After "Invisible Monsters" I had given up on Chuck Palahniuk, but a Texas friend strongly recommended the book. Choke is your basic sex-addict working at a Williamsburg-style Colonial recreation museum who funds his mother's hospital stay by pretending to choke in restaurants and conning the people who rescue him story. OK, the pretext is certainly unconventional. The characters are all on the fringe in some capacity but otherwise functioning in society. The casual observer might not even notice. Kind of like the depravity we pretend doesn't exist behind the scenes at Chuck E Cheese restaurants. The sex-addict subtext does play a role in the plot, but the descriptions are pretty graphic. The kind of thing you hope would offend your mother. I want to say that the book explores the near desperation of people trying to fulfill their emotional needs. For example, the protagonist has found that the people who "save" him from choking derive a definite benefit from their actions. So much so they adopt him as a cause. On the other hand, I found the situations so artificially bizarre that it took away from the experience.