she has been disfigured in a shooting, and as a model this is not good. Her family mourn her brother, gay and dead from AIDS. Her best friend is a bitch and her boyfriend a deviant with an unhealthy obsession with his job, catching men cruising in Washington Park. Her new best friend is mid-op. The opening scene sets us up for a story of revenge, self-discovery and downright mayhem across North America.

I can’t give too much away about the plot as this in itself is the book’s killer facet – the right angles that it takes the reader through makes Blackpool’s Big Dipper seem like a wee toddler’s fun-ride in comparison. Palahniuk’s genius is infinite and he pushes the boundaries on conventional literature to new heights in this book (well, did so about 12 years ago..!) and it is his positioning of the out-there as normal that so obliges the reader to turn page after page.

Suffice to say he is in danger of making his peers look clumsy and oafish in comparison. His use of repetition is dazzling; the crazy farmer parents of the storyteller are hilarious and Queen Supreme, Brandy Alexander, is so Lily Savage that Paul O’Grady might get arrested for scamming Darvocets from open houses (you need to read the book).

Invisible Monsters is a work of art as would befit Michelangelo. If you are told tomorrow you only have twenty-four hours to live, get this book, read it and die fulfilled. This is beyond brilliant. It is a virtuoso book that one-day will be recognised as a classic of our time – if not, then shame on us.

10/10

Advertisement