Chuck Palahniuk 
Choke 

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother »s hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who  »saves you » will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out. Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer »s disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.