Tell-All

Title: Tell-All
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: 2010, this paperback edition by Vintage in 2011
Genre: It’s a Palahniuk. How do you categorise that?
Pages: 179

I’ve been wanting to buy this puppy ever since I saw the hard-cover version in the stores last year, but since I’m a poor dirty worker doing poor dirty work with many books to read, I waited for the paperback. Also because all my other Palahniuks are paperbacks, and also because I prefer paperbacks. This obviously means that I have to wait ages again to read Damned, the latest offering from dear old Chuck.

Katherine Kenton is an ageing movie legend, whose star is on the way down. For years her life has been managed by Hazie Coogan, our narrator. For decades Hazie has taken care of her Miss Kathie, her career, her men, her movies and her roles. Pretty much everything.

Then along comes Webster Carlton Westward III, who steals Miss Kathie’s heart. That might not be such a disaster on itself, for the heart in question has been claimed by numerous husbands and dogs over the years, but when the ladies discover that this young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed lover has already written out a tell-all memoir of his love affair with Miss Kathie, ending with her very detailed death, uh-oh.

We can’t have that.

I’ve enjoyed some other Palahniuks more than this one, but still had a hard time putting Tell-All down, with its wonderfully twisted Hollywood characters. And also, knowing Palahniuk, I knew that everything would not be as it seems. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I wasn’t expecting the twist, like, Okay, yawn, let’s get it over with, twist me; I was waiting for it like, What the hell has he cooked up this time?

Katherine Kenton continues reading as a voice-over. At first we continue to hear the sounds of the park, the clip-clopping of horse-drawn carriages and the calliope music of the carousel, but these sounds gradually fade. At the same time we dissolve to show Miss Kathie and Webster Carlton Westward III lounging in her bed. In voice-over we still hear Miss Kathie’s voice reading, an audio bridge from the preceding scene: “’…On the final day of Katherine Kenton’s life, she dressed with particular care.’”