Palahniuk: the king of transgressive novelists...

"The Missionary and the Brute" could rightly be categorized as being 'transgressive fiction'. It is an unrelenting look at the characters of a group of people interacting in a land that strips away all pretense to the bare-knuckle bones of raw intensity. There are few idealized characters, opting instead for rich portraits of people on their own journeys of suffering and turmoil. A few have devolved into beasts that contradict the strictures of a civilized culture that thus created them. In these ways it is transgressive and well in keeping with some of the other novels on our shelves thus labeled.

Labels, as always, are limiting and not completely accurate, but there are certain novelists whose work does indeed fall largely in this category. The king among these is Chuck Palahniuk. Bursting on the literary scene with the absolutely incendiary "Fight Club", Chuck's subsequent work has walked much the same treacherous terrain as that - his most famous novel. "Fight Club" is rightly deemed a classic. My gosh. It shines the harsh light of reality in the face of some aspects of our world in a unique and quite disturbing way. (Disturbing in a good way.) Boiled down to one sentence it can be summed up as 'we spend so much time psychically beating ourselves up that the act of beating ourselves up becomes the thing for which we beat ourselves up...'

Or something like that.

MIS- oh, wait, what's that moving over there? - DIRECTION...

Misdirection is key to "The Missionary and the Brute". I had the idea from the very start that nothing would be as it seemed. I wanted to disorient and slightly confuse the reader at times as to place and time and I wanted to lead them astray with every step.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Foremost is that it's darned fun to do. I especially work this at transitional scenes. I will pose a hypothetical question at the end of a chapter and sometimes literally answer it in the beginning of the next. Only it may or may not be the real answer - it may just seem that way. Like the time when I tell you that the killer is actually...

The First Rule of Book Club is...

...is that everyone talks about what happens at Book Club!

Book Clubs are a great way to stimulate discussion and generate repeat business for local booksellers. As an avid reader, I support Book Club efforts by offering to personally answer five questions in depth from each "The Missionary and the Brute" reading group that is put together. Simply tell me about your group - when you meet, how many members, etc. and submit five questions (hopefully open ended so I can ramble for you!) to my email at john.kenworthy@yahoo.com
 
As an added incentive for 2012 - at the end of each month starting at the end of December 2011 I will select the best question(s) to post here on the blog and send the submitting person(s) an autographed copy of "The Missionary and the Brute"!