For fans of:
Identity crises
Dark literature
Books about cults
You’ve probably heard of Chuck Palahniuk from his cult classic Fight Club—both an excellent debut novel and David Fincher film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. In the same vein, his second novel, Survivor, was published in 1999 and is riddled with the same dark humor that makes Fight Club the warped and twisted story it is.
Survivor, told mostly in flashbacks, is the story of Tender Branson, last known living person of the Creedish Death Cult, a Jonestown-esque religious group he grew up in. As a child, Tender grew up in a society where adults shunned all activities that were of the flesh. Now, as an adult, he finds himself mostlythinking about fake flowers and how to get bloodstains out of silk. He spends his days cleaning an elite family’s mansion, tending to their garden, and teaching them how to properly eat all the expensive and exotic dishes on their dinner plates.
But Tender quickly goes from obsessive-compulsive housecleaner to Botox-stuffed, spotlight-obsessed televangelist when the media finally realizes he is the lone survivor. With no one else from the cult left, Tender becomes a kind of modern-day religious icon. But not one of his own making. Everything he says and does, everything he becomes, is a product of his agent’s design. He becomes a spiritual guide to anyone he can dupe into believing him, all the while fighting his deeply rooted urges to off himself, a decision he was told all cult members would one day face.
After meeting a woman named Fertility who can see the future, along with a host of other unique characters only someone like Palahniuk could dream up, Tender finds himself 39,000 feet in the air, dictating into a flight recorder and his entire life story unfolds as the chapters and page numbers count backwards to zero.
Don’t forget to check out Palahniuk’s latest novel, Adjustment Day (his first in four years!) out May 1, 2018.
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