The book is Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. It was originally published in 1999 by W.W. Norton. I read the 2018 paperback edition. I read it in May of 2024.
The title refers to the main character Shannon. It’s no spoiler to say that she is a supermodel that gets shot in the face. Throughout the book there is a theme of women being valued only for their looks, and that they grow more and more invisible as they age and become less beautiful. In the case of the main character Shannon, since her face has been mutilated, she sees herself paradoxically as invisible and a monster. The story takes that theme even deeper and with other characters.
I read this book because I love Palahniuk’s writing. Ever since I read Fight Club in high school, I’ve been wanting to read all of his works and I’ve read several so far. This book is the next in publication order that I haven’t read yet.
In this book Palahniuk is saying that being seen for who you are is important. If you’re not seen for who you are you’ll try to become something else, and that can be dangerous. Chuck Palahniuk is gay, but this book is not about affirmation. In fact, he seems to take a jab at flamboyant, Pride-marching homosexuality. It’s about being seen in a sense of relationships and community.
The message I got is that people’s perception of you matters. We naturally care about it. People’s perception helps form relationships in certain ways. It’s easy to say we don’t care what other people think about us but it’s hard to live that way.
There’s also a tension in this theme of perception in the book. Do the characters want to be seen for who they are, or who they think they are? Sometimes other’s perceptions of us can reveal things we didn’t know about ourselves. We don’t want people to see the dark things in us.
There is also an underlying theme that speaks to a fear of becoming boring. We need attention or we’ll die.
“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.” (p264)
This line implies the question, if no one notices you, do you even exist? It’s like the old question of, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Ther is a spooky principle in quantum mechanics that reality relies on the perception of a watcher. I may be reading too much into this. Palahniuk doesn’t mention quantum mechanics. But it supports the narrative that perception is very important and for some people it’s everything.
My main takeaway from this book is that answers are boring. This is something I’ve believed for a long time. That’s not to say answers aren’t important or that there are no answers anywhere. But a book that is full of neatly packaged answers comes off as preachy and dull.
I used to hesitate saying this because I’m a firm believer in the Bible which has all the answers and we should preach about. But when I think about it, there is a lot of mystery to the Bible. If a little uncertainty is required for a good story, the Bible has plenty of it.
Do babies go to heaven? I don’t know. How did God create light before creating the sun? I don’t know. What was the thorn in the apostle Paul’s side? I don’t know. Who is the naked guy that ran away from Jesus in Mark 14? I don’t know. For as many answers there are in the Bible there is also a lot of mystery.
That’s not to say the Bible doesn’t provide enough information to form a functional theology for a sound doctrine in Christianity. It does. But the Bible is also not just a dusty list of do’s and don’ts. It’s the living Word of God full of both answers and intrigue.
This book from Palahniuk does not have the answers. I get the sense Palahniuk follows the postmodern thinking that answers are boring so there are no answers.
Here is a passage from this book.
“I’m not straight, and I’m not gay,” she says. “I’m not bisexual. I want out of the labels. I don’t want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that’s not on the map. A real adventure.” (p261)
This is the problem with the “the journey is the point” mentality. You never get anywhere. It’s not helpful. A real adventure has a destination. Without direction you’ll most likely wander into a place you don’t want to be.
Palahniuk’s books are always full of twists and turns, and Invisible Monsters is no exception. It got a little confusing because the characters have several nicknames. I lost track a little of who is who. But so do the characters. I think that was intentional.
There aren’t really any heroes to emulate or villains to avoid. It’s not that kind of story. The characters are relatable and complex. This book expresses the truth that there are things in life we need but we’re not supposed to ask for, like sympathy and attention.
I’d recommend this book to readers with a strong stomach. It punches you in the gut a lot. If you don’t like violence, profanity, and vulgarity at all then don’t read this book. But it’s not shocking just to be shocking. There is a narrative purpose to it (like the Bible). It’s Palahniuk’s style and I like it, but I understand others may not.
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Notable Quotables
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What’s burning down is a re-creation of a period revival house patterned after a copy of a copy of a copy of a mock Tudor big manor house. It’s a hundred generations removed from anything original, but the truth is aren’t we all? (p14)
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Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close. (p15)
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beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power. (p16)
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Besides, it happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated. Most women know this feeling of being more and more invisible every day. (p32)
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I never, never panicked. I saw my blood and snot and teeth splashed all over the dashboard the moment after the accident, but hysteria is impossible without an audience. (p50)
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“My point,” Seths says, “is that maybe TV makes you God.” Seth says, “And it could be that all we are is God’s television.” (p81)
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When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat? (p103)
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the idea that I can’t share my problems with other people makes me not give a shit about their problems. (p111)
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“The most boring thing in the entire world,” Brandy says, “is nudity.”
The second most boring thing, she says, is honesty. (p112)
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And my father says, “Please don’t hang up. Let me get my wife.”
Away from the receiver, he says, “Leslie, wake up, we’re being hate-crimed finally.”
And in the background is my mother’s voice saying, “Don’t even talk to them. Tell them we loved and treasured our dead homosexual child.” (p141)
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“Your mother has a PFLAG bumper sticker, so we keep her car in the garage. Us taking pride in your brother has put us right on the front lines.” (p147)
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the hormones. For the rest of her life. The pills, the patches, the injections, for the rest of her life. And what if there was someone, just one person who would love her, who could make her life happy, just the way she was, without the hormones and make-up and the clothes and shoes and surgery? She has to at least look around the world a little. (p181)
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My brother I hate has come back from the dead to upstage me.
I’m an invisible monster, and I’m incapable of loving anybody. You don’t know which is worse. (p198)
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“You’re a product just as much. A product of a product of a product. The people who design cars, they’re products. Your parents are products. Their parents were products. Your teachers, products. The minister in your church, another product,” Brandy says.
Sometimes your best way to deal with shit, she says, is to not hold yourself as such a precious little prize. (p217)
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A sexual reassignment surgery is a miracle for some people, but if you don’t want one, it’s the ultimate form of self-mutilation.
She says, “Not that it’s bad being a woman. This might be wonderful, i wanted to be a woman. The point is, Brandy says, “being a woman is the last thing I want. It’s just the biggest mistake I could think to make.” (p259)
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“I’m not straight, and I’m not gay,” she says. “I’m not bisexual. I want out of the labels. I don’t want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that’s not on the map. A real adventure.” (p261)
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All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring. (p264)
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How being mutilated made Shane the center of attention. And if I throw off my veil now, I’ll just be a monster, a less than perfect, mutilated victim. (p278-279)
Solomon White 
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