She didn’t want to replicate the victories of Susan B. “With apologies to Simone de Beauvoir,” Palahniuk writes, “Penny didn’t want to be a third wave anything. . . In the grip of a quarter-life crisis, she wonders where those years of studying gender politics in college have led her. She represents the urban Everywoman who is stuck on the corporate ladder and otherwise adrift. At the center of the novel is Penny Harrigan, a 20-something Queens-dwelling Nebraska transplant and law-office drone. In “ Beautiful You,” Palahniuk turns his gimlet eye to the subject of female pleasure and the ways in which it can be manipulated to affect society and boost the bottom line. One might call him the king of red Solo cup literati. Over the years, his signature attention to minutiae and his generous hand with carnal humor in books such as “Fight Club” and “Choke” have broadened his fan base to include geeks and bros alike. Chuck Palahniuk is something of a devilish demigod in gross-out social satire.
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