With all its talk of vaginal embolisms and chewing on used condoms, Chuck Palahniuk’s SNUFF is destined to land on several year-end worst lists. But not mine!

I’m intrigued by the maverick author’s plot about an aging porn queen out to set an on-camera gang-bang world record, told from the perspective of three of the 600 men milling about in a basement, awaiting their shot at pornographic immortality. If the very idea offends you in the slightest, don’t even give it a try — you won’t get past page 2.

For everyone else, you can expect from SNUFF what you have from all of Palahniuk’s other novels: a feeling that you’ve never read anything quite like it. Whether it’s good or bad is a whole other story — and here, that line is more subjective than ever.

Cassie Wright is the triple-X movie star in question who — with vagina newly waxed — is ready for her final extreme closeup, knowing she’s too old to be a porn princess anymore. But she’s going to go out with a bang — 600 of them, to be exact — with a train-pulling that just might kill her. Regardless, her legacy and estate will be assured.

While Cassie lay in a bed upstairs, her impending sexual partners await in one crowded room, eating chips and stripped to their undies, as some of Ms. Wright’s greatest hits from yesteryear play on monitors like visual Viagra. The guys comprise a melting pot of cultures, ages and backgrounds; each is identified by the Sharpie-scrawled number on his wrist.

Mr. 72 is an adopted young man who brings roses, because he believes Wright is his birth mother. That’s what he’s been told, anyway, by his adoptive mom after she catches him humping a blow-up doll modeled after the movie star. He’s here to “save” her.

Mr. 137 is a well-known and good-looking TV actor whose career has run aground with his show’s cancellation. His profile could use a boost, which this gig could get him, if he doesn’t kill himself with all the pills he’s taking while he waits.

Finally, Mr. 600 is no stranger to porn himself. He’s a past-his-prime actor and former co-star of Cassie’s on- and off-screen. All three of these guys interact with another as the book’s viewpoint shifts between them — see, this novel is all about taking turns — with each chapter.

As hinted by Mr. 600’s opening admission that none of them intended to make a snuff film that day, this can’t end well. (Another hint: Palanhiuk’s name on the spine.) But there is no way you can guess exactly how it will end. It’s so over over-the-top that predictions are impossible, so yes, prepare for a shock.

SNUFF may be the dirtiest book I’ve ever read. It’s not so much the sex — there aren’t that many scenes that depict actual acts, but the characters sure do talk about it a lot. The salacious subject pretty much informs every one of its almost 200 pages. As I read, I caught a serious AMERICAN PSYCHO vibe off of it, given the amount of daring involved and the serious potential to be misunderstood.

See, SNUFF is not about titillation, despite what the fornicating figures of its endpapers suggest otherwise. Every character is a sad one, stuck in a self-loathing rut to some degree, and the act of sex is purely mechanical — a joyless means to an end. There’s nothing remotely arousing about it here — ironic, given the circumstances.

I’m torn as to whether the novel qualifies as “good.” It’s never boring, certainly, and it has loftier ambitions than the trash many, many, many will proclaim to be (an idea its plain-brown-wrapper ink will help support). It’s an experience I won’t soon forget, but is it one I’ll ever revisit? —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“Folks were pulling me back until only my dick was still touching her, my hips still bucking until just the head of my dick was inside her, until I popped free, my ‘nads jumping out ribbon after ribbon of white ooze across her butt. At the far end of her, Cassie Wright’s mouth said, ‘You guys getting this?’ The director said, ‘This is one for the trailer. … Careful, kid, you’re fixing to drown us.’”