Invisible Monsters

Shannon receives the insurance money from Evie and is ready to start a new life, but feels she has loose strings left to tie. Shannon is trying to break free of Brandy’s influence, but her anger remains, and she wants to hurt Brandy before she leaves. For this reason, she agrees to visit one last open house with Brandy and Manus, but is surprised when the open house is for Evie’s home in Los Angeles.

Shannon also remains angry with Evie for sleeping with Manus and stealing from her while she was in the hospital. This anger has made it difficult for Shannon to see the foreshadowing that has occurred throughout the story. Every story Shannon relates of her friendship with Evie, Evie has asked about Shane. However, it never occurs to Shannon that Evie and Brandy know each other. When they arrive at the open house and it turns out to be Evie’s house, Shannon is presented with another clue she did not get: When Mrs. Cottrell announces that Evie is transgender, Shannon believes that might have seen the connection between Evie and Brandy if she had paid closer attention.

Shannon’s anger toward Evie boils over at the wedding reception and she lights the bride’s bedroom on fire. Back downstairs, rumors spread when the groom goes missing. Shannon realizes Manus is having sex with the groom, and she no longer cares what happens to him. However, her anger for Brandy persists, so when Evie searches for her gun, Shannon does nothing to warn Brandy that Evie might come after her. Just as Shannon’s secret self-harm incited her character arc through the novel, Shannon’s refusal to act in this moment returns the novel to its opening scenario.

As Shannon watches the scene unfold, she does nothing to stop it although she knows she can. By returning to this moment, Palahniuk allows the reader to re-contextualize their questions and assumptions about the scene now that the reader has more information about the relationships between all the characters involved. Shannon’s inaction also illustrates just how deep Shannon’s anger toward Brandy goes, though the reader now understands that her fury might be better focused on her parents. This exemplifies the complicated emotions existing between parents and children, and between siblings, and the lasting effects of childhood experiences on adult identity.

When Brandy is shot, several revelations are made: Brandy admits to putting the hairspray can in the fire barrel, and Shannon reveals that she shot herself. The comparison shows they both had a similar reason for harming themselves—dissatisfaction with their identities and the ways they were perceived by others. Palahniuk’s portrayal of Brandy’s motivations for transitioning are intentionally controversial, as Palahniuk suggests that Brandy is motivated by a desire for self-destruction more than body dysmorphia or gender identity. It should be noted that these impulses are not mutually exclusive, and Brandy’s identity as a woman is not undermined by her desire to destroy all evidence of her previous life. Although Palahniuk’s portrayal is transgressive and provocative, his primary goal is to suggest a relationship between destruction and reinvention in personal identity, and not to undermine the validity of the transgender experience. Palahniuk emphasizes the validity of transgender identities by presenting Evie’s own experiences with gender confirmation, suggesting that although she and Brandy have some common ground, every transgender identity is unique.

The mutual confessions of the siblings also gives them some equal ground on which to rebuild their relationship. To this end, Shannon gives Brandy her identity and leaves behind her veil, vowing that she loves Brandy even as she disappears to make a new life for herself. In a way, Brandy and Shannon have switched places: Shannon is the one who is hypothetically dead, and Brandy fully assumes Shannon’s abandoned identity.