Interviewing Chuck Palahniuk by Nitricboy
"This is unprecedented," says the mad old lady sat next to me.
At least I think she’s pretty mad. She’s flipping through a huge, hardbacked textbook entitled ‘Cell lineage and fate determination’, which looks like something Stephen Hawking might have trouble with. While she reads she gulps down glass after glass of the cheap, complimentary wine Waterstones have laid on for us: the audience.
She tells me that she’d never heard of Chuck Palahniuk before tonight. She comes to these readings whenever they’re on. It gets her out of the house I suppose. Sometimes, she says, no one turns up at all and it’s really quite embarrassing. But tonight there’s a full house.
"It’s unprecedented." She says again.
Sometimes life/God/whatever works in fucked up, mysterious ways. And sometimes everything goes according to plan, even though you weren’t really aware any plan existed.
I remember when Fight Club came out. In the few weeks before it hit the screens I found myself caught up in the promotional build up. I was getting quite excited about a film I knew very little about (at this point I’d still to read the book). I knew that it was made by David Fincher who made 7even. So far so good. I knew that it starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. I liked Edward Norton in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I love You and he was great in American History X so that’s another plus point. I also knew it had something to do with soap, but only because the poster had a picture of a bar of soap on it (see how quick I can be?).
I think what excited me was the name. What a great name! Fight Club. FIGHT CLUB. FIGHT CLUB!!!! Everytime I saw a poster I’d say those words and enjoy the way they sounded coming out of my mouth. I am not a Nazi, I’m not particularly fond of violence, and I’m definitely not one to purposefully get involved in organised fights but something about that name appealed to my most basic instincts.
So I went to see it.
Afterwards, myself and the couple of friends I’d gone along with went to the pub. We sat down with a pint each and agreed that Fight Club was ‘ok’. It wasn’t amazing. The beginning was great. The last third was a bit tenuous and the twist ending may have spoilt it a bit. "Not bad" we said. "Could do better."
Over the next few months I’d find myself thinking about Fight Club now and again. Something about it was nagging at me and wouldn’t let go. Maybe it was because I’d built it up before I’d seen it and spoilt it for myself. Maybe I was just curious to see how the book differed from the film. Was it better or worse?
Last year I visited my brother in his new flat in Sheffield. I was glancing over his pretty extensive video collection, which he had stored in one of those shop floor video display stands they have in bookshops. I saw Fight Club in there and pulled it out. ‘Deleted Scenes’ it said. ‘Original trailer’ it said. ‘Music Video’, it said.
"Can I borrow this?" I said.
So I watched it again. And it was better this time. I knew what to expect and I could appreciate the little jokes and nuances much more than I could the first time round. The ending was still pretty naff and the deleted scenes were... well they were about as interesting as looking at a stranger’s holiday photographs. But Fight Club was growing on me.
Ok. Now fast-forward to around July 2001 (three weeks previous to the present moment as I write this, if you see what I mean.)
Fight Club is back in my brain again because I know that Chuck Palahnuik who wrote Fight Club the book has just released another novel. It’s called Choke and it’s about a sexaholic who’s told that he was conceived when his mother was artificially inseminated with sperm containing DNA extracted from the remains of Christ’s foreskin.
I’m hunting ‘round the internet at work typing the name Chuck Palahnuik into Google looking for interviews. There’s quite a bit of stuff here so I print as much out as I can realistically get through before I get sacked and start reading.
It must have had some effect on me because at lunchtime I’m in the ‘P’ section of Books etc trying to remember how you spell Palahnuik. They’ve got Choke on special offer so I buy it. Two days later I’ve finished it and I’m back in the ‘P’ section trying to decide which one to get next.
I buy ‘Survivor’, a story about the last remaining member of a religious suicide cult who becomes a media celebrity. It’s a brilliant, twisted story and I get through it even quicker than I got through Choke.
I do this every now and again. I did it with Stephen King and Terry Pratchett when I was a kid. And as I got older I did it with Ayn Rand, Umberto Eco, Paul Auster, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a few others. I get a bit obsessive to tell you the truth. I have to read everything that person has ever committed to paper or I get really restless and impatient. There are worse addictions I suppose.
Yesterday (12/7/01) I was browsing around www.chuckpalahniuk.net and saw that he was supposed to be touring the UK promoting Choke sometime in July. I went to his publishing company’s web site and according to that he was in Glasgow on the sixteenth and Manchester the following day.
What no London appearance? This was outrageous. Everyone knows that London is the centre of the known universe and anyone who’s anyone has to appear here if they want any kind of success at all. So I ring the publishing company in disgust.
"Chuck’s reading in London in about two hours" the lady at the publishing company says.
Oh... Don’t suppose there’s any chance of an interview?
"Yeah probably. Just look for me when you get there and we’ll sort something out."
Two weeks ago I read my first Palahniuk book. Now I’m on way to interview him. Like I said sometimes everything just goes according to plan.
So now I’m sat in the Coffee Republic section of a Waterstones in West London and Chuck’s stood up by the microphone chatting to fans and signing books.
He’s due on at six to read a few chapters from Choke and answer any questions the people might have for him. Sue (the publicist from the publishers) tells me that I should be able to get ten or fifteen minutes with Chuck after the reading and signings.
I’m going to be here for a while so I settle down with a complimentary glass of wine (white) and start scribbling some potential questions.
At 6.15 the Waterstones guy takes the microphone and begins to introduce Chuck. He says Chuck’s second name three times and each time it’s like he’s trying to stuff as many vowel sounds into it as he can manage.
"Ok, ladies and gentleman. In a moment Chuck Pala-hui-ah-nick will be reading a few chapters from his new novel. If anyone wants to grab some wine or indeed even some crisps then please help yourselves."
Chuck’s wearing standard issue Gap-style combat trousers and slip-ons which he keeps slipping on and off. When he approaches the mike he does so bare footed. His face looks younger than it’s forty years, probably because his hair (which is lapping around his shoulders) gives him a bit of a youthful, hippie look.
He cracks a few jokes and then starts to read from Chapter 7 of Choke. It’s the scene where the main protagonist demonstrates how he fakes choking fits in restaurants so that people will save him. The theory goes that when you let someone save your life they will love you for it and (hopefully) send you cheques and gifts for the rest of your life.
Chuck’s voice is American in that soothing, drawling way that comes from living in Oregon and not, say, Brooklyn. When he begins reading the crowd hushes like only an English crowd can hush and Chuck looks a little unnerved.
"I feel like I’m alone in my room." He says.
After Chapter 7 he moves on to Chapter 2. Which is what I was afraid was going to happen.
Chapter two is almost exclusively about the plight of the sexaholic. It tells the story of two people who have sex in the toilets of the building which is hosting their weekly sexaholics support group meeting. This pretty gruesome encounter is punctuated with stories of sexaholic injuries, tactics, tips and general anecdotes of a slightly twisted nature.
The mad old lady next to me just stares into her wine as Chuck describes why hospitals keep diamond tipped drill bits in their emergency rooms (it’s to puncture a hole in the bottom of glass bottles in order to release the air so they can be extracted from people’s orifices).
After the reading Chuck takes questions from the floor. People ask what he’s up to next (Chuck’s writing a ‘horror’ novel for release next year called Lullaby). They ask what celebrity possessions he’d like to steal. They ask this because there’s a great story about Chuck nicking Oprah Winfrey’s diaphragm. He says that he went to Marilyn Manson’s house and he had loads of great stuff that he’d like to have taken. Including his dogs.
From the back some frustrated author with hope in his voice asks how long it took Chuck to get published.
And then the signing starts again. The queue’s longer this time. Some people have four or five books they want autographing so I grab a copy of Fight Club which I’ll ask Chuck to sign later so I can send it to my brother.
During the signing I hear Chuck say that a few months ago he was doing a book signing and he was at it for over two hours. He says that towards the end of the session he’d been signing so long each person's book was streaked with blood from a sore on his hand.
Eventually we get a chance to talk. We shift a couple of chairs out of the coffee shop and into the relative calm of the children’s maths section. I tell him that the magazine I’m interviewing for is doing an issue themed around annihilation and ‘the end is nigh’ so if I start talking about that kind of thing he shouldn’t think I’m weird.
We talk about religious cults and suicide pacts. We talk about the death of the ego, why fictional characters don't necessarily have to be likeable and then we talk about his friend Juliette Lewis and skateboarding (not necessarily in that order).
He’s a very pleasant bloke. Intelligent and funny without the slightest hint of patronisation.
I know he likes short stories so as we’re walking out the shop I mention to him that the best short story I ever read was ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ by JD Salinger. He takes out a pen and paper and writes it down. Cool.
It’s only after I say goodbye to Chuck and the publicist-from-the-publishing-company and walk down the street back toward the tube that I notice I’m still carrying the copy of Fight Club which Chuck has signed for my brother.
I never paid for it.
I’ve just inadvertently stolen a copy of the most stolen book in London.
I open it to the title page and read what Chuck has written.
It says To Mark - The first rule of Fight Club is to read the damn book!
- Nitricboy
The interview with Chuck Palahniuk will hopefully appear in the August editon of Flux magazine