> Book Review

Forty years ago, Truman Capote wrote a story for The New Yorker magazine knowing that people from the big city would get a kick out of learning how quiet country folk handle the disaster of a brutal murder in the Heartland.

The story eventually became one of the most critically heralded books in American literature and was titled “In Cold Blood.”

There is probably more than one answer to the questioning of which body Helene Cixous is referring to in “The Third Body.”

We could list a few possibilities: the resulting body after the junction of two lovers’ bodies; the idealized, utopian body; the constant sensation (need?) of a body that is never really there to nurture and protect you; the abandoning physicality of a parental presence. Or even the book itself, the translation of whatever history develops between a first and a second set of limbs.

True story: In the original 2001 publication of “Fargo Rock City,” author Chuck Klosterman included his home phone number in the “acknowledgments” section saying, “If you hate this book, feel free to call me at home.”

As fate would have it, David Byrne of Talking Heads fame stumbled upon “Fargo Rock City” and absolutely loved it. He proceeded to call Klosterman at home and ordered him to attend a book reading with “The New York Times Magazine.” Five years later, Klosterman is a senior writer at “Spin” and a columnist for “Esquire” and his phone number has changed.

Fans of Chuck Klosterman take notice — “Killing Yourself to Live” is not the music lover’s wet dream that “Fargo Rock City” was.

It is, however, every bit as absorbing and just as full of pop-culture factoids. Everything from the Green Bay Packers and Kobe Bryant to cocaine and “Saved by the Bell” are touched upon in Klosterman’s newest pleasure.

Two years after "Haunted" was met with critical indifference, Chuck Palahniuk has reached into his bag of tricks once again and pulled out another unanimously bizarre concept.

The author of numerous scathing satires such as "Fight Club," "Choke" and "Survivor" has unleashed his newest creation on the public.