Satire beneath the stunt

Snuff

A Novel

Chuck Palahniuk

Doubleday: 198 pp., $24.95

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Because many have been quick to write Chuck Palahniuk off as the literary equivalent of a shock jock, his books are often treated as pulp fiction, but in truth his fiction has always had a deep layer of social satire beneath the gore of it all. So while his fans may revel in his razor-sharp cynicism, a closer read reveals a writer who is unafraid to flay open our cultural DNA.

In "Snuff," Palahniuk fixes his jaundiced gaze on the porn industry, which has become such a regular facet of our celebrity-obsessed culture that stars like Jenna Jameson have had little trouble leaping from the back aisle of the video store to prime time on E!, while "stolen" homemade sex tapes of Hollywood B-listers are enough to base an entire career on.

Cassie Wright, the porn star at the center of "Snuff," is an aging sex queen who has lived through the sordid early years (her first blush in the industry was a drugged amateur shoot with her then-boyfriend Branch Bacardi), the boom of the later years (culminating in her own shampoo line: 100 Strokes) and now faces the dead end, perhaps literally: An attempt to break the world record for "serial fornication" by having sex with 600 men on camera -- one or more of whom may want to kill her.

Palahniuk tells "Snuff" from the point of view of three of the 600 -- Messrs. 72, 137 and 600, respectively -- as well as through the eyes of Sheila, the young woman who first came to Wright with the proposition and who is now the talent wrangler, producer and designated stopwatch enforcer for the shoot (one minute each; completion not required). The pitch? A historical porn flick about the first sex doll, starring Cassie as the doll. Seems the Nazis were hoping to be first to market with a life-like sex doll but plans were scuttled by larger issues of world domination.

"For my pitch," Sheila says, "I planned to develop a project based on that first sex doll. Work the Nazi angle. Work the history angle. Hammer together a story with genuine educational value." Her ulterior motive is larger, however: to give Cassie a final bow that might then set up the child she gave up for adoption a chance at a better life, since even Cassie is dubious that she'll live through the 600 men. "Whoever that baby grew into, Ms. Wright can give him a college trust fund, the down payment on a house, seed money for a business. Wherever that baby has ended up, he'll just be forced to love her."