The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” We met up with the man who wrote those immortal lines to break his most famous rules —and a few more.
Before Tyler Durden fist-fought his way into movie immortality in Fight Club, there was Tyler Durden on paper, wrung from the unlikely pen of Chuck Palahniuk. The writer didn’t begin his attack on the blank page until his 30s, but has since authored some of the most bizarre, beautiful and talked-about novels of our time.
In more than a dozen bestselling books, Palahniuk has diagrammed a darkly comic world of flawed outcasts and twisted social ills. His newest novel, Beautiful You, grapples with a subject particularly close to our hearts.
HUSTLER: What’s your latest book about?
CHUCK PALAHNIUK: I kind of threw away my whole existing style and relearned writing. I made a big push into something I call “gonzo erotica.” It’s funny and sexy and icky all at the same time.
There’s an underlying message about consumerism as well, correct?
