News for Palahniuk fans

Separated at birth? Jeff Probst and Chuck Palahniuk

Two cool things to know if you're a Chuck Palahniuk fan.

1. Here is Chuck's personal description of his forthcoming novel, Rant.

"For 'Rant' I borrowed the form of an oral biography, wherein dozens of people are interviewed about the same person, then those interviews are cut together. Like a 'talking head' type of documentary film. The only person not present is the subject: Rant Casey, an updated Huckleberry Finn in a messy, crowded near-future. Cars, traffic, and accidents all play parts, with chunks of the through-line action presented as radio traffic reports. Of course there's a romance. And of course it's confronting and occasionally violent. And sickening or sexy. The glory of the 'oral biography' form is how it allows the story to cut instantly from one plot thread to another, or from the 'camera' perspective of one character to another, while both describe the same event. This let me boil each statement down to the minimal plot point so that the action moves blam, blam, blam through the entire twisted life and death of Rant."


2. Chuck Palahniuk is accepting fanmail right now. He is taking six months or so out of his schedule to reply to each and every letter sent to him with an October postmark. There are rules, though, guys -- and he won't even read ones from stalker types or written in blood. I've got mine almost ready to mail. If you want to join in the fun, check out this page. And to hear him talk about it, go here.