Chuck Palahniuk's Blog, page 14
July 22, 2011
Player One: What Is To Become Of Us
Released as part of the Massey Lecture series with a minimum of fanfare, I missed this sneaky aperitif of a novel upon its initial release. I'd blame Canada, but despite taking place there, the Masseys aren't inherently Canadian in nature. The annual event has featured its share of non-Canadian luminaries, such as Noam Chomsky and Martin Luther King Jr., to name a recognizable two. Americans tend to get a bad rap for ignoring other people's culture, but Coupland is popular enough in the states that his involvement should have gotten more attention south of the border, especially considering the form said involvement took. Player One: What Is To Become Of Us, was the first Massey Lecture to be presented as a fictional work, each of the book's five chapters being delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city. read more »
July 20, 2011
'Damned' Tour Dates - Details Updated!
Update: Tickets for the Portsmouth, NH event are now availble to the public. Get them here.
With the release of Damned still months away, Random House decided to give you all a treat and unveil the tour dates much earlier than normal. These cities are confirmed and no further events will be added. We also don't have any info on an international tour yet, so please don't ask. :)
Cities/venues are below, and for most, we'll have more details as they come in – some venues don't have times, locales or ticket info yet. The Pittsburgh and Portsmouth events both require tickets. See below for those links.
Here are the dates!
Tuesday, October 18th - Portland, OR
Thursday, October 20th - Jackson, MS
Saturday, October 22nd OR Sunday, October 23rd - Austin, TX
Tuesday, October 25th - Dallas, TX
Tuesday, October 27th - Pittsburgh, PA - *Tickets on sale June 1st.
Saturday, October 29th - Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, November 1st - New York, NY
Thursday, November 3rd - Portsmouth, NH - *Tickets are now available to public!
Week of November 14th - Miami & Minneapolis
*Miami Book Fair and Minneapolis Talking Volumes Series – details tk
Couple important details:
This is Chuck's first Portland, OR appearance since the RANT tour in 2006.
As with Chuck's events in the past, all of his copies of DAMNED will be pre-signed. The autographing portion of the events with signings will be limited to 100 people.
There will not be signings in Dallas or Portsmouth.
The Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures tickets go onsale today! There will be 75 VIP tickets on-sale for the signing/meet-and-greet with Chuck at the event. Ticket info here! The auditorium holds nearly 700 people.
The Portsmouth, NH "Writers on a New England Stage" event tickets go on-sale on Saturday, June 4. Only Music Hall members can buy June 4-25 (you can become a member for $50) and the general public on sale is June 25. This is Chuck's only New England event and the auditorium seats 900. Ticket info here.
*For more info, check out our Tour page. And for pictures from past tours, check out our Flickr Group !
July 19, 2011
Buy the Chuck Palahniuk Documentary DVD Signed Edition! - SHIPPING FREE PROMO - EXTENDED
Free Shipping Promo - Extended To Sunday
Our popular documentary on Chuck Palahniuk, Postcards from the Future is now shipping... with a big fat signature by Chuck right on the cover. We've got a limited amount of these and once they're gone, they're gone. So if you haven't seen this documentary yet, now is the time to order this 2-disk DVD set. If you have seen it, but covet having this signed edition, follow your temptation and click the link below. Shipping is free on all orders from now until Sunday, 7-24-11.
Order the Chuck Palahniuk Documentary DVD - Signed Edition
Note: The maximum for international orders (non-US) is 2 DVDs, if you want to qualify for the free shipping promo.
Summary
Postcards From The Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary takes a look at author Chuck Palahniuk ís landmark year of 2003. With back to back books and subsequent tours hitting the public, Chuck ís year was filled with success, controversy, and even phenomena. But what many fans don ít know is that this entire year kicked off with a mysterious conference held on his work in a small town in Pennsylvania.
As guests of the conference, my fellow documentarians and I attended the three day event and captured some of the most exclusive material a fan could hope for. Chuck read from his novels, hosted multiple Q&As, gave an hour long exclusive presentation, participated in a screening of Fight Club, signed books and, best of all, sat down for a very candid one hour interview. But it wasn ít until the days of editing this piece together that followed that we realized the true gift of the conference for Chuck had attended with a very important motive and message for his fans: To evolve a generation of young readers into writers. read more »
Buy the Chuck Palahniuk Documentary DVD Signed Edition! - SHIPPING FREE - 2 DAYS ONLY
Shipping Free For 2 Days
Our popular documentary on Chuck Palahniuk, Postcards from the Future is now shipping... with a big fat signature by Chuck right on the cover. We've got a limited amount of these and once they're gone, they're gone. So if you haven't seen this documentary yet, now is the time to order this 2-disk DVD set. If you have seen it, but covet having this signed edition, follow your temptation and click the link below. Shipping is free on all orders for 2 days.
Order the Chuck Palahniuk Documentary DVD - Signed Edition
Note: The maximum for international orders (non-US) is 2 DVDs, if you want to qualify for the free shipping promo.
Summary
Postcards From The Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary takes a look at author Chuck Palahniuk ís landmark year of 2003. With back to back books and subsequent tours hitting the public, Chuck ís year was filled with success, controversy, and even phenomena. But what many fans don ít know is that this entire year kicked off with a mysterious conference held on his work in a small town in Pennsylvania.
As guests of the conference, my fellow documentarians and I attended the three day event and captured some of the most exclusive material a fan could hope for. Chuck read from his novels, hosted multiple Q&As, gave an hour long exclusive presentation, participated in a screening of Fight Club, signed books and, best of all, sat down for a very candid one hour interview. But it wasn ít until the days of editing this piece together that followed that we realized the true gift of the conference for Chuck had attended with a very important motive and message for his fans: To evolve a generation of young readers into writers. read more »
July 18, 2011
The Hour of the Star
Clarice Lispector died young but not quite unknown in Brazil, and her novels are neglected but not quite unknown internationally. Those who have read her agree that she was a thoughtful, twisted, occasionally brilliant author of short novels about very little on the surface: a woman killing a cockroach, for instance. The ingenuity lies in what Lispector did with her mundane situations: she turned them into fables of horrible psychological bullying, protestations against the weirdness and incoherence of things, dirges for the loss of magic. In Lispector's world, events are both intimately connected and entirely unconnected. Anticlimax is the norm and everywhere present. Virtue is unrewarded, but so is crime. And the great irony is that for all the darkness, Lispector's writing is still beautiful, life-affirming, enchanting. read more »
July 15, 2011
New Story "Romance" In The August Issue of Playboy
Looking for something new from Chuck? Can't wait until October 18th for the release of Damned? Well you're in luck, because there's a new short story in the August issue of Playboy. The short is called Romance and here's the official word, straight from the Chuckster's mouth:
The story is called "Romance," and it's the most redemptive story I've ever written. Look for a good, old-fashioned boy-meets-girl love story culminating in the birth of beautiful babies. I'll be reading it on tour in October for "Damned."
Gotta say, I'm excited to read this one... the story, not the magazine. Well, the magazine, yes, but the articles in it. The articles, dammit!! read more »
Join Our Official Book Club! - July Discussion "Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat" by Andrez Bergen
You know the drill, folks. Every month a new book is selected and a new moderator steps up to lead the discussion. This month, we will be reading and discussing The Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat by Andrez Bergen.
Purchase 'The Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat' here!
From the back cover:
Cut to Melbourne, Australia–the most glamorous city in the world. It also happens to be the only one left standing, but nevermind that, we're there now and I'd like you to meet your narrator, a certain Floyd Maquina, a likable chap with one hell of a story to share. See, the powers that be are knuckling down on the Deviant menace that plagues the city, and our boy Floyd's unknowingly got himself in the thick of it. Cue guns, intrigue, kidnappings, conspiracy and all sorts of general mayhem that make for cracking good headlines.
Does Floyd stop the bad guys? Does he get the girl? Does he make Humphrey Bogart proud? Grab some popcorn and read on.
July 8, 2011
Kate Christensen
THE ASTRAL. The title alone suggests several concepts. Those familiar with Greenpoint, Brooklyn may know the building of which the title pays homage to. The other definition deals with the protagonist of the novel, one Harry Quirk, a wilting poet who suddenly finds himself accused of cheating on his dogmatic wife Luz, an accusation he knows to be false, and tries with every breath, up to a point, to correct in Luz' thinking. In his life, in his writing, in the inextricably wound thread of it all, he fights the need for transcendence, he flees the astral plane that might just be where he needs to be to renew his poetic sensibilities and give him what he needs to weather the storms of his own little teapot.
Of course, that in and of itself does not a conflict make – Christensen needs the water a little hotter for Harry, so we throw in a lengthy couch surfing session taking place all around town, his Freegan daughter who, aside from her peculiars, is Harry's greatest confidant and supporter through all of this. Oh and his only son Hector is convinced by a cult that he is The Messiah. Good times for poor Harry.
Her portrayal of the artist Oscar Feldman in THE GREAT MAN, which won her the 2008 PEN/Faulkner award, displays her talents at writing the wily male. Harry Quirk, an artist of a different stripe, and on the other side of the infidelity fence, is in capable hands. read more »
July 5, 2011
Millennium People
Ballard Man. That's what she called me. Despite the fact I'd only read- no, purchased- a solitary book by the author.
Let me set the scene. It was a time known as "the late 90's." The book in question was Crash, Ballard's controversial exploration of symphorophilia. "She" was a matronly assistant manager at Borders Books, where I was grinding it out as a bookseller. You see where this is going?
Every time she said it, the moniker rustled the wisps of hair on her lip like a prairie wind, her tone hinting at a desire to have cold, fetishistic car sex with me. I was too naive to realize it at the time, but the nickname was both an invitation and a threat. When I finally got around to reading the book, I realized how close I had come to winding up on the back of a milk carton. Consequently, it would be ten long years before I was able to stomach a second helping of Ballard. read more »
June 29, 2011
Donald Ray Pollock
On the morning of Chuck's Snuff tour stop in Minneapolis I had awoken short the sight in one eye. Never one to miss a Chuck reading, with a prepaid ticket and voucher for a signed copy in hand, and being an old hand at injuries from my many years as an idiot, I went ahead and kicked-started the old Triumph Bonneville, like an idiot, and rode to the reading James Joyce style. Per internet rumors, I was fully expecting to see Irving Welsh (Trainspotting, Filth) as the reported "opening act," so the name Donald Ray Pollock brought about a "Donald Ray who?"
No, my hardcover Trainspotting would not be autographed. But there was this Donald Ray Pollock guy. Fine. I'll maintain a wait and see attitude.
On the cover of his collection of short stories, Knockemstiff, was a praiseful blurb from Chuck himself. The discovery of Craig Clevenger's awesome The Contortionist's Handbook came immediately to mind as an instance Chuck's nod paid off in spades. How had I not heard of this Pollock guy? read more »
