NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk: a dark reality

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk: a dark reality

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk: a dark reality that calls on readers to look inward and outward, to scrutinize our contemporary world, and to act if we want to change things for the good or the very worst of living creatures, especially the joeys.

Please be sure of nothing except that Chuck Palahniuk’s newest novel does not directly call on readers to do anything.

That is merely one interpretation that I had for NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW; our world is not displayed in blacks and whites but shades of grays and stark colors, as does the grim earth that NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW is set in.

So, whether you feel you are being called upon to assist in the exposing of the Empire, or to save struggling joeys from the perilous fur of a mama kangaroo, or you wish to preserve the Empire, at any cost, including spitting in a dropped joey’s eye, or you feel you ought merely to reflect upon the story and its wily metaphors is entirely up to you, Fictioneers.

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW, Chuck Palahniuk, fight club

This is why metaphors are such powerful vessels for great themes, morals, expressed traumas, and impactful events.

The following book review of NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW is *Spoiler-Free.

This classic tale is darker than FIGHT CLUB and INVISIBLE MONSTERS and is every bit as enjoyable.

Psychopaths have never been so fun or redeeming!

The help begin to suspect the enormous Welsh home that brothers Cecil and Otto live in, fornicate in, and murder the help in is cursed, as the number of nannies, drivers, and butlers’ bodies pile higher and higher over the years of the brothers’ youth.

In fact, the family business, from Mummy, to Daddy, to Grandfather, is that of professional killers responsible for the most infamous murders and alleged ‘suicides’ in history.

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW will have you choked up, whether you feel for tragic characters in the tale, or are reading while eating (Blood RWE Level = .07-Choking Hazard).

This book displays a mastery of language throughout, especially the thick Welsh accents and the Sir Richard Attenborough impersonations (not to be confused with David Attenborough, folks). Readers can look forward to every sentence in this book being of impact, as a carefully thought out and expertly voiced style makes for a truly unique use of language.

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW is a genre bender and hits on hilarious satire, horror that makes one wince, killer thriller events, and literary style.

I love all of Chuck Palahniuk’s books but NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW is a new favorite for me, right alongside INVISIBLE MONSTERS and FIGHT CLUB.

I rated NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW 5/5 Stars on Goodreads here.

And finally here is Chuck Palahniuk describing how NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW came about:

This book arose quite literally from the ashes of the amazing Shirley Jackson. Picture two siblings isolated in a colossal country manor. Dark secrets. Frightened villagers spreading rumors galore. Twenty years ago, Jackson’s daughter sent me her mother’s cremated remains, and this book came about. Not Forever, But for Now could be the bastard half-brother of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Look for a landslide of dread broken only by laughter and occasional heartbreak. More people get buried alive than A. E. Poe ever dared entomb. More Frankenstein monsters menace more villagers than Mary Shelley dared put on the page.

Cecil and Otto, the two young brothers in Not Forever, live a Henry James life. Their crenellated manse and pony carts and lemon syllabub depend on the two small boys going forth to do the dirty deeds that keep the Empire alive. But will they? How many footmen and nannies and movie stars must they kill to ensure the privileged luxury of the few? Amble through stoney lunatic asylums. Go big game hunting in London’s Hyde Park. I cordially invite you for romantic strolls with escaped homicidal maniacs. You’ll find the magic dust of Shirley Jackson’s ashes sprinkled on every page.

The Forgotten Fiction Grade: YEA (read it!)


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“NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW by Chuck Palahniuk: a dark reality” Was Written By R.J. Huneke. The image of the Best-selling NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW is from https://www.facebook.com/chuckpalahniuk/.

NOT FOREVER, BUT FOR NOW, Chuck Palahniuk, fight club

 

 

Chuck Palahniuk: THE INVENTION OF SOUND Loudly Grips Readers

Chuck Palahniuk: THE INVENTION OF SOUND Loudly Grips Readers

Chuck Palahniuk: THE INVENTION OF SOUND loudly grips readers in the author’s newest thrilling and genre-defying resonation.

What a premise: A father’s decades-long search for his missing daughter. A young woman about to engineer the perfect scream.

The most dangerous secret Hollywood has ever kept.

It is difficult to describe the complex, yet beautifully scripted story of revenge or redemption, of murder or madness that ensues in the land of Hollywood’s darkest alleys and brightest-lit red carpet premieres in Chuck Palahniuk’s newest novel The Invention Of Sound.

The story is woven together out of many tangled and disjointed threads and unreliable points of view that collectively form as impactful and gutting a tale as Fight Club, Diary, or any of the great stories from Chuck Palahniuk.

This book will floor you and/or make you pass out (likely smiling).

That much is conveyed by the cover’s spattered watermelon.

Once you smash the watermelon, you cannot remake the sound of splatter, or piece back together the fragile fruit once held within.

Once the entire story of The Invention Of Sound is told you cannot unknow or forget the frightening ‘trade knowledge’ and mayhem that sounds so thunderously.

Here is the story synopsis, and the book review continues below:


From Goodreads.com:

Original Title: The Invention of Sound

ISBN 1538718006 (ISBN13: 9781538718001)

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published September 8th 2020 by Grand Central Publishing

Gates Foster lost his daughter, Lucy, seventeen years ago. He’s never stopped searching. Suddenly, a shocking new development provides Foster with his first major lead in over a decade, and he may finally be on the verge of discovering the awful truth.

Meanwhile, Mitzi Ives has carved out a space among the Foley artists creating the immersive sounds giving Hollywood films their authenticity. Using the same secret techniques as her father before her, she’s become an industry-leading expert in the sound of violence and horror, creating screams so bone-chilling, they may as well be real.

Soon Foster and Ives find themselves on a collision course that threatens to expose the violence hidden beneath Hollywood’s glamorous façade. A grim and disturbing reflection on the commodification of suffering and the dangerous power of art, THE INVENTION OF SOUND is Chuck Palahniuk at the peak of his literary powers—his most suspenseful, most daring, and most genre-defying work yet.


The following TFF Book review of Chuck Palahniuk’s The Invention Of Sound is Spoiler-free*****.

Few books can grab a reader like this one does, and that grip is at times painful as the pages fly.

The Invention Of Sound is utterly riveting, from start to finish.

One could easily read The Invention Of Sound in a couple of long sittings.

The suspense, perverse humor, pervasion fun for fun-sake (or was it?), and the churlish attitudes and deeds of most of the main characters – from Mitzi’s cult-like obsession to a craft she loves and hates, just as she seems to love and hate herself, to the masochistic lengths a father goes to searching for a daughter gone for nearly two decades (and you cringe just reading of his process) – make for some of the most memorable characters and scenes south of the HOLLYWOOD sign in the Hollywood Hills.

For those squeamish of violence and gore, or equally as unnerving, the life of aging actors, be warned, Mr. Palahniuk pulls no punches and crosses new bounds.

The interwoven twists and mysteries grow clearer and hazier as each additional page goes bye.

And with a wallop the ending does not disappoint as it screams oh so delightfully.

The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, fiction, book review, book reviews, Hollywood

The Forgotten Fiction Grade: YEA (read it!)


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“Chuck Palahniuk: THE INVENTION OF SOUND Loudly Grips Readers” was written by was written by R.J. Huneke.