I really think I’m going to like this book.
The writing style, as I mentioned, is very much in the style of a first person detective novel. But the roughness of the voice is softened by a personality who is somehow vulnerable and becomes a bit endearing. In this second chapter, Palahniuk brings us backwards in time, the narrator at one of his many nightly group meetings, all different groups, always there on bogus terms. You’ve got to wonder why. What makes this guy so willing to pretend illnesses he doesn’t have to become part of the groups. In this case, it’s a testicular cancer support group. There’s a reason, but first, some fantastic writing:
Bob’s big arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed in the dark between Bob’s new sweating tits that hang enormous, the way we think of God’s as big. (pg. 16)
You gotta love that bluntness that’s in conflict with the tender softness of the scene. And this:
Bob’s shoulders inhale themselves up in a long draw, then drop, drop, drop in jerking sobs. Draw themselves up. Drop, drop, drop.
(…) Bob loves me because he thinks my testicles were removed too. (pg. 17)
And then we get the narrator’s reasoning on why he attends one of these types of meetings every night of the week:
This should be my favorite part, being held and crying with Big Bob without hope. We all work so hard all the time. This is the only place I ever really relax and give up.
This is my vacation. (pg. 18)
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology