Speaking of little black boxes, Skinnerians would have a field day with the presenting behavior of the folks who make up Palahniuk's world. They pretend they're suicide hotline operators for fun. They eat lobster before it's quite... done. They dance in morgues. The Cleavers they are not. Scary as they might be, these characters are ultimately more scared of themselves than you are, and that's what makes them so fascinating. In the wee hours and on lonely highways, they exist in a perpetual twilight, caught between the horror of the present and the dread of the unknown. With only two novels under his belt, Chuck Palahniuk is well on his way to becoming an expert at shining a light on these shadowy creatures. --Bob Michaels

Product Description
From the author of the cult sensation Fight Club (now a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter) comes Survivor.

"A turbo-charged, deliciously manic satire of contemporary American life." --Newsday

"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage," according to the "been there, done that" wisdom of Tender Branson, last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult. At the opening of Chuck Palahniuk's hilariously unnerving second novel, Tender is cruising on autopilot, 39,000 feet up, dictating the whole of his life story into Flight 2039's "black box" in the final moments before crashing into the vast Australian outback.

Not since Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night has there been as dark and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Wickedly incisive and mesmerizing, Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak.

SURVIVOR begins on its final page, and shoots backwards towards page 1, always reminding you of its approaching demise. Along with the novel, the narrator is apporaching his own demise, as he pilots a commandeered airplane waiting for it to crash and explode. In order to preserve his life story, he is speaking into the black-box on-flight recorder, hoping to wipe himself out and attain immortality at the same time.

What is his problem? Well, he is the last survivor of a suicide cult, a former indentured servant in the "real world". He also narrates of his tranistion from nobody to media messiah back to nobody. In it, Palahniuk takes on a wild ride through a satire of modern society in all its little nuances. Everything from Lobster eating to TV networks gets raked over the coals in this incediary novel.

ALthough the book, like FIGHT CLUB begins to self-destruct about three quarters of the way through, the story is so compelling in its banal gruesomeness that you can't help but read it. Palahniuk is a magician who will keep you hypnotized, glued to each page until the final end of both his protagonist and the book.

Oh, and did I mention that the book is also riotously funny? It is. So in other words, one of the best books I've read in awhile.


Unique Look at Modern American Life by a Great Author   May 3, 2001
 37 out of 44 found this review helpful

I read Survivor because I really liked Mr. Palahniuk's first book, "Fight Club", and I read "Fight Club" because I thought the movie was great. "Survivor" is a great book, despite it's thematic similarity to Fight Club. The plot on the other hand is very different, although some of the characters seem very familiar to ones from the author's first book. I wanted to be sure not to spoil the plot, one of the difficulties I had with "Fight Club" was my knowledge of the basic premise through having seen the movie (although I do feel there are enough differences to merit a reading of that book), however the entire plot is spelled out on the back cover of the book. Avoid that if you would like some surprises.

Mr. Palahniuk has again succeeded in creating a very unusual plot, which is as good as that of "Fight Club", but its primarily used as a vehicle to provide the same lambasting of modern society that "Fight Club" provided. The lambasting takes some new turns and has a few new targets (although cornflower blue does make a return), but the method is the same. The characters are written in much the same method and the book-ending cataclysm is very similar. While I do hope that the next book of his that I read, "Monster" is different than his first two books, I was still very pleased with "Survivor". The reason is very simple, while the two books are similar, they are both so drastically different in both style and character development than the rest of the books out there that they are very compelling and thought-provoking reads. There are few authors capable of delivering the same sophisticated, yet still blunt, critique of both the excesses and shallowness of modern American mass society. In this end, the author succeeds in reaching a more convenient tone than have many other authors with similar messages, such as Pynchon, Camut or Thoreau.

It is the delivery of this critique that makes Mr. Palahniuk such a promising author (please note as of this review I still haven't read his third book, "Monster"). Criticism of the many contradictions of modern society is as easy to find in literature as the faults themselves while walking the street, however, the author delivers the blows using a masterful combination of both hyperbole, subtlety and the voice of his characters that the words are received with both laughter and disdain. If Mr. Palahniuk continues to use these methods as he has in his first two books, his works can only become more interesting. I thought this was an excellent book, and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in modern literature.


English Lit. 101   May 10, 2000
 19 out of 26 found this review helpful

some claim that palahniuk's second novel, "survivor", is subpar when compared to "fight club", his first. that's not the case. at all. in fact, i'm a huge fan of chuck and his writings... "fight club" blew me away. ("invisible monsters" did not, but we'll save that for another time.) but, this book, "survivor", will stand the test of time. it'll be the book our grandkids are reading in honors english. disecting. picking apart, because it offers so much more than a great plot and interesting characters (which it does). it gives the reader so much to think about and mull over. raises so many metaphysical questions about life and death and love and loyalty that it will take us years to truly understand this work of epic proportions. if you like "fight club"... or even if you liked the film version by the brilliant director, david fincher... i urge you... implore you... BEG you to buy this book. you will not be sorry. plus... you'll get a head start on next semester.


Now Boarding, Flight 2039: direct to Oblivion   October 24, 2000
 17 out of 20 found this review helpful

Testing, testing. One, two, three.

Testing, testing. One, two, three.

Maybe this is working. I don't know. If you can even see this, I don't know. But if you can see this, read. And if you're reading, then what you've found is a review of the story of everything that went wrong.

It doesn't take a page.

And there you are at 39,000 feet. Above the clouds and in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-400 with no passengers.

And no pilot.

Final evacuation call for Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Survivor.

And don't ask if it has anything to do with the television show.

It'll just make you look stupid.

Imagine being raised for slave labor just because you were three minutes and thirty seconds too late. Imagine everyone you know and love offing themselves in a mass cult suicide. Imagine becoming a mass media produced messiah just because no one could prove otherwise.

Imagine Tender Branson, your new pilot.

He doesn't know how to fly a plane.

He'll tell you himself.

Go Ahead.

Ask him.

He's just dying to get a few things off of his chest.

This book is totally backwards. Seriously, you'll see what I mean. With a lot of similar humor and style to his first novel Fight Club, Palahniuk's Survivor is a great read for newcomers and devout fans alike. Pick up this book and you won't want to put it down. But it'll be the most time you'll ever spend reading to get to the bottom of page one.

I promise.


Not Fight Club, but it'll keep you entertained   February 1, 2001
 12 out of 15 found this review helpful

After being thoroughly floored by the incisive wit of Fight Club I was hoping to find something as equally sharp. I was a little let down by Survivor. It felt as if it was trying too hard to shock me, forcing various twists and building up teases for character revelations that simply weren't all that shocking (or perhaps I'm just a bit too desensitized). Still, I find that the bait-and-hook approach to suprising the reader rarely appeals to me, course I could be all wrong and maybe Palahniuk never intended to suprise me. At any rate the bite-sized scenarios and quick witticisms don't make up for the lackluster story. But the biggest gripe for me personally is I've just grown a bit tired of the various satirical looks at media and celebrity, its a bit overdone, even from a writer as fresh as Palahniuk. But don't misunderstand, I'm still a big fan of Palahniuk, and this book wasn't horrible, most of its fun and it's a quick read, but compared to the hugely entertaining Fight Club (and even Invisible Monsters) this book feels trite, a little lazy even.