You know who Chuck Palahniuk is; he's inspired a generation of fucked up outsiders and insiders alike. He lit the fuse that sent my imagination projecting forward towards creative bliss and artistic freedom. His reach extends so far that even if people don't know his name, they at least know one of his works. Since Fight Club -- his first published novel -- Palahniuk has grown as a writer and his audience has grown with him, enjoying every second of this wild ride through the world's dirty subconscious. He is the father of Tyler Durden. He blew Shannon McFarland's jaw off. He gave us false messiahs and pre-op trannies. And we love him for it.
I compare the experience of interviewing Chuck Palahniuk to interviewing Darth Vader; he's that big a deal to me. Take one look at his cult following, book sales, and works optioned for film, and you'll find that he's a big deal to a lot of other people too. After a ton of research, I gazed inward--both as a fan and as a curious person--and compiled this interview. Palahniuk did not let me down and handled my questions so gracefully that I couldn't help but be even more impressed by the man. He makes it look so fucking easy, doesn't he?
If you haven't read Palahniuk, start with Invisible Monsters, or Rant, all of his stuff his genius. Or dive right in with his newest release, Snuff -- a novel about porn, sex, parenthood, secrets, bronzer, and love. Check it out here.
Garrett Faber: In a quote taken from '96 you say, "Life becomes about maintaining this static perfection. Things just sort of stop and they're no longer growing Once you convince yourself things are perfect, then you stop growing and you stop evolving. It's sort of the death of things." It's safe to say now that you're pretty established and comfortable. How do you stop yourself from reaching that static perfection or resting on your laurels?
Chuck Palahniuk: My challenge is still to entertain myself and the group of writers I meet with every week. That, and I'm always explaining away my best writing tricks, trying to teach them over the Web. Of course, this gives me a better understanding of how I write, but once I reveal the method I'm forced to invent a new method. New tricks. Beyond that, each book is something you can only write at that specific moment in life. I could never write Fight Club now, so I'm glad I wrote it back then. Even the parts I now see as weak. Every stage of life has its own special sucky aspects that can only be vented and resolved by turning them into a story, a song, a painting, etc.
GF: What is your relationship (if any) with Trent Reznor?
CP: I look forward to working with Trent on the Fight Club musical. Cross your fingers.
GF: Now that you've got money, what are some of the most beautiful things you've witnessed or experienced that you wouldn't of been able to do or see without money?
CP: Some very sweet junkies took me to stand under the center of the Eiffel Tower, at midnight, the moment when the lights shut off. It was a total stunning surprise. All that blazing light blinks out in an instant. From glaring brightness to black. My French friends say it's the best thing to see in Paris. It feels the way I imagine death will.
GF: How do you feel about the n-word being used so often in mainstream music and life. Should it be censored or is it just a word? Does it still have power?
CP: What a tiresome word. I couldn't give a crap about words. Give me an obscene gesture any day.
GF: At the end of Fight Club, there is a quote, "Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything," which I thought was brilliant. What is your relationship with God like now?
CP: My understanding is that God wants me to do certain tasks with my life, and I'm happy to do those if God comes across with a steady-enough reward of Percodans.
GF: What was your experience as a journalist like? What led you to stop doing that, those years before your books were published?
CP: My degree in Journalism left me with $12,000 in student loans and a reporting job that paid $5.50 an hour in 1986. Poverty and the boredom of attending city council meetings, and school board and planning commission meetings, drove me from the Fourth Estate.
GF: What's the craziest porno you've ever seen?
CP: At a stag party, a friend who used to assist a cosmetic surgeon started pointing out the scars on each actress, indicating how their skin had been pulled and plumped and sewn back together. Talk about killing a mood. I've never found porn erotic since then. It seems like just another episode of "Animal Planet."
GF: What was the last, cool expensive thing you bought? From any slick gadget to a thousand dollars worth of Sushi...
CP: I paid for chemo for a friend's dog. Expensive, but worth it. Dog lived six extra months.
GF: What's the current status on your books becoming films?
CP: Either Survivor or Lullaby and they're both optioned and in development. Rumor is that Lullaby will begin shooting before the end of 2008. Diary is also optioned. This month, we're negotiating and selling the option on Rant.
GF: In one interview you said, "More often it's easier to be sarcastic, to be ironic, or to be absurdist rather than express sentiment." I find that a lot of people feel that way. Do you think that people are getting out of touch with expressing their emotions?
CP: So many people are expressing their feelings so readily on Oprah, on Dr. Laura, on the Web. Such ready honesty has flooded our lives, and been used to manipulate us into buying soap and cola. In response, most of us distrust those easy emotional expressions. We'd rather meet people who withhold their stories of abuse and sexual fetish, at least until they get really, really drunk.
GF: Do you have any gnarly stories about the Portland Cacophony Society?
CP: Those bad puppies. They recently crucified a huge stuffed rabbit outside the front doors of a Southern Baptist, mostly African American, church during the sermon on Easter Sunday. How can I get behind such immoral hijinx?
GF: Excerpts of your work appear in magazines, like Punch Drunk and random Choke chapters appearing in Playboy, and Mister Elegant appearing in Vice Magazine. How do you make these things happen?
CP: My agent, Edward Hibbert, sends the story to the editor of the magazine who usually says, "No fucking way." Except the New Yorker, which just stamps the envelope "Return to Sender."
GF: In another interview you spoke about the process of writing screenplays, saying that you thought theyd be really easy but instead they turned out to be really difficult. Have you gotten any better at writing screenplays?
CP: No. But it's stopped being a goal. Except I am working with the writer Amy Tan, on an adult feature called The Joy Fuck Club.
GF: Have you read the Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama? What did you think?
CP: I loved the line, "Big arms are the breasts of the '90s."
GF: Have you been in any gnarly fistfights since the one that inspired Fight Club?
CP: No, but I live in hope.
GF: What are your top five favorite romance films?
CP: Klute... They Shoot Horses, Don't They?... Fight Club... Harold and Maude... The Graduate.
GF: On your Wikipedia page it says that some fans believe that you are embarrassed by your homosexuality. How do you feel about that statement?
CP: Hah! I'm only ashamed that I can't swim and can't spell. Never trust the Wiki.
GF: It's said that Rant is the first of a Sci-Fi trilogy. How hard was it to write that story with its oral biography style?
CP: The oral biography is the best, most-fun style -- ever. It's like cutting film because you don't need wordy, clumsy transitions between different perspectives and statements. You can take advantage of how smart and sophisticated movies have made your reader.
GF: As a character, how does Rant Casey hold his own against Tyler Durden, Cassie Wright, Missy Wilmot, Carl Streater, Victor Mancini, Shannon McFarland and Tender Branson? Do you ever feel the urge to have characters from other books make guest appearances? Thinking back, which character would have made the most successful crossover character?
CP: Actually, I'd choose either Oyster from Lullaby or Denny from Choke. Probably Denny because he's a character people can root for, and want to see happy.
GF: Have you had any fatherhood urges yet?
CP: No such luck. I FedExd some sperm to Ann Coulter only she misinterpreted the gesture and dragged the FBI into the fray. Talk about overreacting. Did I mention that I can't spell?
GF: Could you tell us a little more about Pygmy? Where did the story come from? Where do you go to write it and what do you do for research?
CP: All last summer I took lessons so I could speak German on tour in Europe. After all that work I went on German national radio and said stuff like, "It's amazing how many Germans have been inside of me..." My publisher forbade me from speaking in any language but English. So I figured, why not write a novel the way I'd tell the story in my terrible German? Poor English skills are always funny, look at Borat, Cabaret and "Me Talk Pretty." And the humor sparked by the clumsy language allows me to tell a fairly gruesome story about a child-aged terrorist sent to destroy America. And it's a romance. Sigh.
GF: What are some of the most intense nightmares you've ever had?
CP: My dead grandmother telling me I've already been condemned to hell. She wasn't at all happy.
GF: Do you still do that thing where you send awesome gift packages to people who write you? What do people say to you in the letters?
CP: Every human face you ever see... they've suffered some terrible shit. People write about their own fatal illness, dying loved ones, drug addictions -- and they make their stories so funny. So many letters break my heart and make me laugh at the same time. With so much shit happening in the world, it's worth some effort to make sure a few good things also just -- happen. That's why the gift boxes. It gets me high, knowing somebody is about to get a package full of surprises; it spreads the manic high of Christmas throughout the whole year.
GF: In one interview you said, "Any 'artist' makes a living by expressing what others can'tbecause they're unaware of their feelings, they're too afraid to express those feelings, or they lack the skills to communicate and be understood. Being fucked-up isn't required. In fact, it tends to cut careers short." You've done a great job of not fucking up and being a great prolific and awesome writer, how do you keep that up?
CP: Ken Kesey once said, "It takes two people for an offense to occur -- one to offend, and one to take offense." My goal is to always keep this "job" fun. Always stay one book ahead of the critics. Never, ever read book reviews -- good or bad. Always listen to people with the expectation that they'll tell you something brilliant. Don't take offense. Don't violate Ann Coulter's restraining order.
GF: October 17th 1998 was the day you quit your regular job, thanks to your writing. What happened on that day?
CP: My friends threw me two going-away parties. I phoned a soup kitchen and volunteered to start serving breakfast to bums and winos the next morning. That night, I went to the Dada Ball, a costume party, and danced the rumba with a writer friend, Caroline. My costume was, I dressed as a waiter. People gave me drink orders all night and never got anything. Maybe I am going to hell.
For more information on Snuff (out now), check out Chuck Palahniuks official website: http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/
Also, don't miss the new trailer for the upcoming film Choke, based on Palahniuk's novel of the same name.
And in case you missed the hilarious promo videos for Snuff, you can watch them below.
Chitty Chitty Gang Bang vs. Chuck Palahniuk
The Wizard of Ass vs. Chuck Palahniuk
Twilight Bone vs. Chuck Palahniuk
I compare the experience of interviewing Chuck Palahniuk to interviewing Darth Vader; he's that big a deal to me. Take one look at his cult following, book sales, and works optioned for film, and you'll find that he's a big deal to a lot of other people too. After a ton of research, I gazed inward--both as a fan and as a curious person--and compiled this interview. Palahniuk did not let me down and handled my questions so gracefully that I couldn't help but be even more impressed by the man. He makes it look so fucking easy, doesn't he?
If you haven't read Palahniuk, start with Invisible Monsters, or Rant, all of his stuff his genius. Or dive right in with his newest release, Snuff -- a novel about porn, sex, parenthood, secrets, bronzer, and love. Check it out here.
Garrett Faber: In a quote taken from '96 you say, "Life becomes about maintaining this static perfection. Things just sort of stop and they're no longer growing Once you convince yourself things are perfect, then you stop growing and you stop evolving. It's sort of the death of things." It's safe to say now that you're pretty established and comfortable. How do you stop yourself from reaching that static perfection or resting on your laurels?
Chuck Palahniuk: My challenge is still to entertain myself and the group of writers I meet with every week. That, and I'm always explaining away my best writing tricks, trying to teach them over the Web. Of course, this gives me a better understanding of how I write, but once I reveal the method I'm forced to invent a new method. New tricks. Beyond that, each book is something you can only write at that specific moment in life. I could never write Fight Club now, so I'm glad I wrote it back then. Even the parts I now see as weak. Every stage of life has its own special sucky aspects that can only be vented and resolved by turning them into a story, a song, a painting, etc.
GF: What is your relationship (if any) with Trent Reznor?
CP: I look forward to working with Trent on the Fight Club musical. Cross your fingers.
GF: Now that you've got money, what are some of the most beautiful things you've witnessed or experienced that you wouldn't of been able to do or see without money?
CP: Some very sweet junkies took me to stand under the center of the Eiffel Tower, at midnight, the moment when the lights shut off. It was a total stunning surprise. All that blazing light blinks out in an instant. From glaring brightness to black. My French friends say it's the best thing to see in Paris. It feels the way I imagine death will.
GF: How do you feel about the n-word being used so often in mainstream music and life. Should it be censored or is it just a word? Does it still have power?
CP: What a tiresome word. I couldn't give a crap about words. Give me an obscene gesture any day.
GF: At the end of Fight Club, there is a quote, "Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything," which I thought was brilliant. What is your relationship with God like now?
CP: My understanding is that God wants me to do certain tasks with my life, and I'm happy to do those if God comes across with a steady-enough reward of Percodans.
GF: What was your experience as a journalist like? What led you to stop doing that, those years before your books were published?
CP: My degree in Journalism left me with $12,000 in student loans and a reporting job that paid $5.50 an hour in 1986. Poverty and the boredom of attending city council meetings, and school board and planning commission meetings, drove me from the Fourth Estate.
GF: What's the craziest porno you've ever seen?
CP: At a stag party, a friend who used to assist a cosmetic surgeon started pointing out the scars on each actress, indicating how their skin had been pulled and plumped and sewn back together. Talk about killing a mood. I've never found porn erotic since then. It seems like just another episode of "Animal Planet."
GF: What was the last, cool expensive thing you bought? From any slick gadget to a thousand dollars worth of Sushi...
CP: I paid for chemo for a friend's dog. Expensive, but worth it. Dog lived six extra months.
GF: What's the current status on your books becoming films?
CP: Either Survivor or Lullaby and they're both optioned and in development. Rumor is that Lullaby will begin shooting before the end of 2008. Diary is also optioned. This month, we're negotiating and selling the option on Rant.
GF: In one interview you said, "More often it's easier to be sarcastic, to be ironic, or to be absurdist rather than express sentiment." I find that a lot of people feel that way. Do you think that people are getting out of touch with expressing their emotions?
CP: So many people are expressing their feelings so readily on Oprah, on Dr. Laura, on the Web. Such ready honesty has flooded our lives, and been used to manipulate us into buying soap and cola. In response, most of us distrust those easy emotional expressions. We'd rather meet people who withhold their stories of abuse and sexual fetish, at least until they get really, really drunk.
GF: Do you have any gnarly stories about the Portland Cacophony Society?
CP: Those bad puppies. They recently crucified a huge stuffed rabbit outside the front doors of a Southern Baptist, mostly African American, church during the sermon on Easter Sunday. How can I get behind such immoral hijinx?
GF: Excerpts of your work appear in magazines, like Punch Drunk and random Choke chapters appearing in Playboy, and Mister Elegant appearing in Vice Magazine. How do you make these things happen?
CP: My agent, Edward Hibbert, sends the story to the editor of the magazine who usually says, "No fucking way." Except the New Yorker, which just stamps the envelope "Return to Sender."
GF: In another interview you spoke about the process of writing screenplays, saying that you thought theyd be really easy but instead they turned out to be really difficult. Have you gotten any better at writing screenplays?
CP: No. But it's stopped being a goal. Except I am working with the writer Amy Tan, on an adult feature called The Joy Fuck Club.
GF: Have you read the Bret Easton Ellis book Glamorama? What did you think?
CP: I loved the line, "Big arms are the breasts of the '90s."
GF: Have you been in any gnarly fistfights since the one that inspired Fight Club?
CP: No, but I live in hope.
GF: What are your top five favorite romance films?
CP: Klute... They Shoot Horses, Don't They?... Fight Club... Harold and Maude... The Graduate.
GF: On your Wikipedia page it says that some fans believe that you are embarrassed by your homosexuality. How do you feel about that statement?
CP: Hah! I'm only ashamed that I can't swim and can't spell. Never trust the Wiki.
GF: It's said that Rant is the first of a Sci-Fi trilogy. How hard was it to write that story with its oral biography style?
CP: The oral biography is the best, most-fun style -- ever. It's like cutting film because you don't need wordy, clumsy transitions between different perspectives and statements. You can take advantage of how smart and sophisticated movies have made your reader.
GF: As a character, how does Rant Casey hold his own against Tyler Durden, Cassie Wright, Missy Wilmot, Carl Streater, Victor Mancini, Shannon McFarland and Tender Branson? Do you ever feel the urge to have characters from other books make guest appearances? Thinking back, which character would have made the most successful crossover character?
CP: Actually, I'd choose either Oyster from Lullaby or Denny from Choke. Probably Denny because he's a character people can root for, and want to see happy.
GF: Have you had any fatherhood urges yet?
CP: No such luck. I FedExd some sperm to Ann Coulter only she misinterpreted the gesture and dragged the FBI into the fray. Talk about overreacting. Did I mention that I can't spell?
GF: Could you tell us a little more about Pygmy? Where did the story come from? Where do you go to write it and what do you do for research?
CP: All last summer I took lessons so I could speak German on tour in Europe. After all that work I went on German national radio and said stuff like, "It's amazing how many Germans have been inside of me..." My publisher forbade me from speaking in any language but English. So I figured, why not write a novel the way I'd tell the story in my terrible German? Poor English skills are always funny, look at Borat, Cabaret and "Me Talk Pretty." And the humor sparked by the clumsy language allows me to tell a fairly gruesome story about a child-aged terrorist sent to destroy America. And it's a romance. Sigh.
GF: What are some of the most intense nightmares you've ever had?
CP: My dead grandmother telling me I've already been condemned to hell. She wasn't at all happy.
GF: Do you still do that thing where you send awesome gift packages to people who write you? What do people say to you in the letters?
CP: Every human face you ever see... they've suffered some terrible shit. People write about their own fatal illness, dying loved ones, drug addictions -- and they make their stories so funny. So many letters break my heart and make me laugh at the same time. With so much shit happening in the world, it's worth some effort to make sure a few good things also just -- happen. That's why the gift boxes. It gets me high, knowing somebody is about to get a package full of surprises; it spreads the manic high of Christmas throughout the whole year.
GF: In one interview you said, "Any 'artist' makes a living by expressing what others can'tbecause they're unaware of their feelings, they're too afraid to express those feelings, or they lack the skills to communicate and be understood. Being fucked-up isn't required. In fact, it tends to cut careers short." You've done a great job of not fucking up and being a great prolific and awesome writer, how do you keep that up?
CP: Ken Kesey once said, "It takes two people for an offense to occur -- one to offend, and one to take offense." My goal is to always keep this "job" fun. Always stay one book ahead of the critics. Never, ever read book reviews -- good or bad. Always listen to people with the expectation that they'll tell you something brilliant. Don't take offense. Don't violate Ann Coulter's restraining order.
GF: October 17th 1998 was the day you quit your regular job, thanks to your writing. What happened on that day?
CP: My friends threw me two going-away parties. I phoned a soup kitchen and volunteered to start serving breakfast to bums and winos the next morning. That night, I went to the Dada Ball, a costume party, and danced the rumba with a writer friend, Caroline. My costume was, I dressed as a waiter. People gave me drink orders all night and never got anything. Maybe I am going to hell.
For more information on Snuff (out now), check out Chuck Palahniuks official website: http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/
Also, don't miss the new trailer for the upcoming film Choke, based on Palahniuk's novel of the same name.
And in case you missed the hilarious promo videos for Snuff, you can watch them below.
Chitty Chitty Gang Bang vs. Chuck Palahniuk
The Wizard of Ass vs. Chuck Palahniuk
Twilight Bone vs. Chuck Palahniuk
VIEW 22 of 22 COMMENTS
garrettf:
Warren Ellis is an asshole! But i love his work. Transmetropolitan is amazing
adrei:
I was not expecting this! Chuck is a very real person and whos writings and understanding is just mad mind blowing, i haven't read any books from such a human since Steinback!