Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different

by Chuck Palahniuk

In the story “Phoenix,” I create the circumstance where a mother demands a father hurt their child to prove his love for her. She’s away on a business trip and their daughter refuses to speak to her over the phone. Fearing the child is actually dead, she demands her husband hurt the girl because a cry of pain would prove the girl is still alive. Ludicrous and horrible as it sounds, the story works because it’s a retelling of the story of Isaac and Abraham from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. But instead of God demanding Abraham prove his love by stabbing Isaac with a knife, it’s a distraught mom pressuring a dad to stick their kid with a needle.