Chuck Palahniuk's Blog, page 13

Mark Yarm

This is a history you want to know even if you were never a fan of the genre. Even if you weren't part of the Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam debate (Nirvana, for the record). Even if you didn't need another reason to loathe Courtney Love. Even if you didn't know a pre-Microsoft/Starbucks Seattle. Even if you have no clue as to what The La's "There She Goes", GnR's "Mr. Brownstone" and Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" have in common.

But, if like me, this music was in your wheelhouse for a better part of your teens and early twenties, then you'll no doubt eat through this meticulous (567 pages worth) collection of quotes, woven into an entertaining and revealing oral history in which a series of smaller stories are all sewn into the greater quilt of the work. One of the funniest aspects of this book is the style of contradictory narrative in which one person from a band says X happened and then a manager/roadie/ex-girlfriend/ex-band mate comes immediately afterwards and refutes the previous statement. Given the copious amounts of drug/alcohol usage of the time that is unflinchingly attested to within Everyone Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, one can understand why some details, some twenty, thirty years later might not mean the same thing to all people.

The most important aspect of this work, as with any work that chronicles the lives of our beloved and tortured musicians, is the overtone of humanity. Not only are the "players" represented in this book, but a great many of the former band-mates who walked away before the word "grunge" became a household name and a way to sell flannel at three times the going rate.

Enter Mark Yarm, a freshly laid-off senior editor at Blender magazine, who at the behest of a friend and literary agent, set out on a two year journey to write the definitive oral history of grunge. read more »

Chuck Palahniuk Interview On Shortlist.com

In gearing up for promotion of his upcoming novel Damned, Chuck just did an interview with British weekly mag Shortlist.com.

Interview with Chuck Palahniuk on Shortlist.com

Fake Criterions: 'Fight Club'

How the hell have none of you tried something like this before?  For as long as it became 'a thing,' I've been a fan of the fake Criterion covers fans have designed.  Not only are many of them hysterical (one of my favorites being Days of Thunder), but some of the artwork is damn good and clearly tops the shitty, uninspired DVD covers studios sleepwalk through.  (example: Scott Pilgrim vs. Scott Pilgrim).  These fans could be working for Criterion with these skills.

But alas, I've never seen a fake Criterion for Fight Club.  Until now...

This was designed by S. L. Jackson.  Here's what he had to say about the design: read more »

Canadian Tour Dates For 'Damned' Added!

Good news for you canucks!  Chuck is taking a trip north of the border to British Columbia for two big reading events for Damned.  Here's the scoop from his Canadian publishers:

British Columbia audiences have been some of the most enthusiastic of Chuck's past tours so [we're]really excited about these events. In Vancouver he's returning to the Frederic Wood theatre on UBC campus where he had a now legendary night five years ago sharing the stage with Doug Coupland. And it has been over four years since he has been to Victoria (for RANT) so [we] can't wait to see what he has in store this time.  Chuck emailed [us recently] and said he was stockpiling some interesting prizes so he could give his Canadian events the "full treatment."  I didn't dare to ask…

 

 So without further ado, here are the two dates:

November 28th - Victoria, BC - *Tickets go on sale 10-18-11 w/ purchase of 'Damned'

November 30th - Vancouver, BC - *Tickets go on sale 8-26-11!

*For more info, check out our Tour page.  And for pictures from past tours, check out  our Flickr Group! read more »

Seven Days In Rio

...or "Tiffanys," as Kenny Cantor affectionately calls them. Not that it makes the idea any less offensive.

Kenny is a successful CPA in a Brooks Brothers suit on holiday in Rio de Janeiro. He isn't there for the food or the beaches or the nightlife- he's there to pay for pussy. The man is a veteran sex tourist on the prowl, and he's heard that the streets of Rio are paved with the stuff. Lucky for him, in Levy's version of the notorious South American city, the rumors turn out to be true. read more »

Cain

Cain, Jose Saramago's final novel, is another of the author's attacks on religion in general and especially the Abrahamic faiths. Saramago showed how deeply he could cut with his 1991 masterpiece, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, a troubling, fascinating retelling of the gospels. In that book, biblical contradictions became a source of delight. With Cain, the source book is the Old Testament, but instead of delighting, Saramago chooses to bully and preach at us. As a sort of prequel to his earlier novel, Cain is unnecessary; as a work in itself it is a mess; and as a conclusion to an important literary career, it doesn't seem to fit.  read more »

Read 'Nuts and Bolts: "Big Voice" Versus "Little Voice" by Chuck Palahniuk

For three years, Chuck Palahniuk contributed to our ground breaking online Writers Workshop (which he also helped conceive, btw) with 36 writing essays.  These are lessons from a best-selling author on how to improve your craft as a writer... the types of lessons they teach in $20,000+ MFA writing programs.  

To look back and celebrate these exclusive essays, each month we are "unlocking" one and offering it for free on the site.  Normally you would need a Workshop Membership to view these essays, but until you're ready to make that important commitment, we'll offer you one of these a month. 

For August, we have Nuts and Bolts: "Big Voice" Versus "Little Voice."  An interesting character has strong opinions, and voicing them can lend mood and texture to the work, but you can't allow these "Big Voice" rants to eclipse the "Little Voice" needs for descriptive physical action. In this essay, you'll learn to strike that balance.

Read 'Nuts & Bolts: "Big Voice" Versus "Little Voice" read more »

The Last Werewolf

What would happen if an intelligent, sensitive, literate man suddenly found himself filled with savage instincts?  —Roger Ebert, on Wolf (1994)

Just as vampire stories are always about seduction—the long tease; the will I? won't I?—and just as zombie stories are always finally about a loss of self, be it through infection or actions, so are werewolf stories always about sex. Granted, there's two kinds of werewolf/sex stories. There's the I'm-going-through-changes-all-this-new-body-hair kind and there's The Howling 'indulging our animal natures'-kind, but either way, it come down to sex. Glen Duncan knows this. His The Last Werewolf is very aware of what it's doing. There's sex to go around, and it's properly graphic, and done just really well. For a model of how to render sex on the page, you could do worse than some mid-point between The Last Werewolf and, say, Amelia Beamer's The Loving Dead. Or just either by itself.

Anyway, all the cons I hit, the question that's always circulating is What's the next big thing? We all saw the vampire fall to the zombie, I mean, and, as we get closer and closer to living through Roland Emmerich's 2012, I think we all have a sense that, in spite of how much they're going to continue to be marketed at us, the zombie's going to be on the wane. So: what next? Mermaids, centaurs, Norse mythology, aliens? Werewolves? Will The Last Werewolf—along with Mtv's Teen Wolf reboot—kick off a werewolf renaissance? read more »

Cape Cod Noir

When I think of cities that inspire noir, Cape Cod is certainly not at the top of that list. I think of New York, Chicago, Baltimore even, but never would I have thought of Cape Cod. In the ongoing series by Akashic Books, they’ve visited almost fifty cities across the United States, and around the world. It’s a compelling series to say the least. Once I started to get into this collection, though, I understood the appeal of Cape Cod. Any place where you have the rich surrounded by the middle and working-class, the permanent residents dealing with entitled tourists, there’s bound to be a simmering pot of angst and violence waiting to overflow.

Editor David L. Ulin speaks to the concept of noir in the opening of this book, and the reasons that Cape Cod came to mind. What is noir to him?: read more »

An Update On The 'INVISIBLE MONSTERS' Film - Director Attached

Earlier this week I got an update from Cameron MacLaren, the producer who owns the option on the Invisible Monsters movie adaptation.  Today, Cameron made the news public by way of a newsletter blast.  Check out below for some updates on the production, including someone officially sitting in the director's chair. read more »