This May sees the arrival of Palahniuk’s new comic novel. The author is best known for his controversial 1996 work Fight Club, which was made famous by the film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The plot revolves around a 13-yearold boy, the Pygmy of the title. He is sent as part of an exchange program to stay with a typical mid-western American family. Pygmy, aka Agent 67, comes from a totalitarian state, an amalgamation of North Korea, Cuba, Communist China and the like. While attempting to ‘embed’ himself in his ‘middle-income corrupt American’ host family, he is in fact working with other ‘operatives’ from his home country to pursue a terrifying, secret agenda. In the past, Chuck Palahniuk has used his novels as devastating satirical commentary on middle-class, contemporary American values. Pygmy is no exception.