Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, has published yet another great dark satire titled Survivor. Survivor follows a man named Tender Branson, who was raised in a Creedish death cult, and is now telling his life story to the black box of an empty Boeing 747-400 plane about to plunge into the earth. The book begins, as Tender says, from the end. In order for a novel to be considered a good dark satire, it must meet the following criterion: a sinister premise, wit, originality, and the main character’s approach to rock bottom. Survivor is an excellent example of a dark satire because it possesses all of the aspects that are necessary for a dark satire.

One aspect that a book must have in order to be a good dark satire is a sinister premise throughout. The book is titled Survivor because Tender is one of a few remaining Creedish Church members left who has not “delivered” or killed themselves. Throughout the book, the notion of suicide is a recurring theme that makes Survivor one of the darkest satires Palahniuk has written. A suicide help line with billboards and posters all over the city had a typo in the phone number that coincidentally was Tender Branson’s. Tender’s phone rings off the hook day and night with people about to kill themselves. Tender answers every one and tries to convince the person on the other line to do it; jump, cut, swallow, pull the trigger. This upfront disregard for human life creates another dark theme in the book, and is one that exists in all of Palahniuk’s books, nihilism. Nihilism is the philosophical belief that life is without purpose, and that morality does not exist. Tender convinces people to kill themselves so they can end their suffering.  Tender Branson is perhaps more nihilistically minded than Palahniuks’s most famous main character, Tyler Durden from Fight Club. Though just like Fight Club, Survivor is riddled with witty religion and pop-culture criticism.

Wit is a very important aspect a dark satire must also possess, which Palahniuk accomplishes this in Survivor by pointing out, often bluntly, the defects in modern pop-culture and the corporatizing of many religions. This is seen especially when the book takes a dramatic turn when Tender becomes the only remaining Creedish death cult member left on the planet. With the help of a self-appointed, very demanding agent, Tender becomes a celebrity and somewhat of a messiah. Much of the wit cannot be discussed without spoiling the book, but talk-shows, prayer books, Superbowl half-time appearances, and other mediums is a how Palahniuk integrates pop-culture and religion as a single corrupt, and obscene part of American culture. The wit Palahniuk ensues is not only clever, it’s original.

Clever originality is another facet a dark satire must possess. When Tender’s not convincing people to kill themselves, he’s a butler for a very wealthy couple who plan out his entire day from start to finish. He is filled with knowledge of cleaning, cooking, and etiquette strategies, and shares them to the reader at very random times throughout the book. These completely off-topic tips make the book both entertaining and interestingly informative. Palahniuk even arranges the page and chapter numbers to descend in order to correspond with the book starting from the beginning. The descending page and chapter numbers also remind the reader throughout the book that what their reading is being told to a black box of a plane plummeting to the earth. Another aspect of Survivor’s clever originality is that never throughout the entire book does Tender have any dialogue. This seems at first glance an impossibility in a narrative, though it is essential in order correlate with the fact that the entire book is Tender’s dialogue. The descent of the plane, page numbers, and chapter numbers all relate to the descent of the main character, or the approach to rock bottom.

Approaching rock bottom is another one of Palahniuk’s themes in his novels and is also an important theme in any dark satire. Palahniuk’s main philosophy behind this theme is that in order for one to be completely free, one must be free of all tangible and intangible possessions, except for necessities. And in order for one to do so, there must be conflict. In Survivor however, Palahniuk creates a wave-like notion of rags to riches to rags to riches back to rags. This is the path that Tender follows throughout the book as he goes from a carefree child, to a loser, to a messiah, and then to the world’s most hated man. He is helped along this path by a woman named Fertility Hollis, a psychic who can see the future. She uses Tender as a form of entertainment in her extremely predictable, boring life.

  Successfully fulfilling all of this criterion, Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor is perhaps one of his most creative and engaging novels. He creates a fluid and easy to read story with deep, thought provoking themes that make you want to read it again. In 2001 it was to be announced the novel was to become a film production, but because of the events of September 11th, it was cancelled. Producers believed the novel’s plane-hijacking scenario would not be appropriate for a post-9/11 America. Other than the film cancellation, Survivor does not disappoint, and is an excellent example of a dark satire.