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The invention of sound
2020
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Library Journal Review
A tragedy at the Academy Awards is the central event of this sardonically sinister Hollywood tale. Mitzi Ives is a sound engineer whose specialty is creating the most powerful and realistic screams for the movies and TV--effects she obtains by actually murdering the victims. Gates Foster's daughter, Lucinda, disappeared years earlier and has never been found, and he now makes an avocation of tracking child molesters. Blush Gentry is a B movie actress trying to rekindle her career. Gates hears Lucinda's voice in a horror film in which Blush stars, and plans to kidnap her at a comic con where she's appearing, a move she happily abets. The pair hole up in Blush's now-foreclosed mansion, and Gates learns that Mitzi's studio is the source of the scream. Mitzi, meanwhile, has recorded a scream with an acoustic resonance that has caused two theaters to crumble, killing the patrons inside. And now the scream is to be played at the Academy Awards. VERDICT Combining straight narrative with excerpts from Blush's manuscript, Oscarpocalypse Now, Palahniuk's (Adjustment Day) novel undergirds the ordinary reality of movie production with a horror movie universe possessing curiously biblical overtones, a world where justice ultimately prevails--right down to the gleefully cynical denouement. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/20.]--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA
Publishers Weekly Review
Palahniuk (Fight Club) puts a wickedly playful spin on the mechanics of horror filmmaking in this genre-bending novel. Mitzi Ives is the proprietor of Ives Foley Arts, a sound effects company that specializes in selling canned screams to the film industry. Mitzi's products are in high demand owing to their authenticity: unknown to most, she creates them by recording the agonized shrieks of the people she butchers in her sound studio. Mitzi is on a collision course with Gates Foster, a bereaved father who has never recovered from the disappearance of his seven-year-old daughter, Lucinda, who went missing 17 years earlier. Readers will be able to guess Lucinda's connection to Mitzi, though Palahniuk adds enough twists to keep the mystery fresh. This dark, humorous tale sparkles with inventive details--including a scream powerful enough to crumble buildings--and provocative insights on "the commodification of pain" and what it means to turn "people's basic humanity into something that could be bought and sold." The result is a wry, devilish delight. Agents: Dan Kirschen and Sloan Harris, ICM. (Sept.)
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