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Chuck Palahniuk - How the Cult Author of Fight Club Made Nihilism Fun Again

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American Freelance Journalist And Award Winning Novelist

Chuck Palahniuk is a man who needs little introduction – the iconic author and legendary wordsmith who penned the anarchic 90s cult classic Fight Club and went on to repeat his formula for success with the psychological smash hit Choke.

Growing up in a mobile home in Burbank, Washington, followed by a stint on his Grandparents cattle farm, few might have expected such a feverish literary mind to emerge from such rudimentary beginnings.

Having begun his career as a journalist working locally for a newspaper in Portland, Chuck perhaps unsurprisingly left the desk job behind to become a diesel mechanic, a job he seemingly flourished in and it was only in his late twenties that his calling began to shout louder.

Despite being revered as a game-changing exploration of postmodern masculinity, mixed with equal parts philosophy, satire, violence and shameless seediness, the sensory overload that accompanies Fight Club went unheralded until long after Hollywood’s adaptation.

These days, with 23 bestsellers to his name, Chuck Palahniuk continues to push the boundaries while maintaining his unique sense of reverie and with his latest instalment to the repertoire The Invention of Sound, making a similarly typical Palahniuk style impact, his prolific resume shows no signs of abating.

His latest work ‘The Invention of Sound’ is a chilling and typically offbeat tale of a man’s search for his missing daughter and show’s Palahniuk at the peak of his literary powers in what has been described as his ‘most suspenseful, most daring, and most genre-defying work yet.’

As a fan of his work, it’s a huge privilege to have him on the show and we are sure all of you will walk away with much to ponder.

Join us as we will be talking with Chuck Palahniuk to discuss his new book, Fight Club, censorship in writing, writing workshops and his process.

Download clips

A number of clips from this groundbreaking interview are now available to download, share and repost. Spread the word and defend our human rights: grab these clips today!

1. Not For The Faint Of Heart
2. How To Find And Test Storylines
3. How To Have The Reader Under Your Control
4. The Healing Power Of Writing
5. The Secondary Father
6. We Forget Our Past When We Judge Younger Generations
7. Have Your Adventures, Just Don’t Die
8. People Don’t Want To Know About Your Private Life
9. Fight Club
10. I Don’t Know How The Novel Is Going To End
11. What’s Next For Chuck Palahniuk
12. The Legacy

Chapters

00:00 | Trailer.
02:29 | Brian’s introduction.
03:20 | People faint and weep at Chuck Palahniuk’s readings.
07:12 | Chuck Palahniuk’s minimalist style of writing.
11:20 | Developing a theme for a story.
19:13 | The writing technique he used for Taxi Driver
22:35 | How writing about a subject becomes therapy for Chuck Palahniuk.
25:56 | The value of a writer’s workshop and how it can be used as a therapy group.
28:47 | People’s need for a secondary father.
35:25 | The rites of passage for teenagers into adulthood which adults fail to remember.
46:49 | Social media is making young people more aware of public perception, which constricts them.
48:18 | A memorable meeting with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton for Fight Club pre-production meeting.
50:44 | The oddity that no one acknowledges obvious bruises or black eyes in others.
52:57 | Looking back on Fight Club, and what is.the only thing that is more boring than making movies.
56.58 | Hazing stories and the difficulty for the writer of portraying transformation.
1:03:26 | Writing “The Invention of Sound” when the plot takes an unexpected turn for the writer.
1:10:11 | What the next five years hold for Chuck Palahniuk.
1:14:57 | Chuck Palahniuk wonders if he is doomed to always write fatalistic stories.
1:17:02 | “We all die, the goal isn’t to live for ever, the goal is to create something that will”
1:19:53 | Does everyone want the world to remember we were here once?
1:22:47 | What scares him.
1:24:07 | Success secrets.
1:25:05 | Brian’s summing up.

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