The second large format, hardcover "coloring book" that Chuck Palahniuk has released in less than two years, destined to be difficult to find in libraries, second hand bookstores, or digitally, by virtue of what it is, Legacy is ironically destined to be the least well known of all of Chuck Palahniuk's work. Unless some left field filmmaker ends up taking the story and turning it into something with a cult following (which is not impossible with this book's story), this is one that is likely to hit the footnote section of any future selected bibliography.
Sales suggest the same. While his first "coloring book", Bait, a collection of short stories, sold appreciably well, Dark Horse found themselves scrambling to get this one off the shelves. At the last minute before release, realizing that no one was paying attention or caring, Dark Horse announced that any preorder of the book would come with a book plate signed by the author. I only know this because I wondered why my book was signed, and looked it up. Pleasant surprise.
It is unfortunate that this book hasn't received more attention. It's a unique little treasure. Between Fight Club 2 and Bait, it seems Palahniuk has really found his stride in just how to work with his illustrators. Instead of a long list of comic book heavy hitters like he found for Bait (likely part of the reason it was a better seller), for this book he has only two illustrators, each clearly working to maintain as consistent a style as possible through the book. This puts more focus on the interplay of the two elements than Bait, and more focus on Palahniuk's work himself than Fight Club 2 (his personal appearance in his own book notwithstanding). There is a fascinating dramatic collaboration going on here that is different than any illustrated book I've ever read, or any form of sequential illustrated storytelling.
Part of what makes this book unique compared to any other illustrated book is the sheer number of illustrations. There is hardly a page without an illustration. One illustration is a double page spread. Unlike sequential art storytelling, the pictures don't tell a different part of the story than the text. Except when the pictures contradict the text, which is itself interesting, they are redundant, like typical book illustrations. But the sheer number of them, and the size and frequency of their imposition impacts the reading of the book far more significantly than most illustrated books. But the most significant impact of the marriage of text and image is one I did not expect at all, even though it is found in the subtitle of the book. This is a "coloring book".
This really is a colouring book. I've used quotes up until now not to suggest it isn't, but to excuse my use of the subtitle's American spelling.
Palahniuk wrote the book to be a colouring book. For almost every image, the prose matching the illustration describes the colours in the scene. The story draws attention to the illustrations, and invites the reader to complete them. To my surprise, I found myself wanting to stop and colour the pictures, whose colours were described more than any other detail, the only detail missing. I found myself drawn to the illustrations, "reading" them, almost as I would in sequential art. It is difficult to explain. But I believe there might be the seed of a new kind of collaborative storytelling here. It's a collaboration between illustrator and writer, yes, but also a collaboration with the reader in a new way, inviting the collaboration that always existed, that of the reader's imagination, into the actual, measurable part of the storytelling. It's a fascinating look at the process itself, that relationship between writer and reader made somehow intimate in a new way.
All of this is the form of the book. But with an experience so unique, the attention is deserved.
As for the story, it is definitely Palahniuk. It is irreverent. It is transgressive. It is horrifically violent. The protagonist is a young, lonely, single, adult white male, as one expects from Palahniuk. He is confronted with a physical manifestation of the weight of expectations of generations of fathers before him, and nearly crushed by the immensity of the choice between honouring a life given him by the sacrifice of so many others, or breaking free of such feeling of responsibility for the sake of hedonism and comeuppance. Will he be a part of something bigger than himself, or inflate himself to be bigger than others, though alone?
The story succeeds in many ways, despite its shockingly crude and blunt telling. I enjoyed it as much as many other books by Palahniuk. And like many, it had a quality that definitely felt ready for a film adaptation. I will return to it.
However, the form of the book, and the quality of design and illustration, and the thoughtful storytelling to fit within the form elevates the book from a readable and entertaining Palahniuk novella up to something a great deal more special.
I recommend this book to any (mature, adult) fan of Palahniuk, to any (mature, adult) reader interested in experimental storytelling, and to anyone interested in short, dark fiction, as long as they can stomach it (this book is not for kids).
☠
Hardcover
Dark Horse, 2017
Illustrated by Steve Morris and Mike Norton
Four Stars
January 18-20, 2018
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