I have read a good chunk of Chuck Palahniuk’s bibliography: Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, Rant, Snuff, Pygmy, and now Tell-All. His writing-style is consistently blunt and minimalistic. The books delve into a niche subject or taboo (for eg. Choke had sex addiction and Fight Club had fight clubbing) so intensely that you can feel Palahniuk’s effort and keen interest through the pages. The writing tends to rely on patterns, whether it is repeating certain words or phrases so that they become a dark and humorous chorus. The reliance on pattern is very prevalent in one of Palahniuk’s newest creations Tell-All.
The short novel Tell-All is about the ridiculousness of old Hollywood and the lengths people go to preserve/create/destroy the fame of the golden business. One of the most prominent patterns throughout the novel is tactless name-dropping. The text is punctured with bold names of the cream of the crop like Ernest Hemingway and Ava Gardner. It’s an amusing technique that adds to the concept of a tell-all novel, because how else are you going to sell copies unless you gossip about the right kinds of people? The name-dropping contributes to the overblown egos and desperate personalities of the stars/starlets of the novel, who force attention and feelings of self-importance through what can only be called “word vomit”. The pattern is especially interesting because it includes created stars with actual stars of the past, combining the worlds of fiction and reality so neatly that you feel the urge to Google every name that you read.
The problem with the pattern of name-dropping is that it feels like a crutch for the novel. As much as the pattern makes sense, it doesn’t distract from the fact that there isn’t much going on. Plot-wise, not much occurs during the first half of the novel. You feel almost thankful that things start to move along closer to the end, even if it feels like too quick of a wrap-up. When I was done, I felt a little cheated. It’s like eating rice-cakes. You can get any flavour you desire, like caramel popcorn or chocolate or something called “salt-free”. You can enjoy the delicious flavour of your choice, but when you’re done eating you still don’t feel satiated. That’s what Tell-All felt like: a rice-cake that was tasty, but not very satisfying.
Maybe that was the point. Tell-All is a book about the shallow nature of all the inhabitants of Hollywoodland. It’s possible that the book truly captures the vapidity of movie stars by being light on plot and meaning. I felt hungry for more after the book because Hollywood does not offer anything tangible to an audience – or maybe the audience is so gluttonous that it always hungers for more. The technique of name-dropping in place of plot or character development works for the sake of the novel, but it may not satisfy for the sake of the reader.
The Lonely Book Club 