Survivor

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Survivor
The Second Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
2005-12-14
Article Written by: Jillian Smith

If you recognize the name Chuck Palahniuk at all, it is probably because of the success of his first book, Fight Club . If you enjoyed that story—or even if you just liked the David Fincher movie—the satiric observations that he makes about marketing and commercialism in Survivor will give you even more reason to love this author.

There is so much going on in this book, though, that it's difficult to know where to begin. In fact, it seems that the author faced the same problem, since the book begins at Chapter 47 (page 289) and descends toward ground zero. The "survivor" in the story is a thirty-three year old man named Tender Branson, the last living member of a repressive suicide cult known as the Creedish Death Cult. The book opens with Tender dictating his life story into the flight recorder of a Boeing 747 that he has commandeered. He has released all the passengers that were on board, and all that remains is to wait for the plane to run out of fuel and crash somewhere in the Australian outback. Before he meets his impending doom, though, he is determined to relate his tale in its entirety and, thus, simultaneously destroy himself and achieve the immorality that all humans seek.

As the narrator records his story and Flight 2039 soars onward toward impending doom, his entire life story is revealed, beginning with the church. In the Creedish Death Cult, only the oldest son is allowed to marry and grow old within the church district. When all of the other children turned seventeen, they were sent to the "outside world" as laborers, and all of their earnings were given over to the cult. Also, in the Creedish culture, the first-born male in every family is named Adam, and all following boys are named Tender. All daughters, the first through the last, are named Biddy. Though this narrator was born only three minutes and thirty seconds after his older brother, his church did not recognize twins. So, when he came of age, he was released as a labor missionary. Church doctrine teaches each of the members to await a sign from God to tell them to deliver themselves unto Him, that is, commit suicide. When, the sign finally comes, Tender becomes the last surviving member of the cult, and he's thrown into mainstream culture and becomes a personal icon for many people.

If you have already enjoyed Fight Club , the book and/or the movie, then you are probably familiar with the dark humor and seemingly endless wealth of random knowledge that this author constantly presents to his readers. As Tender describes his job in the "outside world" you can learn everything from dining etiquette and tricky spot removal to effective methods of escaping and evading the police. In the course of his story, Tender flies to New York and sets out on the road to stardom. He meets with the nameless Agent who works for an agency that has been planning for years to turn the last survivor of the Creedish Church into a religious celebrity. They create a fake history for Tender and completely overhaul his body. He is given steriod injections, fed healthy food, has his teath capped, and his hair and all other negative aspects of his body changed. He is literally marketed for the public. One of my favorite quotes from the book says that "the only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."

There's not much else that I can tell you without giving away too much of the plot of this fantastic novel, but I will say this: I believe that t here are too few authors that are capable of delivering the same blend of sophistication and bluntness that Palahniuk brings to Survivor 's critique of both the excesses and shallowness of modern American mass society.

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