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Recently deceased Madison Spencer traverses the underworld in Chuck Palahniuk’s twelfth book Damned.

Hell (in Palahniuk’s eyes) is a place where inhabitants only form of entertainment are high-culture films such as The English Patient and a landscape decorated with foul landmarks such as the Steaming Dogpile Mountains amongst many others made from matter too disgusting to mention. Not only this but the dead are expected to work dead end jobs to earn currency which is made up of Halloween sweets. But unlike previous Palahniuk creations, Madison – dead daughter to agnostic film star mother and film producer father – is not meant to remain in a repetitive dead end job. This plucky self obsessed teenager, who seemingly believes that Satan himself should be interested in her whining, is to take on hells most terrifying residents as well as braving the attacks of a variety of demons from long dead religions.

This tale is fast-paced and as gross as expected but hell is not the focus of Palahnuik’s famously gleeful misanthropic voice, as usual is the living are at the brunt of his jokes. The belief that pop culture has taken over religious beliefs is exploited to great effect in Damned, Madison is forever mocking the self-obsessed culture she so recently escaped “Not that you’re ever actually going to die,” Madison repeatedly sneers at the reader. “Not with your hours and hours invested in aerobic exercise…To my parents, death existed as merely the logical, albeit extreme, result of not adequately exfoliating your skin.”

For those looking for a tale with plenty of moments to make you squirm then Damned is just perfect, but as an avid reader of Palahniuk, Damned just doesn’t quite rival the satisfaction gained from Invisible Monsters, my personal favourite, or the much loved Fight Club.

Words by Cerys Goff