Damned by Chuck Palahniuk (A Review by Stanton Hancock)

Posted on by

Doubleday

256 pgs, $14

Madison Spencer has it all.  Rich Hollywood A-list parents, houses all over the globe, private jets to shuttle her wherever she desires to go, all the perks of the super-elite.  There’s just one problem – she’s dead.  She’s also in Hell.

In Chuck Palahniuk’s latest novel, “Damned,” we are given a guided tour of Hell.  Our tour guide, Madison, takes us along with her as she navigates the fecal seas and razorblade deserts of a uniquely twisted landscape, trying to make the most of an afterlife for which she feels woefully unprepared.

Lost, confused, and troubled after her death via a suspected marijuana overdose and her subsequent damnation, Madison looks for answers by appealing to the ultimate authority on the subject – the Prince of Darkness.  She begins each chapter of her narrative with a short note beginning with “Are you there Satan?  It’s me, Madison.”

Palahniuk’s tip of the hat to Judy Bloom is far from the only pop-culture reference in “Damned.”  Celebrities and historical figures are everywhere in this vision of the underworld.  In Palahniuk’s Hell, almost everyone on earth will find himself or herself condemned for one reason or the other.  The ridiculously strict standards for heavenly admission espoused by the most extreme fundamentalist Christians have turned out to be true.  As Madison explains;

“…”The inbred snake handlers and holy rollers had more on the ball than my secular humanist, billionaire mom and dad.  The dark forces of evil really did plant those dinosaur bones and fake fossil records to mislead mankind.  Evolution was hokum, and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

Furthering the pop-cultural fixation, Madison awakens in a dismal prison cell and quickly befriends some of her fellow prisoners; Babette – the gorgeous prom queen, Leonard – the brainiac nerd, Patterson – the jock, and Archer – the blue-Mohawk adorned punk rocker.  It’s a veritable Breakfast Club in Hell.

With her entourage assembled, Madison sets out into the twisted landscape of Hell in search of the Devil himself and the answers she’s sure he possesses.  This Hell is markedly different from the landscape crafted by Dante and countless others.  Palahniuk’s Hell is not a scorched, blighted landscape of searing flame and sulfur.  Instead, it is an environment awash in bodily fluids, toenail clippings and stale candy (Hell’s sole form of currency).  This Hell is a depository of all the castoff biological matter of the living.  Every picked scab settles in Hell.  Every self-pleasure-induced ejaculation adds to the ever-growing Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm.

As Madison’s fellowship makes their way towards the center of Hell, they dodge demons and learn about the history of the various demons and explore the nature of their own damnation.  They also must deal with the eternally frustrating bureaucracy of Hell – a Kafkaesque model of malicious inefficiency and lost paperwork and their required employment.  It turns out that the majority of telemarketers and internet sex performers are actually damned souls.  It makes perfect sense when you think about it.

Throughout it all, Madison maintains a sarcastic positivity despite the circumstances.  Her snarky attitude brings to mind yet another pop-culture figure as Madison becomes a Juno-in-perdition character of sorts.  While her constant complaints about her weight or her being deprived of an adolescence coupled with her incessant declarations of her intelligence are initially grating on the reader’s nerves, Madison’s refusal to abandon all hope is infectious and you cannot help but cheer her on as she refuses to let her circumstances dictate her behavior.

“Damned” is outlandishly irreverent and tackles the themes of death and the afterlife with a flippancy that only Chuck Palahniuk commands.  Pick up a copy, you won’t be disappointed.

See you in Hell…

*

Stanton Hancock is a writer and musician whose poetry and fiction have appeared on scraps of paper, in tattered notebooks, and under bridges.  He has an MA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University and is currently pursuing his MFA.  He recently finished his first novel and feels pretty good about that.