SurvivorA Novel

The famed author of Fight Club takes us on yet another dark journey into the heart of a self-obsessed America.
We meet Tender Branson in the cockpit of an empty Boeing 747 jumbo jet somewhere over the Pacific, just after the pilot has parachuted down to waiting military vessels. Branson, the anti-hero of Chuck Palahniuk's send-up of American society, earned his “survivor” status when his Nebraska family — and many others — chose to commit mass suicide rather than have their “church district” investigated by the FBI for alleged child abuse. Branson, delivering his life story onto the Boeing's flight recorder, begins his narrative with, "testing, testing, one, two..."

In actuality, it's Palahniuk who’s testing — testing the credulity of his readers, stretching his writer's muscles to see how far he can go in creating a series of self-and-death-obsessed characters who are more in conflict with themselves than with one another.

Palahniuk takes the reader on a dark journey through Branson's life. A profoundly alienated young man under the care of the state and the supervision of a social worker, Branson is one of just a few of the cult's survivors who hasn't committed suicide or died under mysterious circumstances. Through a strange and harrowing turn-of-events, Branson goes from eking out a living as a housecleaner to being directed by an agent who uses our anti-hero's cult-family notoriety to transform him into a mass-media-obsessed, anti-sex, bestselling messiah. Along for the ride are a strangely asexual young woman named Fertility Hollis, who can apparently predict the future, and Branson’s brother, Adam. Both are alternately bent on redeeming and/or killing him. The story steadily snowballs to a cynical conclusion that cheats Branson of more than his life, a finale that fans of Palahniuk will undoubtedly applaud.