Chuck Palahniuk of “Fight Club” and “Stranger than Fiction” has done it again with his newest novel, “Snuff.” The book is an exciting page-turner up until the very last page – at the end, I started to wonder, “What’s the point?”

Palahniuk’s fiction tells the story of aged porn legacy Cassie Wright. She is on the downside of her career and is convinced to try a record-breaking stunt. She will have sex with 600 men in a row and most likely kill herself in the process. Each man is given one minute, and they are grouped together and numbered in the green room waiting for their turn.

The plot centers around the thoughts of Cassie’s personal assistant, Sheila, and three men waiting to be called into the filming room. Change of character and perspective is indicated by different chapters.

The three men featured in the novel are not random “actors.” Their identities and
personalities not only drive the plot but also are the source of the majority of the conflict in the book.

Mr. 72 is a man who is convinced he is a “porn baby,” conceived during the filming of Cassie Wright’s first porn movie. Mr. 137 is a former television star whose career was torpedoed by his own porn past. Mr. 600 is Branch Bacardi, who was the first man to have sex with Cassie in a porn movie.

Palahniuk touches on the transient nature of “reality,” the effect of porn on people who perform in it, the changing ideas of family and even some third-wave feminism ideals.

However, Palahniuk does not ever make a statement about any of the issues he presents and, instead, allows them to float around until the book abruptly ends.

It seems the flurry of activity in the climax of the book is “resolved” by Palahniuk shoving the grotesque and strange imagery he is known for into the last few pages.

Yet, what the book lacks in political and social relevance, it makes up for in clever one-liners that keep the book lighthearted and amusing.

Want to know how many canonized pieces of literature can be turned into porn names? Read it. Want to know every possible way to call a man a masturbator? Read it. Want a serious book that really puts its mark on the way readers think about social issues and humanity? Try again.