Jamal later moves into the mansion of a rich Southern woman named Josephine the entire American South having been made into the black ethnostate of Blacktopia. Starting, of course, with one of his condescending liberal arts professors. When Adjustment Day comes, he’s front and center in assassinating the various figures in government and academia deemed as responsible for America’s problems. Jamal begins the book as an average black college student who finds himself attracted to Talbott’s work. One I found particularly engaging was the story of Jamal. Rather than having one central character, the book cuts between the stories of several. Walter is unaware that Fight Club was originally a novel and Talbott is dismissive of the movie, the book, and Palahniuk’s entire body of work.Īdjustment Day is full of clever and funny moments. In a clever moment, it’s brought up in a conversation between the architect of Adjustment Day, Talbott Reynolds, and his assistant Walter Baines. Fight Club is even directly referenced as being a novel in the Adjustment Day universe.

With its satire of mainstream politics, the concern for the place of men in modern society, and its plot about revolutionary terrorists, Adjustment Day seems like a spiritual sequel to Palahniuk’s most well-known work, Fight Club.

The dynamic had played itself out in countries like Rwanda and Ivory Coast, where surplus young men had sparked civil wars until the national infrastructure had been destroyed and the entire population reduced to grinding poverty.” They’d be healthy and well educated, and eventually they’d all want respect and power. The Census Bureau had recognized that the Millennials would be the largest demographic in national history. “The plans for this war had been unfolding since the first of the Millennial generation had been born. Many of the people in these new countries, some of whom even participated in Adjustment Day, find themselves increasingly unhappy with their new homes. The three new countries consist of a white ethnostate, a black ethnostate, and a state solely for gays and lesbians. A revolution, which comes to be known as Adjustment Day, overthrows the government and divides the United States. However, they try to implement their plan too late. To cut the surplus male population and prevent an uprising, the United States government plans to reinstate the draft and stage a war in the Middle East where a nuclear strike will wipe out all the soldiers involved.

Adjustment day palahniuk