Plot summary

Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. He had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him. Several times throughout his childhood, his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents, though every time they would eventually be caught, and he would again be remanded over to the governmental child welfare agency.

In the present day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his feeble mother who is now in a nursing home

Nursing home

A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...

. He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man

Confidence trick

A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...

. He consistently goes to various restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke mid-way through his meal, luring a "good Samaritan" into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they send him cards and letters asking him about how he's doing and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills. He works at a re-enactment museum set in colonial times, where most of the employees are drug-addicts or, in his friend Denny's case, a fellow recovering sex addict. Most of the time Palahniuk spends describing Victor's job, Victor is guarding his friend Denny in the stocks (who is constantly caught with "contraband", items that don't correspond with the time period of the museum). Victor first met Denny at a sexual addiction support group (he was there as a guy who masturbate

Masturbation

Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...

s too much), and they later applied together to the same job. Denny is later fired from the museum, and begins collecting stones from around the city to build his "dream home;" Palahniuk based this portion of the novel on the true story of Ferdinand Cheval

Ferdinand Cheval

Ferdinand Cheval was a French postman who spent thirty-three years of his life building Le Palais Idéal in Hauterives...

.

While growing up, Victor's mother taught him numerous conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

 and obscure medical facts which both confused and frightened him. This and his constant moves from one home to another have left Victor unable to form lasting and stable relationships with women. Victor, as a result, finds himself getting sexual gratification from women on a solely superficial level (he uses to find sex partners at sex anonymous meetings). Later on, he starts talking to his mother again for the first time in years.

The narrative is episodic, and is presented out of chronological order, a style common to the author's books.

Film adaptation

A film adaptation directed by Clark Gregg

Clark Gregg

Robert Clark Gregg is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He co-starred as Christine Campbell's ex-husband Richard in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, which debuted in March 2006 and concluded in May 2010...

, starring Sam Rockwell

Sam Rockwell

Sam Rockwell is an American actor known for his leading roles in Lawn Dogs, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke and Moon, as well as for his supporting roles in The Green Mile, Iron Man 2, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Frost/Nixon, Galaxy Quest, Matchstick Men, The Assassination of...

 and Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...

, was released commercially on September 26, 2008. Palahniuk makes a cameo appearance in the film.

Editions

• ISBN 0-385-50156-0 (hardcover
  Hardcover
  A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
  
  ; New York: Doubleday, 2001)
• ISBN 1-58945-971-7 (e-book
  E-book
  An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
  
  , 2001)
• ISBN 0-385-72092-0 (paperback
  Paperback
  Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
  
  ; New York: Anchor, 2002)

Trivia

• Much of Palahniuk’s research on Choke was conducted with total strangers at the gym and sexual addiction groups.
• A song by Scottish band Biffy Clyro is titled Joy.Discovery.Invention. after a line in the novel.