A review by vestalsnake
Not Forever But For Now by Chuck Palahniuk

4.0

“Much later, Otto would tell me it felt thrilling: to be both pitied and desired.” (p. 144)

Where to even begin with this book?

For starters, I really think this is one of the rare exceptions to the “going in blind” rule of reading. Your mileage, at least in my opinion, will VASTLY depend on whether you read the author’s note before or after you actually read the book. I was in the former category, and having Palahniuk’s intentions at the back of my mind as I read made for a significantly better experience than I think most other people had on first read. Even among the rare people who do like NFBFN, many say something to the effect of “the author’s note completely changed my view of the story”. I’m 50/50 on this choice. On the one hand, I do think the author’s note would have been equally as effective as a preface -- but on the other, for the people this book is really for, the author’s note wasn’t needed.

Because this book is agonizing to read if you’re one of those people, in the best way possible.

With no exaggeration, this book scraped me absolutely raw. It held up a mirror to some of my most traumatic experiences --

growing up in the shadow of addiction, being primed into addiction as a result, CSA and hypersexuality, the trauma of queer identity

-- in a way that was painful when it wanted to be and comforting when it needed to be. The recurring theme of desire, what we want versus what we need, the boundaries between pain and pleasure, beauty and destruction... I’m genuinely so disappointed that NFBFN consistently ranks so low in ratings and lists of Palahniuk’s best books, even among Palahniuk’s most avid fans. 

I don’t say that to be a contrarian, because I definitely do understand why this book isn’t for everyone. And don’t get me wrong; the book absolutely has its flaws. Not least of which is Palahniuk’s old standby of “disaffected male uprising” that I feel lost its impact several books ago. I also think the allegory becomes a little murky at points, particularly with the character of Otto; I never could grasp during my initial read whether he was being written as

a metaphor for substances themselves, a “hopeless” addict who has gone past the point of “saving”, or a commentary on the heirs of pharmaceutical empires

. Maybe it’s all three at once, maybe it’s none of them. Maybe this choice was entirely intentional, maybe I missed something. But Otto, in my opinion, rides right up against the line between “up to interpretation” and “vague to the point of confusion”. I’m also... extremely iffy on real public figures being used as characters in fiction (especially those like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, who still can’t catch a break from public scrutiny even decades after death) but that’s more of a personal preference.

Even through its many flaws, I really, honestly can’t say I disliked this book. I truly hope more people who reached the author’s note at the end would take Palahniuk’s advice and give it a second read. Because for the people it needs to reach, if you can stomach the long list of content warnings, it’s absolutely worth it.