Book Review

by TAMMY MARSHALL & r & & r & Snuff & r & by Chuck Palahniuk & r & & r & & lt;span class= "dropcap " & I & lt;/span & t's a Chuck Palahniuk book dripping with all the usual body fluids. It's just that this time there's hardly any blood.





In Snuff, an aging porn star named Cassie Wright decides she wants to go out with a bang -- or in her case, 600 bangs in which she screws that many dudes in one day. It's to be the climax of her career and the ultimate movie release titled World Whore Three.





The book's brimming with funny anecdotes issued in the way of film titles like Chitty Chitty Gang Bang and On Golden Blonde.





The story starts with a herd of men waiting outside the filming studio standing in their skivvies. The book centers on three of these guys, known only by the number written in ink on their upper arms.





Mr. 72 is a barely legal young man who thinks the porn queen is his mother. Mr. 137 had a legitimate career in show business and lost it all when everyone found out about a homosexual porn movie he made when he was a struggling actor. Mr. 600's the dude who once discovered the young and na & iuml;ve Cassie and Pygmalion-ed her into a mega star in the sex industry.





Loaded with the usual anti-heroes that Palahniuk's known for, the ultimate anti-hero comes in the form of Ms. Wright's assistant Sheila, who organized and implemented the entire event.





The author of Fight Club didn't stretch Snuff into his regular disgustingly drawn-out debauchery. Believe me, this book is gross. Yet Palahniuk's latest seems more of a day-in-the-life-of-disgusting than it seeks to question, comment and qualify anarchy. The author, who claims to spends his days examining real-life dissipation in the hallows of humanity, has written a quirky story about five neurotic characters who simultaneously achieve their goals in an anti-climatic and anti-heroic way.





Snuff is an interesting novel in that Palahniuk once again went where most respectable writers won't go. Yet, in comparison to his other novels, this one is just kind of a funny story. It's one of those books that makes you laugh out loud while you utter the word "gross." You don't openly heave like, say, when reading Fight Club.