#248 Knock Knock- Chuck Palahniuk

#248 Knock Knock- Chuck Palahniuk

We start 2016 with some excitement. For avid readers, there is nothing quite like beginning a new book. So, you can imagine my excitement in knowing that over the next 3 weeks I will start no less than 15 new short story collections! Add to that a few leftover from last year and a couple of The Best American series, and the first half of this year is going to be some fun around here.

None of the authors I plan on reading during this span is quite like this one. Chuck Palahniuk is such a singular voice in fiction, writing some of my favorite books like Rant, Survivor, and Fight Club, but this is his first collection of short stories. I have the feeling that Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread is going to be quite a ride.

We get the story Knock Knock right out of the gate. It’s a story about a young kid being raised by a father ill equipped to raise a child. All he knows how to do is tell jokes. The kid is way too young to get most of these off-colored, dirty, racist jokes, but he’s not to young to understand that laughing is good, and laughing at Dad’s jokes is all that’s required of him.

“How I learned to say I Love You was by laughing for my old man—even if I had to fake it.”

The Dad gets cancer and will die. All the kid knows how to do is tell jokes and try to heal his father through laughter like he’s seen in the movies. But of course that doesn’t work. Now the kid is all alone having learned nothing but dirty jokes that he doesn’t even understand.

At times touching, at times heartbreaking, Knock Knock, like you would expect from Palahniuk has a dark uncomfortable strain that is like a truthful coat of paint laced with lead poisoning.

Rating: 8-8-9-8 Total= 33