Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Chuck Palahnuik's Tell All: Not Really Worth Telling


The problem with having an author that I admire, is that I tend to hold their novels to a higher standard than might be fair. Chuck Palahnuik is one such author. He is definitely in my top five, and both Fight Club and Survivor make my top ten list. This is probably why I thought that Tell-All was only okay. Had I not been comparing it to his other novels, I would have enjoyed it more, but alas it does not hold up to the majority of books Palahnuik has written.
Tell All is written in the form of a movie script and chronicles the final days of famous actress Katherine Kenton and her doting assistant Hazel Coogan. Hazel has spent her life trying to keep Katherine’s reputation perfect and preserve her legacy, often lying and keeping would-be suitors away by any means possible. Everything begins to unravel for both women when a man named Webster Carlton Westward III appears in Katherine’s life. In her own words Hazel says, "My purpose is to impose order on Miss Kathie's chaos … to instill discipline in her legendary artistic caprice. I am the person Lolly Parsons once referred to as a 'surrogate spine.' "
Appearing to love and care for Katherine, she ignores all of Hazel’s warnings, even making accusations that Hazel is working against her. That is, until the two women discover that Webster has written a tell all book to be published after Katherine’s death. It details intimate moments of their time together, and downright lies about things they did together. In fact, the end of the book even details how Katherine is going to die!
But more is going on behind the scenes of Katherine’s life, and Hazel might not just be looking out for her mistress, but for herself. With echoes of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Hollywood life in the 1950s, the potential of a novel of worth and merit was there, especially with a writer like Palahnuik creating the world, but it fell short. Very Short. 


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