Word: palahniuk
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...Palahniuk takes his time at the beginning of the novel introducing the character of Katherine Kenton, who seems like a cross between Katharine Hepburn, Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Taylor, and Lindsay Lohan. In the narration, Coogan discusses her own endless maneuvering to manage Kenton’s movie-star image, calling the actress, “my work-in-progress,” and adding, “My job title is not that of nanny or guardian angel, but I perform duties of both.” The reader follows as she juggles Kenton’s drug use, serial...
...plot of the novel gets rolling, a young man, Webster Carlton Westward III, enters Kenton’s life with seemingly suspect intentions. Just as happens often today, Westward positions himself for the opportunistic memoir, the “tell-all” of the title. At this point, Palahniuk proves he still has the incredible ability to build suspense and surprise his reader with twists, though the story moves toward a fairly predictable end, given his hints earlier in the novel. The book ends with Palahniuk’s penchant for the macabre, though there is a redeeming twist...
Where this book succeeds most is on the level of satire. Unlike in his previous books, Palahniuk does not show his readers a secret or paranormal world, but instead takes one especially familiar to most modern audiences and exaggerates its flaws to significant comic effect. For example in one scene, Katherine Kenton decides to adopt a child, and after an extended perusal of infants, she decides that none of them go with her newly painted walls. There is a similar kind of witty iciness throughout, which gives off the air of certain modern celebrities under the guise of a distant...
...fact that there are traces of the frenzy around Angelina Jolie or the death of Michael Jackson in this novel certainly make it stronger, but Palahniuk needs to take his satire farther if he is going to be successful with it. He absolutely has the ability to make something over-the-top, but he needs to be more fantastical than he is in “Tell-All” when he is only at his most farcical when describing hilarious sex scenes...
Like most Palahniuk books, “Tell-All” will probably satisfy the core readership of his books, though even they may be disappointed by the lack of Chuck’s usual revelations. Since starting his career almost fifteen years ago, Palahniuk has been a champion of the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Though “Tell-All” may have been groundbreaking 20 to 50 years ago, it seems unlikely that it will resonate as much with an audience today—one that feels it already knows too much about celebrities...