Survivor (novel)
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- For other uses of "Survivor", see Survivor (disambiguation).
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| Author | Chuck Palahniuk |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Satire |
| Publisher | Hyperion Books |
| Released | January 2000 |
| Media Type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 304 |
| Size and Weight | 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches, 1.1 lbs (hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-385-49872-1 |
Survivor is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. A satire of our commercial culture, it is the story of Tender Branson, a member of the Creedish Church, a death cult. In it, every member learns how to be a servant for the human race—most of them are butlers and maids—and fear most human pleasures. They await a sign from God to tell them to deliver themselves unto Him, that is, commit suicide. The sign finally comes, and a good ten years later, Tender becomes the last surviving member of the cult. He's thrown into mainstream culture and becomes a personal icon for many people.
Excerpt from chapter 25:
| This one time, the agent asked me where I saw myself in five years. Dead, I said. I see myself dead and rotting. Or ashes, I can see myself burned to ashes. I remember I had a loaded gun in my pocket. Just the two of us were standing in the back of a crowded, dark auditorium.
'I see myself dead and in hell.' I remember I was planning to kill myself that night. It was the night of my first big public appearance. I told the agent, I figured I'd spend my first thousand years in hell in some entry-level position, but after that I wanted to move into management. Be a real team player. Hell is going to see enormous growth in market share over the next millennium, and I wanted to ride the crest. The agent said that sounded pretty realistic. |
Contents |
[edit] Plot synopsis
The book begins at the end, like most of Palahniuk's books. Tender Branson is in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-400, and he is telling his life story to the black box. He is alone in the plane, which he hijacked; he tells the black box that he served everyone a meal with a gun in his hand, that he ordered the plane to land in Port Vila, Vanuatu, so he could let everyone off except the pilot, and that he let the pilot parachute off the plane. And then, he begins his story.
Tender's story begins ten years after the Creedish Death Cult have killed themselves. Tender is a servant for a rich couple he never sees in Oregon. He constantly cleans their house, gives them etiquette lessons over a speakerphone, and does other housework. He also plants fake flowers in their garden, which is easier than planting actual flowers and taking care of them. At his dingy apartment, he gets phone calls from people who want to kill themselves; a newspaper that was doing a story on a suicide prevention hotline printed his phone number as the hotline's number. Then, people wanting to kill themselves began calling him day and night. Instead of helping these people out, Tender tells them to go ahead and kill themselves. Then, the newspaper printed a retraction; and the calls stopped coming. So, Tender printed up flyers for a crisis hotline with his number on it. Tender likes to tell people to kill themselves; he considers it to be better than TV.
One of these people was Trevor Hollis, a man who wants to kill himself because of the nightmares he has been having about disasters, like plane crashes or fires. One day, Tender goes to the mausoleum where Trevor's body resides to visit the man he "murdered" and to steal fake flowers for his employer's garden. There he meets Trevor's sister, Fertility. Later that night, Tender has a meeting with his Caseworker from the Federal Survivor Retention Program, a fictional government agency that keeps tabs on the survivors of suicide cults, which takes place every week for one hour. He asks her (the Caseworker) how many survivors there are left, and she tells him, "150," which will become lower and lower as the book progresses. The Caseworker, then, begins talking about how some of the survivors have killed themselves.
Tender begins to explain how the Creedish Church works. He talks about his older brother, Adam, who is technically his identical twin brother; but since the Creedish don't recognize twins, Adam is Tender's older brother by about 3 minutes. He also explains his name, Tender, which is actually a rank or title in the Creedish Church, like Lieutenant, doctor, or Sheriff. In the Creedish Church, Tender is the lowest rank. Tenders are workers who tend. The name "Adam" is also a rank in the Creedish Church; it is given to all the oldest sons of a family. All the other sons of a Creedish family are called Tender; all the girls of a Creedish family are called Biddy, even the oldest. Biddies are workers who do your bidding. The Adams were the only son of the family that were allowed to marry; any of the Biddies could get married. The Creedish Church Elders arranged the marriages, and once a Biddy got married to an Adam, her rank was changed to Author. Also, Adams and Authors were the only ones allowed to have sex; and they did so only for procreation. Each family had several children. When an Adam and Author's first-born son got married and had a kid, then they both became known as Elder.
All the Creedish wore brown clothing that was made of wool, and they wore this all the time, even in the summer. This made spotting another member of the Church in the outside world easy. He also explains how he survived the mass suicide. Tender was not at the Creedish Church at the time. The Tenders and Biddies who don't get married and have kids are trained in etiquette and how to do menial housework, like cleaning and gardening. After years of training, the Tenders and Biddies are "baptized" by the Church Elders and sent to the outside world at age 17 to be servants for rich or do manual labor for a living. Each month, the Tenders and Biddies were to send their money and a letter of confession to the Church in Nebraska. However, someone leak the Church's doings to the police of Bolster County, Nebraska, and the FBI. The FBI moved in to arrest the cult for child slavery, but the Creedish learned of this. So, they all killed themselves. Now, all the survivors go throughout their lives doing what they were trained to do by the Church and feeling guilty and ashamed that they are still alive.
Fertility calls Tender thinking she has called a crisis hotline. Tender soon realizes it's Fertility, so he begins to talk to her in a fake voice. She talks to Tender the voice about Tender, unaware that she is, in fact, talking to Tender. She tells him about her brother's suicide and how she met Tender (he was standing on a ladder, holding a bunch of flowers, and taking notes because he tells people in the mausoleum that he is a graduate student doing research on artificial flowers). She tells Tender that he reminded her of the Creedish cult members, that she believes Tender was Trevor's homosexual lover, and that she finds Tender unattractive. She also asks Tender the voice to have phone sex with her, but he hangs up. Tender, then, stops answering his phone because he is afraid that Fertility will be on the other line; he wants to go out with her but doesn't want her to become attracted to his voice.
During another meeting with his Caseworker, Tender gets the Caseworker to help clean his employers' house. She ends up becoming obsessed with cleaning and soon takes over Tender's job. Also, Tender learns that more Creedish survivors have killed themselves and that some of the suicides look like murders. Later, Tender meets Fertility again at the mausoleum where they first met. There they dance; Fertility tells Tender about how she and Trevor took dancing lessons together. Later, Tender gets a call from a man he recognizes as a member of the Creedish Church; he soon realizes that one of the survivors is going around killing other surviving members in order to get the other survivors to kill themselves. This scares Tender to death because he fears that he is the next victim. Fertility also calls Tender thinking its the crisis hotline. She tells Tender about the dancing and asks to get together with Tender the voice. Tender the voice agrees, but she has to go out on a date with the regular Tender.
On their date, Tender and Fertility are on a bus where a stranger is telling them jokes about the Creedish Cult. Tender laughs at all the jokes until Fertility snaps at the man for telling them; she considers them to be offensive since her own brother committed suicide. When he leaves, Tender recognizes him as Adam, his brother. Then, Fertility takes Tender to a department store that catches on fire; but they survive. Tender learns that Trevor was psychic and saw the future every time he dreamt. Fertility tells him that she now has this power.
Tender soon learns that he has become one of the last two survivors of the Creedish Church. The Caseworker has him go over photos of dead Creedish to find the other survivor, but he knows it's his brother Adam. He also gets phone calls from jounalists and agents wanting his story. Then, the Caseworker ends up dead from breathing chlorine mixed together by Adam. The police suspect Tender committed the murder, but he claims innocence. Tender also has called an agent who called him earlier about becoming famous. Tender flies to New York, meets the Agent, and then begins the road to stardom.
The Agent works for an agency that has been planning for years to turn the last survivor of the Creedish Church into a religious celebrity. They create a fake history for Tender and completely overhaul his body. Tender is given steriod injections, fed healthy food, has his teeth capped, and his hair and all other negative aspects of his body changed.
Tender becomes popular because of ideas that the public thinks is his but are actually the Agent's ideas, like his autobiography, the Book of Very Common Prayer (a book of prayer that will make life easier), and the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill (a 20,000 acre [80 km²] repository for America's outdated porn). As his popularity grows, Tender wants to kill himself in front of the whole world; but he can't find the right time to do so. So, he puts it off for later. Then, his popularity starts to wane; and the Agent tells him that he needs a miracle to stay famous. So, he calls Fertility and asks to meet her in a men's room in a restaurant in Spokane, Washington. She gives him a prediction to tell on TV that the public will notice when it comes true. It does, and Tender becomes even more famous as he uses Fertility's psychic powers as his own.
Then, while waiting for Fertility and his next miracle, Tender is approached by Fertility and Adam, who has a gun. She tells Tender that Adam is going to kill the Agent the same way that he killed the Caseworker, and Tender will be arrested for his murder as well as the Caseworker's and the other Creedish members'. So, she gives Tender a big prediction that will distract the police long enough for him to escape. Around the same time, Tender is going to be married to some woman during the half time of the Super Bowl between the Indianapolis Colts and the Arizona Cardinals. He will give his big prediction then and escape with Adam and Fertility.
The day of the Super Bowl, the Agent dies, Tender is married, and as the police come to arrest him, Tender tell the crowd that the Colts will beat the Cardinals 27-24. The stadium errupts in chaos as rabid football fans chase after Tender. He escapes with Adam and Fertility to a Ronald McDonald House. The three, then, begin to travel across the country in the sections of houses being moved from one location to another. During their journey, Fertility gets separated from the brothers.
Adam and Tender, then, steal a car that Fertility told Adam would be unlocked. Glued to the dashboard is a little figurine of Tender. Adam and Tender travel to the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill , which was built over the old Creedish Church compound in Nebraska. As they drive through it, Adam tells Tender that he needs to have sex; Tender is still a virgin. Tender tells Adam that he doesn't want to have sex, but Adam tells him it is because of the Creedish baptism. The Creedish baptism involved the Tenders and Biddies who were to be sent to the outside world witnessing an Author give birth, which scarred them for life. As they talk about it, Tender crashes the car into a giant concrete pylon in the middle of the landfill.
The crashed causes the airbags to deploy, and the one on the passenger's side sends the Tender figurine into Adam's left eye. Tender pulls out the figurine, and Adam asks Tender to find a rock and bash him on the head with it. Tender reluctantly does so, and Adam dies. Then, Fertility shows up in a cab and takes Tender away from the landfill. They end up going back to Oregon, and Fertility gets a job (she's a surrogate mother) at the house of Tender's former employers. Tender sneaks into the house and begins cleaning it. Later that night, Tender has sex with Fertility.
The next morning, Tender wakes up; and Fertility tells him that she's pregnant. Fertility, then, leaves for the airport to board a plane to Sydney, Australia. He learns that someone is going to hijack a plane and crash it into the Australian outback. He follows Fertility to the airport, finds her, takes Adam's gun that she stashed in her purse, and boards the plane. Tender, then, begins to look for the hijacker until he realizes that he is the hijacker. The book returns back to the beginning, with Tender telling his life story. He also mentions that Fertility told him that there was a way for him to escape from the plane before it crashed in the Outback, but Tender couldn't figure it out. The book ends with the plane crashing, but without any definite word on Tender being alive or dead. He wanted to kill himself with the whole world watching, and this is the perfect time to do so. However, he also long to be with Fertility, and if Fertility knew that there was a way to escape, then Tender must have figured out how (she can see the future after all). It has been stated by the author that Tender survives, and an explanation of how he does is available on Chuck Palahniuk's official website [1].
[edit] Characters
- Tender Branson
- The protagonist. He is the last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult. He starts out as a servant for a rich couple. He was trained by the Creedish to be a menial laborer, but he hates his life because he has to work at such a boring job for the rest of his life. As the novel progresses, he becomes a religious celebrity when he becomes the last surviving Creedish and is credited for ideas and predictions that aren't really his. When the novel ends, he is considered a mass murderer by the public. He is almost arrested by the police during halftime at the Super Bowl but escapes. He hijacks a plane, lets all the passengers and crew-members go free, tells his life story to the plane's black box. The novel ends with his voice talking into the black box as the plane crashes, though it is possible that Tender bails out of the plane before it crashes because he recorded the last chapter on the cassette recorder he found on the plane, and he put it next to the black box to "finish" the story. Tender has similar characteristics with 'The narrator' character from Fight Club.
- Fertility Hollis
- A friend of Tender's. She meets him at her dead brother Trevor's crypt. At first, she is repulsed by him; but as the novel progesses the two become close. By the end of the novel, they end up having sex. She has psychic powers; she knows when, where, how, and to whom everything is going to happen, which takes all the fun out of life for her. She works as a surrogate mother; she has sex with rich men so that they and their wives can have kids. But, this won't happen because Fertility is sterile; she is part of a con job with a man named Dr. Ambrose, who isn't a real doctor. She helps Tender by giving him predicitions and helping him escape from the police. She leads him to the airport where he will hijack a plane. Fertility tells Tender that there is a way for him to "survive". The reader is led to believe that Tender's only way to survive is to tell his story to the plane's blackbox, but as already mentioned, Fertility meant it literally.
- The Caseworker
- Tender's caseworker. Her name isn't given because Tender didn't want to get her into trouble. She was assigned to him after the Creedish mass suicide. She has an unfulfilling life. One day, Tender gets her to help him clean the house of his employers. She becomes obsessed with cleaning at that point and takes over Tender's job, even though she does a poor one at that. The Caseworker also likes to diagnose Tender with mental disorders from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. She ends up dead after inhaling chlorine made by Tender's brother Adam.
- The Agent
- Tender's agent. His name isn't given either, and the reason is never revealed. The Agent is the brains behind Tender's popularity. He comes up with all the ideas that Tender is credited for, such as his autobiography, the Book of Very Common Prayer, and the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill. He is also responsible for Tender's physical transformation; he claims that no one wants to listen to a fat messiah. He also believes that the key to Tender's success is to get as much publicity as possible. The Agent dies from inhaling chlorine that was put into his cologne by Adam.
- Adam Branson
- Adam is Tender's older brother by three minutes. Because he came out first, Adam got to stay in the Church Compound in Nebraska and have kids, while Tender had to go to the outside world as a slave. He also survived the Creedish Mass Suicide. In fact, he called the cops and told them about the Creedish Church's child slavery ring because he found out about the Creedish baptism. Since then, he has been traveling the country in the sections of houses being moved from one location to another. He kills surviving members of the Church by making it look like a suicide, which causes several other members to kill themselves. He also kills the Caseworker and the Agent and makes it look like Tender did it. He meets up with Fertility so that he can get to Tender. As they go on the lam, Tender and Adam return to the Creedish Church Compound, which is now the Landfill. As they argue over the Creedish baptism, Tender crashes the car, which sends a figurine into Adam's eye. Then, Adam tricks Tender into killing him.
[edit] Themes
- Free will
- Fertility Hollis is obviously modelled after Cassandra, who according to ancient Greek mythology could see the predict the future, but was cursed by Apollo so that no-one would believe her predictions. Similarly, Fertility Hollis cannot influence the future in any way, suggesting the absence of free will.
- Commercialism
- Like other of Palahniuk's books, Survivor explores the commercialism prevalent in contemporary American society. The people that Tender works for in the first half of the book, the prefabricated houses, the agent and his crew, and what Tender becomes when he is made famous are all used to explore the subject of commercialism. The way an innocent being would react to the "rotten" morals of today's society is also explored.
- Nihilism
- The book contains many themes that could be labelled Nihilistic. Tender seems not to care much about life and death and in an extended passage, suggesting that human existence ends with death, Palahniuk writes:
| There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. |
[edit] Film adaptation
When the film rights to Survivor were first sold no movie studio was willing to commit itself to cinematizing the novel. This was due to the fact that the protagonist of the novel hijacks a civil airplane and crashes it into the Australian outback. After the attacks on The Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 the movie studios apparently deemed the novel too controversial. However, in mid 2004 a studio decided to commit itself to the film. Not much is known about the movie at this time but it's unlikely the film will be made in the near future.[1]
[edit] Trivia
- The book's chapters and page numbers are put into reverse order - it begins with Chapter 47 on page 289 and ends with Chapter 1 on page 1.
- The phrase "the only difference between martyrdom and suicide is the press coverage" was used by the band Panic! At the Disco as a song title. Although they didn't cite Chuck Palahniuk in their liner notes, lyricist Ryan Ross has credited the author in interviews and his online journal.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Palahniuk Films In Development; Survivor. A Writer's Cult, LLC (2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-12.
- Palahniuk, Chuck (February 1999). Survivor. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN: 0-393-04702-4.
[edit] Editions
[edit] External links
| Books by Chuck Palahniuk |
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| Fight Club • Survivor • Invisible Monsters • Choke • Lullaby • Diary • Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon • Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories • Haunted |
