I can't remember the last time I read a novel that taught me so much. Want to know how to clear those stubborn wine stains from your clothes? How to safely clear broken glass? How to eat lobster? Tender Branson, the hero of Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor can tell you all this and more. Home economics, social etiquette and the virtues of the work ethic are all that he knows. Why? Because Tender Branson is Creedish. In fact he is the last of the Creedish, the rest of this Christian sect having engaged in a mass suicide a la the Peoples Temple, Heaven's Gate and others in recent years. And, as the novel opens (at the last page of the last chapter), Branson is alone in a hijacked airliner running out of fuel.
The reason that Branson is the fount of all knowledge when it comes to domestic tasks is that he is not the first born in his family. Only a Creedish first-born can marry, reproduce and stay within the Creedish community. For everybody else it is intensive study and then release into the sinful outside world for a life-time of servitude. Cleanliness is surely next to Godliness, and for the Creedish sending their sons and daughters out into the world to slave away is a form of missionary work. It also brings in a large income to the community...
Like Fight Club, this is humour that's as black as tar. Religion, tele-evangelising, alienation, sex...No, we won't mention sex because Tender Branson, like the rest of the Creedish slaves (much sought-after by middle-class American employers), is a virgin. Of course, once it is discovered that he is the sole surviving Creedish, his worth rises incredibly. Before you know it he is swept into a voracious marketing machine which remoulds him into a commercial product worth millions.
Fight Club wasn't a one-off, this is a hugely enjoyable romp through modern-day America that confirms Palahniuk's eye for the absurd and the skill of his writing.
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