For that reason, much of the detail makes no sense at all and couldn’t happen. This story is basically a detailed elaboration of popular fantasies. And I hope no one takes it as one, because it won’t work. Forcing everyone into one of three groups doesn’t handle all the weird cases.Īnyway, this book certainly isn’t intended to be a blue print. Naïve concepts about cultural identity quickly run afoul of messy reality. This rebellion against an incompetent, corrupt and unfair culture leads instantly to a new incompetent, corrupt and unfair culture.
It’s because the new order is so repulsive and/or idiotic in such obvious ways. If you come away from this book rejecting the alt-right-y ideology of the new order, it’s not because Palahniuk told you you should. Interestingly, the only overt “preaching” is all from the point of view of the uprising. We kind of get where people are coming from, and how they might get to this point. It’s grim and ugly, but Palahniuk does a pretty good job of making it psychologically real. Everyone who doesn’t fit one of these identities are deported or worse.Īnd so on. The List was crowd sourced on the Internet, essentially voting for “America’s least wanted”.Īfter Adjustment Day, the shooters take over and create a new political order, sorted by “identity”: the “formerly united states” split into separate nations for “whites”, “blacks”, and “gays”. The “day” in question refers to a mass uprising in which thousands of (mostly white) men gun down politicians, celebrities, teachers, and anyone on “The List”. However crazy, it’s all far, far too real to easily laugh at. It might be satire, but it cuts awfully close to the bone. His new novel gets inside the wilder fantasies of the Internet, confused and violent ideologies obsessed with white and male identity. He’s gotten inside violence, porn, and even being damned to hell. Palahniuk’s stories are never easy reading.
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