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Snuff | 
 enlarge | Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.56
You Save: $10.39 (42%)
New (53) Used (27) Collectible (10) from $14.55
Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 1115
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0385517882
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385517881
ASIN: 0385517882
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before
Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
 Fascinating July 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've never read any of Chuck's books before, but a friend of mine is always talking about his novels, so I took her advice and bought Snuff. I thought the idea of an ageing porn star going out with a bang, or six hundred of them, quite intriguing. A bit of a surprise book in many ways and I was particularly impressed with how Chuck really gets inside his characters and we really see their hidden depths. Having read it and thinking back on it, I really like it. Its a bit of a change for me, because I'm really into the erotic short story genre, such as Best Women's Erotica 2008 and the unbelievably sexy 100 Percent Erotica. Still, its given me food for thought and I shall seek out more of Chuck's books.
"The Damaged Love the Damaged..." October 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
An over-the-hill porn star wants to go out with a (gang) bang, so arranges for a world record effort with 600 stout and hearty fellows, brave and true. A few of this cast of hundreds are there for more than their allotted 60 seconds of, ah, contact with the legend. She has deep ulterior motives, as do each of the featured characters, and all of their twisted narratives come together in the concluding pages.
Someone is supposed to die as this event climaxes, and most of the folks know it, although their perceptions of the who, when and how don't quite match up. The plans go a bit off the rails, and everyone gets more or less what they deserve.
The main characters certainly have had enough of the world, with what they have made of it, with their fortunes having turned on single instances and bad choices, in this case almost all of them sexual. Most everyone is ragingly bitter and resentful, untrue and self-serving, bent on rectifying only their problems, regardless of effects on others. The story runs on damaged adults hurting others, intentionally and instinctively, out of selfishness and revenge, or even to manufacture a more compatible companion. It's about the need for fame, the need for redemption, the resentment of future lost, and the clawing need to retain one's perceived best position, all taking place in arena of porn, the "...job you only take after you abandon all hope."
This is not a novel about the sex industry, but there is some behind-the-scenes detail. Palahniuk's detailed portrait of the washed-up porn star Miss Cassie Wright is not as complete and detailed as I had anticipated. I don't know why, but every time I pictured her, a strange combination of Kitten Natividad and Lisa DeLeeuw came to mind. Ah, but I digress. She is more or less the central character, at least that around which all others and the main story revolve, but I was a tad disappointed in that we didn't get more from her. Much of this was necessary for plot purposes, but I thought we'd get a bit more inside her head, and hear a bit more about what Palahniuk has observed about the porn experience. Cassie is a treasure trove of obscure Hollywood factoids, though, all of them thoroughly fun and enlightening.
And Palahniuk has observed; he slips in what appears to me to be his description of things that come to him, "...a remarkably rarefied set of facts for anyone to reference offhand." It was obvious even in Fight Club with the details about automobile recalls that Palahniuk is a collector of slices of divergent existence and uncommon experience. He's fascinated by the edge of the road, and he collects the esoteric, fascinating and titillating tidbits, saving them for the right time to drop into a story. We saw a very straightforward collection of these experiences in Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories. When it's time and the fit is right, these bits add depth to a character, provide the basis for a scene, or serve to power just a soliloquy. We got that in Survivor, with the Palahniuk's extended dissection of the blissful suffering stupor achieved on the Stairmaster. Such is the case here, and this time we get lots of insight on the directly physical aspects of manufacturing video pornography. Most of it has been covered, but Palahniuk manages to show us a few things that are new. We also get details about embalming, the chemical and physical processes of cyanide, and about the sacrifices Hollywood stars made for their careers--not for their craft, mind you, but for themselves.
Palahniuk records detail, and this brings the porn-shoot green room scene into a sharpness of focus that had me wanting to shower after reading. It is unflinching and close-in; I swear I could smell it.
The story has lots and lots of people in it, but only a handful get to speak. The story is all about them, which seems to me to close down the world a bit too tightly. As struck me reading Invisible Monsters, everyone is intertwined, closely and disgustingly, but it seems a bit too close, that everyone is that tied and related a tad too easily. It works to keep the story tight, of course, but it seems that social groups are just not that tight.
Palahniuk's porn-title takes on classic film and literature titles is good fun, with dozens of them sprinkled throughout the book. My personal favorite, unfortunately, is not reproducible in this venue. If anything, just this exercise must have been inspiration enough to bring forth the novel.
The font is large and the pages relatively small; at 197 pages the book reads quickly, in short chapters of about 7-8 pages. Each chapter is the voice and POV of one of the characters, which takes a bit of adjustment. Most can read it all in 3-4 hours. There is very little raw, graphic sex, but lots of descriptions of the business, how things are done. The adult language is profuse and completely liberated; readers put off by profanity need not go on this ride. The language is not clinical, but, ah, straightforward and non-euphemistic professional language for what is brought to the table, and what is then done on the table, under it, with the legs of the table, with the guys who delivered it, their friends, etc.
Bottom line: I enjoyed this story, another off the wall Palahniuk tale populated with thoroughly original characters in a story for which I had no kind of previous reference. It took me to a new and unpredictable situation, with interesting albeit unpleasant characters, in a story that delivers where it counts, right in the end.
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time! June 27, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've never read a book by Palahniuk before, but my friend spoke highly of his writing and I caved and bought it. I was leery of reading it at first. I wasn't sure if this would be just a story, or just a story about sex. But it was neither.
There is a mystery (granted I'd figured it out in 10 pages), but as long as you want a book that takes you on a journey it won't let you down. Most of the emotional reasons behind the story are revealed in the end, and how the story played out was a surprise. I think that was the most creative ending to a book...ever. Definitely a keeper, and worthy of an actual effort from the reader.
Fantastic August 12, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love Palahniuk books. But I can say, Haunted had some good short stories to it, as did Stranger than fiction. Both had perfect stories in them, complete, start to finish, work that would bring a smile to Amy Hampel's face. But this book, (Rant, not a big fan) was fantastic. Personally I don't like this multiview point stuff that books and movies are taking, but this book is nothing short of fantastic. The people are so clearly done, the story is hilarious. It's nothing life changing, but I don't think it's suppose to be. It's a great book to have, and you'll find yourself reading parts of it to friends who don't care to hear it.
Palahniuk is brilliant. September 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Just when I think I've figured out Chuck Palahniuk's next move he hits me head on with a book I'd never picture him writing before I read it. This is a great but very, very dirty book. I'm sure by the description alone you realize that but again it may not be the book you want to leave next to your toilet when you have company coming over! Nice quick and enjoyable read (there's a joke there somewhere). If you liked this book be sure to check out Chuck's other books including Invisible Monsters, Survivor and Choke to name a few.
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