Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk. This is the story of 'Operative Me,' or nicknamed Pygmy, a secret agent from an undisclosed totalitarian state sent to the U.S. on a mission of terrorism. He is disguised as an exchange student in the midwest, in the Cedar family, with the cow-like father, the mother that uses all the batteries in the house on her vibrator collection, the sex-crazed brother, and the sister that he falls in love with. Of course this allows Palahniuk to poke fun of the American culture through Pygmy's eyes. Walmart and consumerism, Church and molesting priests, teenagers that only care about sex and drugs. Pygmy and his fellow operatives would have no problem manipulating these Americans to carry out their plan, except that he falls in love with a girl and the culture, and it is revealed that he never was very keen on that totalitarian state he was brainwashed into loving in the first place.
This is not the first book from Chuck Palahniuk that I've read, so I am used to his graphic and sensationalized style. The book starts out on a high note, with Pygmy raping the school bully in a bathroom, then easily segues into tweens flashing their boobs before a bloody school massacre, then to Pygmy rummaging around in his adopted mom's 'private areas' while she is roofied. It is brutal stuff, but presented in Palahniuk's carefree, comical style. You gasp, but you laugh too, and feel a bit guilty.
The language was the difficult part of the book. It is written in the voice of Operative Me, a strange accent with technical terms, lack of grammar and sentence structure, that barely resembles English. I had to read over a few passages in order to figure out what was happening. However, as the book went along, I was able to pick up on the style, and the reading became easier.
It was a quick read, and a bit more light-hearted than Naked Lunch and the Corrections before that, so it was like a welcome vacation.
Three and a half stars out of five.
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