Book Club - Author Spotlight

August 20, 2019

Chuck Palahniuk

Born 02/21/1962 in Burbank, WA.

Palahniuk is a Ukranian name, and is pronounced as a combination of his paternal grandparents' first names - Paula and Nick.

After high school he joined The Cacophony Society, which is said to be the inspiration for Project Mayhem in Fight Club.

He wrote his first fictional story in his 30's, Negative Reinforcement, which was released in 1990 in the journal, Modern Short Stories.

Chuck then wrote If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Right Now but it was rejected and never printed. He was told he was writing too dark. He wrote Manifesto (which would later become Invisible Monsters) but was again rejected.

So much like a theme in Fight Club, Chuck turned his back on the mainstream, and he wrote his biggest work to date.

After success of the book and the movie, Chuck was given free reign, and has written/released a book pretty much every year since.

I've just finished Invisible Monsters and it was really good. At first I was confused, and not liking how it jumped around, but then you get a feel for it, and the story starts moving, and then BAM!

I started Fight Club once upon a time but it was from the library, and I couldn't renew it because someone else put a hold on it, so I had to return it unfinished. Now I intend to start that again.

My sister has also recommended Haunted - so I'll probably just go through his whole collection, at some point. He is an interesting writer.