In a novelist’s resume that includes Fight Club and Choke — both made into movies — Chuck Palahniuk has regularly delivered some shocking (he calls it trangressional) fiction. Most of his work has dealt with twisted people engaged in some sort of repugnant, or at least socially unacceptable, behavior.
With his new book, Pygmy, the author takes his highly stylized approach to a new level, telling the story of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state who have infiltrated the U.S. as high school students and bent on perpetrating a terrorist act: Operation Havoc. The reader is never given a detailed description of the title character, but we can assume he’s on the smallish side.
To up the ante, Palahniuk writes the entire book as missives from Pygmy to some unnamed KGB-esque institution. Every chapter starts “Begins here first (second, third, etc.) account of operative me, agent number 67,” followed by a place and other vital info that’s blacked out.
Pygmy doesn’t have much command of English. Arriving at the airport, he writes, “Passport man strike paper of book with ink, marked good to enter nation.”
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2009.