Survivor (1999)

Survivor is a satirical novel by Chuck Palahniuk, first published in February 1999. The book tells the story of Tender Branson, a member of the Creedish Church, a death cult. The chapters and pages are numbered backwards in the book, beginning with Chapter 47 on page 289 and ending with page 1 of Chapter 1.

Plot overview

In the book, every member of the Creedish Cult learns how to be a servant for the human race—most of them are butlers and maids—and fear most human pleasures. They await a sign from a higher power to tell them to deliver themselves unto Them; that is, they must commit suicide.

The sign finally comes, and a good ten years later, Tender becomes the last surviving member of the cult. He is thrown into mainstream culture and becomes a personal icon for many people.

Plot summary

The novel opens in medias res to Tender Branson, who has just hijacked an airliner, released its passengers, and is now sitting in the cockpit telling his life story to the cockpit voice recorder. He explains the events leading up to the hijacking.

Tender is a member of the Creedish Church, a cult which engaged in a mass suicide ten years previously. Surviving members of the cult have been steadily killing themselves since the mass suicide, in keeping with their belief that deliverance is at hand. At his dingy apartment, Tender receives telephone calls from people who want to kill themselves—the result of a newspaper misprint which printed his phone number as the number for a crisis hotline. One of these callers is Trevor Hollis, a man who wants to kill himself because of his recurring nightmares about disasters. Tender tells Trevor to kill himself, and soon after, reads his obituary in the paper. One day, Tender visits Trevor's grave and meets his sister, Fertility. Later that night, Tender has a weekly meeting with his caseworker from a government agency that keeps tabs on the survivors of suicide cults.

After their meeting, Fertility calls Tender thinking she has called the crisis hotline. Realizing who she is, Tender talks to her in a fake voice. Eventually, Fertility asks Tender to have phone sex with her, but he hangs up after turning her down. He then stops answering his phone in fear that she will be on the other line, growing more attracted to him as a mysterious voice than as a person. Later, Tender receives a suspicious call from a man he recognizes as a member of the Creedish Church, and soon realizes that the murderer of Creedish survivors is actually Creedish himself. While Tender is on a date with Fertility, a stranger approaches them on a bus and tells them facile jokes about the mass suicide. Tender recognizes the man's pants as Creedish dress and realizes he is Adam, his fraternal twin brother. Tender speaks Adam's name aloud, but when Adam asks if they are brothers, he desperately denies it.

Tender soon learns that he and Adam are the last two survivors of the Creedish Church. He begins receiving phone calls from journalists and publicity agents wanting his story. Tender's caseworker suffocates on a chemical solution of ammonia and chlorine that she was using to clean his fireplace, which had been secretly mixed together by Adam and whose intended target was Tender. Adam steals the dead caseworker's files on the Creedish suicides. The police suspect Tender, but he claims innocence and slips away. Tender, meanwhile, calls an agent and takes a flight to New York City. There he approaches a publicity agent, whose company gives him an extensive makeover in order to turn him into a religious celebrity. Tender agrees to the procedure, as he has no will to live and desires fame only in order to have an enormous audience for when he commits suicide.

As Tender's fame grows, he is constantly waiting for the opportune moment to kill himself. Then, as his popularity starts to wane, his agent tells him that he needs to perform a miracle in order to stay famous. Fertility – who has psychic powers – tracks down Tender and gives him a prediction to make on TV that will seem like a miracle when it comes true. When it does, Tender's fame swells to even greater proportions. This cycle repeats with further predictions. Tender's agent plans an elaborate wedding for him that will take place during the Super Bowl halftime show, at which point he will make another miraculous prediction. However, when the moment comes and the police arrive to arrest him, Tender causes a riot in the stadium by predicting the outcome of the game. Tender escapes with Adam and Fertility to a Ronald McDonald House.

After traveling cross-country, Tender and Adam steal a car that Fertility foretold would be unlocked in a particular parking lot. During their journey north to Canada, Adam recounts how the leaders of the Creedish Church terrorized the children into fearing sex by forcing them to watch every time a woman went into labor. Adam believes the only way to cure Tender is for him to have sex—to reject the Church doctrine at its core. Tender resists, and as Adam recounts the details of the "mental castration", Tender loses control and crashes the car. Tender reluctantly acquiesces to Adam's demand that he disfigure him with a rock, as long as Adam will tell him when to stop, but Adam keeps telling him to swing again until he dies. Immediately afterwards, Fertility shows up in a taxicab and takes Tender away.