Palahniuk was promoting Fight Club 2 at Comic Con International: San Diego, as Dark Horse Editor-in-Chief Scott Allie remembers it, when a young woman cornered Palahniuk. And of course, we’ll see the id-fueled personality hiding in his subconscious, Tyler Durden, who will appear in both the 10-part graphic novel sequel that kicked off via Dark Horse comics last week, as well as Make Something Up. He’s delving back into the world of his bruised narrator, now named Sebastian, who’s weighing fatherhood, mortgages and a lowered sex drive.
“That got me thinking about people who might damage their brain intentionally,” Palahniuk says, and that’s the genesis for “Zombies,” a short story that details a group of kids who shun their looming adult responsibilities by administering amateur lobotomies.Īnd nearly two decades after the release of his debut novel, Fight Club-which rocketed to cult status after David Fincher’s excellent 1999 film adaptation-Palahniuk is set to revisit the story that started it all. Some teen, goofing off in a grocery store parking lot, fell on a radio antenna. And all these years later, he’s still at it.įor one tale in his first collection of short fiction, Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread, Palahniuk drew from Portland headlines. One friend of Palahniuk’s “pegged” himself with a carrot-that is, stuffed the veggie up his butt-and later inspired the infamous protagonist of the aforementioned “Guts,” a man who found his ass on the wrong side of a swimming pool filter. And for the better part of two decades, it’s been his job to pass them on. In Palahniuk’s presence, people can’t help but share these stories. The writer packed the pill pockets in a Tupperware container, then gave them to his vet tech, who asked if the dog swallowed her pills. The pill pockets make the whole ordeal more palatable for the dog, but Palahniuk’s balked at the offering.
The cult novelist was supposed to feed his dog two pills, a task made easier if the capsules were stuffed inside brown, lumpy treats called “pill pockets.” It’s a dog-owner trick, designed to make the pills taste like chicken, a generic hickory-smoked meat or peanut butter. Of all places, Palahniuk was grossed out at his veterinarian’s office.
What could possibly disgust the guy who made more than 70 people faint during readings in 2005 with “Guts,” a short story that would appear a year later in the equally stomach-churning novel Haunted? That guy who, more recently, penned a death scene around a girl supposedly yanking her grandfather’s penis through a jagged hole in a bathroom stall in 2013’s Doomed? The dude who has, more or less, mapped a career from finding meaning in your family’s worst story? What’s the last thing that got under Chuck Palahniuk’s skin?