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Author Chuck Palahniuk
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talks to Miles Fielder about his hilarious, outrageous fiction that’s struck chords with readers around the world
I the exact moment (‘huck Palahniuk greets me with a hushed 'llello‘." his home in south-western Washington
State is being invaded by a group of unfamiliar
men who are chanting in unison at the author: ‘His name is Robert Paulson!‘
Palahniuk apologises and asks me to call back. An hour later. he explains: ‘l'm moving home and a friend made all the arrangements with the removers. to protect my anonymity. They saw me for just a moment and started chanting. and that freaked me out. That‘s why l had to leave.‘
Robert Paulson is a character in Palahniuk’s first novel. Fig/It (711/). and the sentence is the mantra chanted by the members of the titular bare-knuckle boxing brotherhood—cum-terrorist organisation. That a group of removal men should quote it at their client is a measure of the notoriety attended Palahniuk since the l‘)9‘) film adaptation of Fight Club became a ctrlt favourite.
Palahniuk‘s first book published in the wake of
the film's slow-burning success. 2()()l‘s ('lmkv. was his first to make the New York Times bestseller list. By the time his next. Lullaby. was published l’alahniuk had given up his day job as an assembly line mechanic and become a full— time writer. Since then. the publication of a new Palahniuk book is a literary event. as with his eighth novel. Rant. an oral history of a rabies- infected serial killer who may or may not be mankind‘s saviour.
Chanting furniture movers notwithstanding. Palahniuk is not a reclusive writer. In fact he writes in public places (unless he‘s in Portland. Oregon. where the 41-year-old Pacific rim—born author is widely recognised). ‘When I first started writing it was me alone with a computer in my apartment. I hated the time away from other people. and my writing sucked. Now I
have a laptop I can do the most tedious part of
my job in a public place. A lot of Ram got written in Starbucks. on a book tour in Vancouver when l was up visiting Doug Copeland. on a family vacation at the beach - all over the place.‘
For Palahniuk. contact with people is not merely a means of avoiding isolation: it‘s
16 THE LIST '2‘} Apr ‘ 1’.) May 2(}(3i’
become an integral part of his writing process. It began with l’alahniuk joining a creative writing group (‘to make friends‘). where he learned to appreciate feedback from fellow scriveners. and has bloomed into a global network of taletcllers. friends and acquaintances who supply him with the stranger—than-fiction real-life anecdotes that his novels are peppered with. 'I tell everyone I interact with what I'm working on.‘ l’alahniuk says. 'and let them bring me anecdotes that illtrstrate my themes.‘
l’alahniuk says last week he was workshopping a chapter of his next novel (more of which later). and he was told it needed a scene in which the female protagonist gets her pubic hair waxed. 'And so all the women in the workshop started talking about their Bra/ilian wax experiencesf l’alahniuk says. sounding incredulous. ‘()ne woman started talking about how incredibly horny she got. then an actual beautictian talked about slapping women‘s pussies to distract clients from the greater pain of the waxing.’
llis enthusiasm for collecting these cra/y true stories palpable. l’alahniuk continues. 'l‘m also collecting beauty mistakes that really fucked tip old movie stars. Tallulah Bankhead used to grind up eggs shells and mix them with water and drink the mixture. and it would abrade her throat and give her that gravelly. sexy voice. Marlene Dietrich almost died in I‘M-1 because she wanted her legs to look great playing the Queen of Baghdad in Kismet. She had them bron/ed with copper oxide that gave her really bad lead poisoning. These are stories. l’alahniuk says. ‘that could never come from your own experience. or a book. or the web..
Palahniuk's outrageous and hilarious writing has variously been described as transgressioner liction and satirical horror. While he employs non-fiction forms -. journal entries. oral testimony - to lend credibility to incredible stories. and lleshes them otrt with other peopch anecdotes. l’alahniuk‘s writing is also loaded with autobiographical material. llis mentor Tom Spanbauer. the author who encouraged l’alahniuk's spare. minimal style. also tatrght him ‘dangerous writing‘. lissentially this means