Choke
Victor Mancini is a med-school dropout, a compulsive sex addict, and a professional fraud. To pay for the private care home where his mother is slipping away into dementia, he works days as a costumed interpreter at a colonial-era theme park and spends his nights staging elaborate choking scenes in expensive restaurants—so the strangers who "save" him will feel forever responsible and send him money.
When his mother, in her lucid moments, hints at a secret about his origins, Victor becomes convinced he may be something far stranger than an ordinary con man. Drawn to a doctor who offers an outrageous theory and a possible cure, he circles questions of guilt, love, and whether anyone can be saved—least of all himself.
Bleak, filthy, and mordantly funny, Choke is Chuck Palahniuk at his most provocative: a transgressive satire of addiction, faith, and family that finds unexpected tenderness beneath its shock.
A sex-addicted con man funding his mother's care through faked choking scams.
Victor's mother, slipping into dementia and guarding a secret about his origins.
Victor's recovering-addict best friend and fellow theme-park worker.
A doctor who offers Victor an outrageous theory and a possible cure.
