A macabre fantasy, in which a deformed model is guided by a drag
queen down the yellow brick road of her past to the Emerald City of
her future - all dreamed up by cult novelist Palahniuk (Survivor,
1998) in one of his more baroque moods. There is a certain point in
all bedroom farces and comedies of errors when you give up trying
to figure out who's who and just go along for the ride. That might
be the wisest strategy here. Our narrator is one Shannon McFarland
(although she doesn't actually introduce herself until the very
end), and she's a real mess, quite literally: she was injured in a
mysterious shooting and has lost her entire jaw and most of her
face. Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly?), Shannon's brother Shane was
also disfigured in a suspicious accident when he dumped a load of
trash into the fire and a can of hair spray exploded in his face.
Shane eventually turned gay and was thrown out of the house by his
parents, who later learned that he had died of AIDS. Shannon grew
up, became a supermodel, and got herself engaged to Manus, a
vice-squad detective who ditches Shannon after her accident and
takes up with Evie Cotrell, a rich Texas bimbo who used to be
Shannon's roommate and may have been a man early in her career. But
never mind Erie; the one to watch is drag diva Brandy Alexander,
who meets Shannon in the hospital and soon becomes her only friend.
Brandy takes Shannon on the road, and - along with Brandy's
boyfriend Alfa Romeo, who in reality may be Manus - the two steal
drugs from expensive homes by calling realtors and posing as
potential buyers. Eventually, Shannon discovers that Brandy is not
who she appears to be, but by then we're ready for anything. Too
clever by half a Chinese box of a novel fascinating in its
intricacies but pretty hard to get a grip on whole. (Kirkus
Reviews)
She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look. The narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search pf a brand-new past, present and future.
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Review This Product
Mon, 26 Mar 2007 | Review
by: Sandra D.
This book has an opening chapter straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, with as many twists as a David Lynch movie. It makes for good reading though, albeit a weirdish route it takes to get there. Similar to Fight Club, it questions your motives and expectations from life, but doesn't profess to know the answers. Not quite as good as Fight Club. I would rate Chuck Palahniuk's books with Lullaby 1st, Fight Club 2nd, Survivor 3rd and then Invisible Monsters. Which still makes it way better than most books.
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