Invisible Monsters Remix

by Chuck Palahniuk

Overview

"A harrowing, perverse, laugh-aloud funny rocket ride." —Seattle Times

Injected with new material and special design elements, Invisible Monsters Remix fulfills Chuck Palahniuk’s original vision for his 1999 novel, turning a daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique reading experience. Palahniuk’s fashion-model protagonist has it all—boyfriend, career, loyal best friend—until an accident destroys her face, her ability to speak, and her self-esteem. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a bona-fide woman. Laced in are new chapters of memoir and further scenes with the book’s characters. Readers will jump between chapters, reread the book to understand the dissolve between fiction and fact, and decipher the playful book design, embarking on a ride they’ll never forget.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393345117
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/13/2013
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Chuck Palahniuk is the best-selling author of more than eighteen fictional works, including Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, Haunted, Rant, Pygmy, Tell-All, Damned, Doomed, Beautiful You and The Invention of Sound. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Hometown:

Portland, Oregon

Date of Birth:

February 21, 1962

Place of Birth:

Pasco, Washington

Education:

B.A. in journalism, University of Oregon, 1986

Website:

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net

Editorial Reviews

"Even more fun to read than the first time around."

Seattle - Editor’s Pick

"Subtly moving, this singular writer reminds us that real life is often just as tragic, absurd and fabulously perverse as a Palahniuk novel."

Shelf Awareness

"Palahniuk’s stories don’t unfold. They hurtle headlong, changing lanes in threes and banging off the guard rails of modern fiction."

San Francisco Chronicle - James Sullivan

Palahniuk (Damned, 2011, etc.) plays literary DJ, revisiting and updating his 1999 novel Invisible Monsters. In a new "Reintroduction," Palahniuk explains that Invisible Monsters was never meant to be a conventional narrative, resembling in its original incarnation the Sears catalogue or an old copy of Vogue magazine, jumping forward and backward in time with the quick-cut style changes of a classic MTV playlist. The elder statesman of transgressive fiction even sounds a bit cynical--"You young people, you who think you invented fun and drugs and good times, fuck you."--though with his skewed sense of humor, it's generally hard to be sure. In matter of substance, there's not much of a "remix" to be had here, just a, "Now, please jump to Chapter Forty," Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style that doesn't so much reorder the book as augment the disjointed, whiplash atmosphere its author intended. The book that Kirkus drubbed "Too clever by half" in 1999 is still here in its ghoulish entirety. The narrator is Shannon McFarland, a fashion model whose beauty has been obliterated in an enigmatic accident. While recovering in the hospital, Shannon meets Brandy Alexander, a voluptuous pre-surgical transsexual who adopts Shannon and takes her on the road, granting them new monikers, identities and trades in the process. Throw in some more drag queens, a knife-wielding ex-cop, plenty of drugs, sexual abuse and even a wedding, not to mention some eerie family values. The book is really a superfluous artifact, but that doesn't change the fact that Palahniuk remains one of the most gifted writers in American fiction. Not worth replacing your old paperback, but a nice collector's item for Palahniuk's cult.

Kirkus Reviews