Strangely, it was “Survivor”—and not “Fight Club”—that became my gateway to the cult of Chuck Palahniuk.
And what’s even stranger is that it wasn’t a book but an audio book that got me hooked. Before “Survivor,” I had never been able to force myself to listen to an audio book in its entirety. But that’s Chuck Palahniuk for you—his words just grip you, the format doesn’t matter.
Soon, I was picking up every book he’s come out with. “Lullaby.” “Invisible Monsters.” “Rant.” “Diary.” “Choke. Snuff. Pygmy. Tell-All.
A master of transgressive fiction and satirical horror stories, Chuck isn’t for everyone. His writing is certainly not for the faint-hearted and the easily offended. They call him “American fiction’s most brilliant troublemaker” for good reason.
Chuck has legions of fans in all corners of the world, fans so devoted they tattoo quotes from his books all over their bodies, fans so committed they create elaborate artworks inspired by him, fans so loyal they drive for hours just to go to his readings.
It’s official—I’ve become one of them. I have yet to take a needle to my skin but I did fly over 8,000 miles to see him.
New York stop
I bought my ticket for his reading at Cooper Union in Manhattan’s East Village before I even left Manila.
Cooper Union’s Great Hall, which has witnessed the speeches of great American historical figures like Henry Kissinger and Presidents Abraham Lincoln, William Howard Taft, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, was the only New York stop of Chuck’s current tour.
He is promoting “Damned,” his 12th novel, which is being pushed as a cross between Dante’s Inferno and The Breakfast Club and which the New York Times has described as “the Judy Blume book from hell.”
In Damned, 13-year-old Madison Spencer finds herself in hell after dying from marijuana overdose.
Presigned copies of the book (and Chuck’s other books) were available at the reading, which had been organized by New York’s Strand Book Store. And after waiting in line outside Cooper Union, attendees were able to grab their copies and find their seats.
“Enjoy the show,” a Strand employee told me as he placed a checkered green Tyvek band around my wrist.
Many have described Chuck’s readings as performance art. They’re more like rock concerts than author events. His book tours are never boring, they are notorious for being crazy and incredibly fun.
Chuck walked onstage in black turtleneck and was met by screaming and applause. He greeted the audience with a disclaimer. “The world is full of countless beautiful lovely funny elegant profound stories, but tonight won’t necessarily be.”
Inflatable brains
He kicked the evening off with a game. Chuck’s inflatable toys are famous—and they usually fit the theme of the novel he’s promoting. In the past he’s given out inflatable turkeys, hearts, Oscars statues, blow-up dolls, moose heads and more. This time, it’s brains.
He said, “This tour is called the Blow Your Brains Out Tour. These are large inflatable brains and they’re difficult to blow up. But if you are among the first fully inflated brains, you will win a copy of one of my favorite books of the summer.”
Chuck started chucking inflatable brains towards the audience and before I realized what was happening, I was on my feet with my arms outstretched, hoping to catch one of them.
“Over heeere!” people were shouting.
“Braaaaaaaaains!” I was shouting with them.
We sounded like zombies, I was well aware. And sadly, this zombie failed to catch a brain. I heard hissing all around me, the sound of people trying to win copies of Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All The Time and Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water.
“I’m not leaving this place without a brain,” I told Jill.
Soon, the hissing stopped and the books were given out.
“Did anyone lose their Fendi glasses during the brain struggle?” Chuck’s publicist Todd asked.
The game was over and it was time for Chuck to read. He doesn’t like reading from the novels he’s promoting. He likes writing a short story for every tour “so that if you make an effort to come out, you’re not going to see something that the world has already seen, you’re going to see something fairly exclusive.”
Fantastic reader
This year’s story is called Romance, and although it had already been published in the August issue of Playboy, no one seemed to mind. Chuck is a fantastic reader—he kept the crowd captive, they were gasping, shouting, cheering and applauding as he read. One line from the story stayed with me. “Everybody looks a little crazy if you look close enough.”
Chuck dropped his red folder on the floor and pulled out bags from backstage. “If you’ve read “Damned,” what is the currency of hell? Candy. And what is worth the most in hell? Full-sized candy bars!”
He started throwing candy into the audience. “Watch out for the candy corn, it weighs a lot.”
I grabbed a bag of candy corn while others caught bars of Three Musketeers.
“Just for the record, I don’t think Abraham Lincoln threw candy. I think I can safely say that was the first candy throw at Cooper Union,” Chuck said. The audience cheered.
The Q&A began and I ran towards one of the microphones.
“My dreams look like your books, so I’m wondering what your dreams look like?” a girl asked.
“Brad Pitt naked,” Chuck answered and everyone laughed.
One guy told Chuck he didn’t like two of his previous books.
Chuck replied, “You should have heard my mother about ‘Fight Club.’ ‘Do you have to dedicate it to me?’”
My turn
A few more questions and it was my turn. Chuck tossed an inflatable brain towards me and I held it in my hands as I asked him my two questions.
One, does he ever need to take a breather from the intensity of the things he writes about?
He said, “In a way this is my breather, this is the thing that spaces the books out. A lot of times, for that breather, I’ll take magazine assignments. This time last year I was in Seattle at the ZomBcon, the World Zombie Convention, me and 20,000 zombies all moaning around. It was terrific, I loved it. Writing these short stories is another really fun way to complete an idea and get a kind of breakaway from working on much longer projects. A different type of work is what I do as my vacation.”
And two, does he ever reread his books and wish he can change things in them?
He answered, “Not really. No. I’m pretty complete with them. But my book ‘Invisible Monsters’ was originally written in this very nonlinear broken-up kind of way with all these extra asides. The publisher WW Norton asked if we would bring out a hard cover of the book and I said that I’d love to participate with that if I could rewrite the entire book and restructure it with 10 or 15 extra chapters the way it was originally structured. And so next spring that book will come out, 150 pages longer. And otherwise, I kinda see the movie as an opportunity to do the things I wish I had done slightly different.”
They cut the question and answer after that—they had run out of brains. I had gotten the very last one.
Endless surprises
Chuck had one last game prepared for his fans. There were more books to be won and this time he started tossing inflatable skeletons to the crowd. Once again, I failed to catch one. But that didn’t matter. I had my brain and it was signed by Chuck Palahniuk.
A couple of weeks later, back in Manila, I began reading Damned. One morning, I was trying to find the page I last read when a postcard fell out from between the pages of the book. I was confused. I didn’t remember putting it there.
“Lake Of Tepid Bile,” it read. I flipped through the pages and two more postcards fell out. “Greetings from Hot Saliva Falls.” “The Great Dandruff Desert.” They were postcards of places found in the book.
With Chuck Palahniuk, the surprises never end.
“Damned” is now available in National Book Store branches nationwide.
