Tell-All

‘Tell-All’ is presented as a quasi-screenplay, broken into acts and scenes. Alongside, elaborate stage and camera directions. "The scene begins with a tight shot of..." begins one chapter. Another starts, "In the establishing shot…

We, the audience, are only supporting players.

Told from the viewpoint of Hazie Coogan, a woman who has been taking care of actress Katherine "Miss Kathie" Kenton for ages. She's faithfully cleaned every spot in the house, watched every would be lover, polished every flaw in Miss Kathie's appearance. When a new man steps up to claim Kenton's love, Hazie just knows that he's out to use the aging starlet in some sort of ploy. When Hazie & Miss Kathie discover a secret manuscript written by said lover, they find that he's planning to write a scandalous ‘Tell-All’ of his life with Miss Kathie…complete with a grand finale death scene.

The bolded name drops are done in excess throughout the novel. As we know that Hollywood revolves around people, brands and trademarks. The over-arching attempt here is to provide a link from today's TMZ to the tattletale tabloids of old.

The Palahniuk rhythm flows through the 180 pages.

Lines like…

'toast-masturbating.' Or 'laud mouthing’. ‘was-bands’ Or ‘nothing but tan and bones’.

Occasionally a triplet of animal sounds or jungle ambiance prefaces other references. Signals to show that the actual conversation was just noise and the only thing worth noting were the names that people were dropping.

Sort of like Blah blah blah, Paris Hilton. Blah blah blah, Bieber.

Palahniuk, is a brilliant satirist who creates madcap adventures that lambaste modern life, yet manage to be so entertaining that you can't possibly criticize them for being nihilistic.

‘Tell-All’ is more glam than grit, for readers who love how he shapes our language. (3.5 out of 5)