Choke

Victor Mancini, a cynical and deeply troubled medical school dropout, funds his mother Ida's expensive nursing home care through an elaborate, self-serving scam. He feigns choking in restaurants, relying on the 'hero' who saves him to feel a lifelong obligation, sending him checks out of misplaced guilt. By day, Victor works a dead-end job at a colonial-themed historical theme park, surrounded by an equally dysfunctional cast of colleagues. His nights are spent cruising sex addiction support groups, not for recovery, but for casual encounters. As his mother's Alzheimer's progresses, her fragmented memories begin to reveal increasingly bizarre and contradictory stories about Victor's true parentage, culminating in the astounding claim that he may be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. Palahniuk's "Choke" is a darkly comedic, often disturbing exploration of identity, dependency, faith, and the desperate, perverse lengths people go to find connection and meaning in a chaotic world.