Not Forever, but for Now

By: Chuck Palahniuk

Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill

Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a hilarious horror satire about a family of professional killers responsible for the most atrocious events in history and the young brothers that are destined to take over.

Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather...and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. Downton Abbey, this is not.

However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow. First there is the matter of the veritable cavalcade of escaped convicts that keep showing up at their door. Not to mention the debaucherous new tutor who has a penchant for speaking in Greek and dismembering sex dolls. Then there’s Mummy’s burgeoning opioid addiction. And who knows where Daddy is. He just vanished one day after he and Mummy took a walk in the so called “Ghost Forest.”

With Grandfather putting pressure on Otto to step up, it becomes clear that this will all end in only two ways: a nuclear apocalypse or just another day among the creeping thistle and tree peonies. And in a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, either are equally possible.

©2023 Chuck Palahniuk (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Chuck has evolved as a writer!

Aside from the dark humor and social commentary, I wouldn't have known this was a Palanuik book.

Hmmm

Like The Turn Of The Screw—only more perverse and graphic. Not a book for the easily disgusted.
Outstanding narration.

Meh…

What I imagine a book written and performed by Stewie Griffin from Family Guy would be like.

Repetitive

The story is absurd and dark, not unlike some of the other books by the author, which i really liked. I much anticipated this book’s release. To me, the story was too slow and way too repetitive.

Praise for mr Corkhill, as his voice and intonation are fantastic.

Not his best.

I am pretty sure the phrase “have a go” makes up 50% of this book. Every chapter felt like a repetition of the chapter before until it suddenly ends in an absurd manner.

Have a go and listen to something else.

Too much rape stuff. Was not worth a monthly credit. Listened to 5 minutes of binary and IP addresses added nothing. Won’t bother with a physical copy.

Quite graphic and disturbing

I know it’s chuck, it’s supposed to be graphic and disturbing but this one was a miss for me.

A bridge too far

Sexualizing children or childhood was too much. I enjoy the counter-culture but this was bad.

The shock value counts for something, but not much

I’m a Palahniuk fan and am normally loathe to give a negative review to anything that a talented writer like him puts out there, if only because I truly appreciate the effort and am frankly not qualified to judge another’s work of art.

That said.

Sweet Jesus was this tedious. After hours and hours of hearing about Cecil & Otto’s depravities, it just got to be too much and I couldn’t wait for the inevitable point where they all burned themselves to the ground.

I mean, seriously, I get it. The point (if there really is one) is that literally everyone in this “story” is an asshole - they’re all “baby Joey’s” that the reader wishes someone would pluck off the mommy Kangaroo’s fur and mash under foot. Of course, in so doing, it tends to make the reader realize that they maybe they’re just as cruel as the protagonists. Kinda clever, but simultaneously boring af.

Not sure what to say…

I’m puzzled how to respond to this novel. As a big fan of his, I was excited. And as a narrative from a deranged protagonist I’m impressed the author could sour my liking so thoroughly. The story is dark, which I expected. But the mind of a serial killer is not some place I want to dwell in for 8 hours. At some point it began to be less interesting and more tedious. The format (audiobook) also didn’t lend itself to the binary code that was literally minutes of the narrator saying 1’s and zeros. I searched for my phone frantically to skip it as it drove me mad.

Interesting novel. Like, I bet that’s exactly the narrative a serial killer would write. But after a few hours it was like, ok, I would like to hear this story from someone a little less fucking nuts.