Snuff follows three men who are waiting to immortalize themselves into pornography history as they wait to bed Cassie Wright, a former porn queen who has fallen into harder times.
Each chapter follows a different guy (Mr. 600, Mr. 72, and Mr. 137), as well as Sheila, the female wrangler who dictates who is the next to be filmed with Cassie Wright. As the three men wait, each starts to divulge their true reasons for wanting to be filmed, as well as discuss the sordid history of Cassie Wright and her reason for suddenly dropping out of the pornography industry for a year. As backgrounds, secrets, and would-be children start to appear, the tensions in the room start to rise and in the end the true secrets of her comeback, and who really is Cassie Wright’s porn child, are the last things any of them suspect.
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 through the perspectives of Mr. 600, Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Wright’s personal assistant, Sheila. With his satirical narrative and thorough research, Chuck Palahniuk reveals through these four characters the little-known facts and histories of not only pornography and sexual deviance, but also acting and life in and out of the spotlight, and throughout the novel shows the rarely acknowledged presence of pornography in modern America.
Charles Michael “Chuck” Palahniuk, born February 21, 1962) is an American novelist and freelance journalist, who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He is most well known as the author of the award-winning novel _Fight Club_, which also was made into a feature film. He maintains homes in the states of Oregon and Washington.
Palahniuk was born in Pasco, Washington, the son of Carol Adele (née Tallent) and Fred Palahniuk. He has Ukrainian, Russian, and French ancestry. His paternal grandfather was Ukrainian and emigrated to New York from Canada in 1907. Palahniuk grew up living in a mobile home in nearby Burbank, Washington with his family. His parents separated when he was fourteen and subsequently they divorced, often leaving him and his three siblings to live with their maternal grandparents at their cattle ranch in Eastern Washington. Palahniuk’s father began a relationship with a woman, whose ex-boyfriend murdered the couple.
In his twenties, Palahniuk attended the University of Oregon School of Journalism, and graduated in 1986. While attending college he worked as an intern for National Public Radio member station KLCC in Eugene, Oregon. He moved to Portland soon afterward. After writing for the local newspaper for a short while, he began working for Freightliner as a diesel mechanic, continuing in that job until his writing career took off. During that time, he also wrote manuals on fixing trucks and had a stint as a journalist (a job he did not return to until after he became a successful novelist).
After casually attending a free, introductory seminar held by an organization called Landmark Education, Palahniuk quit his job as a journalist in 1988. Palahniuk performed volunteer work for a homeless shelter; later, he also volunteered at a hospice as an escort; he provided transportation for terminally ill people and brought them to support group meetings. He ceased volunteering upon the death of a patient to whom he had grown attached.
As an adult, Palahniuk became a member of the rebellious Cacophony Society. He is a regular participant in their events, including the annual Santa Rampage (a public Christmas party involving pranks and drunkenness) in Portland. His participation in the Society inspired some of the events in his writings, both fictional and non-fictional. Most notably, he used the Cacophony Society as the basis for Project Mayhem in _Fight Club_.
Bibliography
– Fight Club (1996)
– Survivor (1999)
– Invisible Monsters (1999)
– Choke (2001)
– Lullaby (2002)
– Diary (2003)
– Haunted (2005)
– Rant (2007)
– Snuff (2008)
– Pygmy (2009)
– Tell-All (2010)
– Damned (2011)
– Invisible Monsters Remix (2012)
– Doomed (2013)
– Beautiful You (2014)
– Make Something Up (2015)
– Fight Club 2 (2015)
