Victor’s other claim to fame is that he pays his mother’s hospital bills by choking in restaurants. After being “rescued” by one of the other patrons, the rescuer fulfills the old Chinese custom: Once you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for it forever. Victor takes advantage of this to the best of his abilities to receive a steady flow of birthday cards, letters, and – most importantly – money from the people he’s duped into thinking they’ve become heroes.
         When Victor isn’t busy searching for new restaurants to stage his act, cruising sex addict support groups for easy chicks, and working as an authentic Irish indentured servant at Colonial Dunsboro (a “historical theme park”), he’s at Saint Anthony’s, the medical center where his mother is withering away, physically and mentally – but Victor’s really more concerned with boning his mom’s hot doctor.
         Oh, and there’s this bit where Victor finds out from his mother’s diary that he’s the son of someone who’s pretty fucking significant (which I won’t reveal here, but if you really must know before you read the book, you can spoil the surprise yourself by reading the description at www. amazon. com). When you get to this part, let’s just say that things get pretty interesting.
         So I knew all this when I interviewed Chuck in April. When I transcribed the interview a couple weeks later, things started making sense. Oddly enough, it wasn’t so much any one thing in particular that Chuck said that drove it home for me. Maybe it was just meeting Chuck himself that caused my epiphany.
         The one word I would use to describe Chuck is “peaceful. ”
         And that’s what did it.
         There are plenty of themes to pick through in any Palahniuk novel, and Choke is no exception. One might think Choke is about the futility of avoiding addiction, or the impersonal nature of the act of sex, or the paradox of religion – and none of those would be incorrect.
         For myself, though, I’ll just say that now I realize that perhaps we all have the potential to perform miracles. . .
         Regardless of whether you love Choke or hate it, it’s an engrossing ride, hilarious and strangely touching in that Chuck Palahniuk way. Readers expecting his usual dark fare may be puzzled by the ending, but give it some time. It’s an easy, comfortable read through the first half of the book, and then it kicks into high gear. That’s when I couldn’t put it down.
         It lacks the anger of Fight Club. It lacks the focus of Invisible Monsters. It lacks the grand scope of Survivor. But it makes up for all that with a sincerity that’s – at the risk of sounding sentimental – heartwarming. This novel will grow on you, like a wonderful aftertaste that will leave you feeling like you’ve just finished a five-star gourmet meal instead of just a McDonald’s cheeseburger.
         And I’ll be damned if my good friend Brad Pitt didn’t say the same thing.