Operation Chuck: The Damned Book Night

After reading ten Chuck Palahniuk books in under three weeks, on Thursday the actual Damned event d-day arrived.  I picked up Chuck and his publicist Todd at 8:45 Thursday morning and we joined Lemuria's blog goddess Lisa and my boss Valerie at the Eudora Welty House for a 9 o'clock tour.

Lisa, Liz, Valerie, Chuck, Todd, and
Eudora's niece Mary Alice

Welty house expert Karen Redhead and Eudora's niece Mary Alice White met us there and we received the VIP treatment.  If you're going to Jackson, the Welty House should be on your agenda.  It's close to my version of paradise; books are everywhere, the house is a quaint style with great windows and architectural lines, and there was even a cat out front.  The gardens are lovely too, but I'm sure that I'd just manage to kill the plants.  It didn't even have a shower; just a bath.  You should know by now that I love my soaks.  Also, Eudora's literary awards are under glass so you can't lift her Pulitzer.  Sorry.

Chuck in Eudora's garden.

Chuck seemed to really enjoy the tour.  He likes to view other writer's homes and writing spaces because it helps him connect to their writing.  He spent extra time in the gardens.  The Welty house was an excellent way to begin the day, a bit of quiet that would progressively amp up until the climax that night.

Helloooooooo Nurse!

From Eudora's place we drove to Lemuria Bookstore.  Chuck was treated like a celebrity upon entering the store.  How did this event happen?  Zita, one of the Lemuria booksellers, is the biggest Chuck Palahniuk fan I've ever met.  The first time I met her several years ago, she was reserved until I mentioned that there was a new Chuck book on the list I was selling, and she animated like Wakko Warner spotting Hello Nurse (yes, that's an Animaniacs reference.  I love the Animaniacs.)  When I sold Damned in the spring, John Evans, the buyer and store owner, mentioned that they'd never hosted Chuck.  Joe, the store events guy, added Chuck to their events requests and I talked to Todd, Chuck's publicist.  John and Joe talked up a Chuck event at BEA (Book Expo America), too. Todd thought it was a good opportunity and we set a date.  And then the Lemuria staff went to work.

Chuck books everywhere you
look at Lemuria...including the
Penguin Classics spinner.  Sweet.

Back to Zita.  She is a Chuck Palahniuk super-fan.  Her love of Chuck spread among the staff and when I next visited Lemuria to sell the spring list, it seemed like everyone there was reading and talking about Chuck.  They were talking about Madison, the protagonist for Damned, and they were talking about his older books.  We started talking about event ideas, and about making Damned one of the Lemuria first editions club picks.  When Chuck walked into Lemuria on Thursday, the hug Zita and Chuck shared was one of the best moments I've witnessed in Book Land.  It was perfect.

Damned print made for the big event.

One would have to have been blind to set foot in Lemuria and not to know about the Damned event (and why would a blind person spend a lot of time in a bookstore?).  Chuck books, Damned posters and bookmarks, Damned t-shirts--there was Damned stuff EVERYWHERE.  They featured a display of Chuck's favorite books and authors, you know, for some variety.  I take some secret joy in knowing that other publishers' reps have been walking into Lemuria to sell books and they've been staring at Chuck (and therefore Random House) endorsements for hours.  Yes, I am that competitive.

High School fan.

While at Lemuria, Zita acted as store hostess and helped Chuck sign books and meet-and-greet a class of high school students.  One kid wore a buffalo hat.  Yeah, he's definitely read a Chuck book or two in the past.

After making memories with some high schoolers (get your minds out of the gutter, pervs!), Chuck returned to the hotel, and Valerie, Todd, and I ate lunch and drove to Hal and Mal's, the venue for the evening event. Hal and Mal's is an old warehouse that's been converted into a restaurant and entertainment venue.  The space is huge, and almost all of it was dominated by the Chuck preparations.  Hal and Mal are Zita's uncle and father, and apparently she'd basically lived at the place for the last week decorating for the event.  The effort was obvious.  In addition to the book reading, Lemuria coordinated with other local businesses to make the night a huge JX RX (Jackson Rocks) event in support of local businesses.  From Hal and Mal's to Cathead Vodka, to local artists, to the Parlor Market restaurant, to bands, the community bonded over the event and helped spread the word.

Art show devil--very cool.

In one room at Hal and Mal's, an art show inspired by Damned covered the walls.  Devils and images of hell and violence covered the walls.  If I'd had $1,500 to spare, I would have purchased one of the pieces.  They were all very cool, and the art show was a great idea as a passive way to entertain people (and hopefully sell some local art) before the show started.

Stale popcorn ball.

And then there was the room where Chuck would be speaking.  It's HUGE.  And every part of it was decorated like the hell from Damned, no detail overlooked.  In Chuck's hell, stale popcorn balls and candy are the only foods, and Zita made popcorn balls and hung them from the ceiling.  In hell, The English Patient movie plays round-the-clock.  Done.  Light bulbs were switched for red lights.  Staffers and fans dressed in costumes.  While Chuck was still in the hotel giving phone interviews, Valerie and I took pictures of the empty space and ate a quick dinner in the restaurant at Hal and Mal's, and by the time we left to pick up Chuck and Todd from the hotel, the crowd was already building, two hours before the main event and over an hour before the doors opened.

Packed house in hell.

When we drove back to Hal and Mal's with the author and publicist in tow, we couldn't even find a parking space.  PACKED house.  Chuck and Todd went inside to set up while Valerie and I parked, and then we joined them backstage, where Todd was blowing up an inflatable skeleton and Chuck was inflating a brain.  Chuck likes to play games with his crowds.  I peeked around the curtain and indeed what I saw was my version of hell--hundreds of drinking, rowdy people anxiously crowding a stage to see their literary hero and have a good time.  (I don't like crowds).  John, the owner of Lemuria, introduced Zita, and then Zita introduced Chuck.

Chuck on stage with an inflated brain.

Chuck Palahniuk the performer is the consummate crowd manipulator.  It's fascinating to watch him push them into a raucous frenzy and then instantly calm them with an insight into humanity.  He told a graphic and disgustingly hilarious story about being a candystriper as a 13 year-old Catholic going through confirmation classes, and the lesson learned was both appropriate...and dirty (I'm not going to give it away since Chuck may be using the story at all of his events).  Then he threw out hundreds of inflatable brains to the crowd in a game and generated the hysteria...only to settle the crowd once more as he read an original story written for the tour.  Chuck spoke for over an hour, never letting up.  People pay $60+ for tickets to hear A-List comedians, yet Chuck's performance is so much more than that, and longer, and for the Jackson crowd on Thursday night, free.

Chuck with Madison from
Damned, aka Maggie.

So what's Chuck Palahniuk like in real life?  He's quiet and unassuming and highly intelligent.  He has a wicked sense of humor and a great appreciation for absurdity, but he's also sensitive to feelings and kind.  He's a generous donor for charities including animal no-kill shelters (he's recently donated the coffee table from the movie Fight Club to auction as a fundraiser for The Pixie Project) and he's a champion of other authors and their books.  I talked to him about the animal sex capitol of the world and a zombie convention while we were driving from Eudora Welty's house to Lemuria, but it was a totally normal conversation.  No, really, it was.  He reminded me of some of my most hilarious friends, the kind of guy you want to ask to dinner and the kind of guy who can tell a good fart story over dessert in the hotel after a huge event and long day.

Thank you to the Lemuria staff, the Jackson local businesses, Random House, and Chuck Palahniuk for making the Damned book night possible.  I'm glad that I was able to participate.  It was a great night to be a part of Book Land.

Thank you Chuck, and thank you Zita.

Operation Chuck: Snuff

It's Chuck Eve!  Tomorrow Chuck Palahniuk will take over Jackson, Mississippi, with Lemuria's big Damned book night, and since the World Series features two teams Gianna and I kinda hate (okay, really hate...a lot...like, we'd pay to hit Pujols in his pujols with some baseballs...and let the hate mail begin!), the Damned party is obviously the biggest event of the fall.  I arrived in Jackson 46 minutes ago, checked into the scenic Hilton Garden Inn, possibly glimpsed Chuck in the bar but needed to change into my jammies and didn't want to give Chuck fodder for a sequel to his book about hell, and ordered a room service burger and Diet Coke.  Too much detail?  Damn straight--let's talk about Snuff.


Perhaps it was inevitable that Chuck Palahniuk write a book that's explicitly about the filming of a porn video.  He's all about exposing people to the topics that make them uncomfortable, and I doubt that I'm the only one who's found his, uh, varied description of the male "essence" have perhaps made me celibate for the next ten years.  What other aspect of mass culture is so ubiquitous in private and yet publicly denounced?  I mean, besides the 2011 Gianna-In-Teddies Pin-Up Calendar.  I know that you all received these for your December holiday of choice last year too, right?  Right?

Snuff, just with the title, suggests that some one's dying in this here book about a porn film.  What Snuff is really about, though, is the quest for family, fame, and aging in a culture obsessed with youth and celebrity.  Cassie Wright is a porn goddess who's career is waning, and she agrees to make the, uh, group bonding flick to end all group bonding flicks, to the tune of one Cassie...and 600 dudes.  That's some serious chafing.  The action for the book actually transpires in the green room with the anxious and excited male participants waiting for their...close-ups.  Three gentlemen start as strangers and become intimately (but not in that way, you pervs) entangled as they wait.  One is fellow aging porn legend Branch Bacardi, one is a former TV series detective trying to counter rumors about his personal life, and one is the possible son of Ms. Cassie herself.  Awkward.

Do you know how hard it is to
find pictures to accompany
this book?  You're getting bunnies.

This book is not for the squeamish.  If you squirm when someone says "moist," this is not your book.  If you like to be challenged with your reading, though, Snuff is thought-provoking...and titillating...in that there are boobs.  It's a decidedly unsexy book.  What were you expecting?  Porn?

As for my Operation Chuck quest, I didn't quite make it through all of his books, but let's face it, I probably read more books in the last three weeks than you did.  That whole job thing interrupted my reading marathon.  I'm sorry to disappoint those of you anxiously awaiting thoughts about Pygmy; you'll have to wait until after my sales conference in two weeks.

On a personal, un-Chuck-related note, Gianna and I would love for you to "like" our half-assed Facebook page at Liz and Gianna's Adventures in Book Land, and follow us on Twitter @AdvInBookLand.  Thanks.

Happy Chuck Eve everyone.  Come to the event tomorrow evening at Hal & Mal's in Jackson, meet Chuck, have a cocktail, look at some art, listen to the band, and hang out with the awesome Lemuria booksellers.

Next: Damned

Operation Chuck: Rant

Don't stop me now!  I'm a reading fool and I realized last night that I'd spent too much time immersed in Chuck Palahniuk books when I wasn't shocked by a rabid, time-traveling, possible god.  I was soaking in the tub (too much information?) and had the thought that I could drown there, and I'm pretty sure that thought was either Chuck-related too...or a cry for help.  In any case, the big Damned event at Lemuria in Jackson is this week!  The books arrived there today and the booksellers are planning their costumes for the party.  (I will be wearing...clothes.  I might wear clothes with buttons, though.  It depends on whether I do laundry tonight.)

Latest read in my quest to consume the Chuck Palahniuk oeuvre before Thursday: Rant.  Lots of people warned me about this book.  I think it's supposed to be shocking, but when it's your eighth Chuck book in 2 1/2 weeks, NOTHING is shocking.  I may be sitting here pulling the almonds off the tops of Almond Joy candy bars and calling the nut-free goodness Milky Mounds.  I think I've lost the capacity to feel my toes.

I hate snakes, so I went with another
biting creature. 

Rant is written as an oral history, a format I tend to like because it allows for multiple perspectives on a specific event or person.  The main character is Buster "Rant" Casey, and "rant" in this case is a synonym for barf.  Rant   is a larger-than-life figure akin to those Saturday Night Live "Bill Brasky" sketches (I think that was the name of that character).  He's the crazy kid who considered rattlesnake bites just a rite of passage.  He repeatedly developed rabies.  And he didn't see anything wrong with spreading rabies to his romantic conquests.

After making a name for himself in his hometown, Rant moves to the city.  There are day people and night people here, with curfews enforced.  There's a theme of population control running throughout Rant and the day vs. night tactics are meant to ease excessive growth and traffic.  Rant takes up with nighttimers including a girl named Echo Lawrence.  Echo drives a car in what amounts to a nightly demolition derby, and Rant is a lookout in her cars.  At some point Rant and company discover that time travel is possible and that instead of erasing yourself by interfering with your ancestors in the past a la Back to the Future, one could discover a way to live outside of time in a liminal zone by destroying the grandparents, parents, etc.  You're still alive, but because you have no past you're on a separate plain and basically a god.  (...This is probably a spoiler.  Sorry.)

Rant is a weird book.  I don't like snakes, so I didn't bother to sleep the day/night that I read it.  I feel strange.

Next: Snuff

Operation Chuck: Haunted

Finished books on the left,
Books to go on the right.
Alien in the middle.

Lemuria's Damned event is on Thursday and I have several books to go before meeting Chuck Palahniuk, partying with the Lemuria staff (to the extent that I "party" as a verb...which is not much), and finishing my quest to read a whole lotta Chuck books.

Most recently completed: Haunted.  This one's a bit writer's workshop from hell, a bit Canterbury Tales, a bit critique on the pursuit of fame in America.  The framing story involves a bunch of nicknamed characters (Comrade Snarky, Saint Gut-Free, Director Denial) gathering for a writer's retreat that lasts three months.  The writers are locked in an old theater and tasked with writing their masterpieces in seclusion from the outside world.  The whole thing goes rather Lord of the Flies, though, and the situation becomes a survival of the Hollywood-savviest as writers vie for the most potential screen time in what they imagine will be the movie made of their ordeal.

Along with the framing story, Haunted weaves in poems about characters (again, think Canterbury Tales) and the short stories written by the participants.  Some are harrowing, some are vulgar, and one is the most disgusting story I've ever read.  If you've heard the tales of people fainting at Chuck Palahniuk's public readings, the story that triggered such strong reactions is "Guts."  I didn't faint, but I also didn't want to eat dinner either.  On the other hand, "Guts" is also darkly hilarious.  And nauseating.  This is not your father's Philip Roth masturbation story.

Glow in the dark.  Not good
for bedside tables at 3 am.

Another creepy thing I didn't realize about Haunted: the cover glows in the dark.  That's an image you don't want to see in the middle of the night when you already have sleep difficulties.

I think Haunted is my favorite Chuck book so far.

Next: Rant

Operation Chuck: Choke

Come to the Damned event
at Lemuria!

We're less than a week away from the big Damned event hosted by Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson!  ....And I'm a bit behind in my reading.  I'm picking up the pace in this home stretch.  The books are piled on my coffee table, Zorro's in my lap and his furry little behind makes a great book rest, and I'm cross-eyed and cussing like a Tourettic sailor.  Go ahead, question my sanity.  I'm learning many, many ways to kill people.

The newest addition to the "finished" pile is Choke, arguably Chuck Palahniuk's second most famous book, after Fight Club.  It's the story of Victor Mancini, sex addict, son of a crazy anarchist and (possibly) the big J.C., and habitual choking victim.  Victor is a scoundrel, but rather likable.  He's Sam Rockwell in the movie version.

Choke is a morality tale debating what it means to be a good person, a productive member of society.  On the one hand, Victor scams his restaurant saviors by falsely taking their sympathy and accepting gifts after their near-death interactions.  On the other, he allows these people to feel better about their lives, making them heroes.  Likewise Victor allows all of the old ladies in the nursing home to use him as a target for all the wrongs in their lives.  Molested by a brother seventy years earlier?  Victor will accept responsibility as that brother for the addled lady in the wheelchair.  It's his Christian duty.

Some genuinely funny scenes occur in Choke.  Victor's mother is paranoid about avoiding disasters and peppered throughout the book are codes for fires, deaths, disasters, etc, at stores and hospitals and such.  How to avoid a hijacked plane?  Know the code words.  Gianna and I have a safe word, but it's not exactly the same thing.

I also hereby name Choke the best novel liberally using "Dude" in guy dialogue.

Next: Haunted.  Five days until the event.  

Operation Chuck: Diary

We're a week away from the Lemuria Bookstore event for Chuck Palahniuk, and I'm about....too many books from succeeding in my quest to read all of Chuck's works.  Guess what I'm doing this weekend?  I mean, besides watching baseball playoffs, of course.

I finished Diary a few days ago but was too lazy to post it immediately (and we wanted to post the hilarious bookseller profile for Chris Hoyt--you really should read it if you haven't), and now I'm catching up.  The problem, of course, is that I'm about 250 pages into the next Chuck book and am starting to get Palahniukitis, where all of the characters and plots blend into one twenty-something dude's scatological wet dream.

Here's what I remember:

• Diary is a horror novel in a classic sense, full of deception and psychological terror.  The main character lives on an island and had aspirations of being an artist but instead was working at the local inn.  Her husband, who didn't love her, is in a coma.
• Misty, the main character, is isolated, and the villagers keep bullying her to paint.
• The island was home to two previous great artists, and one of them has left "run before they get you"-type messages all over the place.
• Misty, stupidly, doesn't run.
• There's some kidnapping and torture.
• One must suffer to create art.  Based on this theme, I expect to be the next great pop artist, specializing in portraits of my abusive cat.  Zorro is my blue dog.
• Diary is more subtle and less humorous than the other Chuck books I've read to this point.  It was a nice break from some of the absurdity.

Ah, Sam.  Love you.

Next: Choke.  I know that Sam Rockwell is in the movie version, and I love him.  Also, I will read any book that involves the holy foreskin.  It's my favorite relic.

Operation Chuck: Lullaby

Nothing like spending a rainy weekend reading Chuck Palahniuk.  I've now finished four books in my quest to read the collected works of Chuck before his event at Lemuria Books on October 20th.  I love the chatter on the FaceSpace about my alleged sanity--you are correct to assume that I've lost my mind.

The latest book I've added to the "finished" pile is Lullaby.  I think this book is written by a more mature Chuck that the lesser works (those published by Norton, because Random House pays my rent).  Lullaby is the story of a reporter, Mr. Streator, who is writing a five part story on sudden infant death syndrome.  In his interviews with five distraught families, he discovers that one poem from a certain collection of poetry is found at every home.  After reading this "culling poem" to the child at night as a lullaby, the child never wakes.  It dies, but peacefully.  So begins Mr. Streator's own term as an angel of death and leads to an unlikely road trip to track down copies of the book.

'Read' pile on the left,
'To Be Read' on the right....
Crazy alien thing in the middle.

The highlight of Lullaby for me: As someone who drives about 40,000 miles each year, I listen to the radio many, many hours.  Lullaby's protagonist adamantly opposes the noise pollution of contemporary America.  While on the road trip, the group in the car listens to an obvious parody of Dr. Laura, and with a quick mental recitation of the culling poem, "Dr. Sara" drops dead while on the air.  Everyone should rejoice that I don't have this power over others' lives.

Lullaby  does offer an interesting twist on the idea of censorship.  If the world were to discover that a certain poem could kill if overheard, the idea of free speech would be destroyed for our own safety.  I'm willing to argue that Dr. Laura's books kill and should be destroyed, but otherwise I'm with Chuck; free speech must be protected.

Next: Diary

Operation Chuck: Invisible Monsters

In my quest to read the assorted works of Chuck Palahniuk before he makes an appearance at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi, on October 20th (Go to the event!  Buy a book from them!  Buy 12!  Keep me employed! ...Subtle?), I am officially reporting that I've now completed three books.  The latest was Invisible Monsters.  This one was about transgendered wannabe super-models, hideous self-inflicted disfigurement in the name of beauty, and the joys of revenge and stealing pharmaceuticals from open houses.

Give me outrage.
Flash.

I did like the structure of Invisible Monsters.  Much like Fight Club used the "I am Jack's ruptured colon"-type transitions to convey the protagonist's emotional state, Invisible Monsters utilized the photographer's hypothetical instructions to a model to convey the anti-heroine's feelings.  Anti-heroine, you ask?  Yep.  I pretty much found all of the characters in this book to be shallow and generally horrible...monstrous, if you will.  I think that's the point.

Give me a general sense of bewilderment.
Flash.


I wonder if anyone in a Chuck Palahniuk universe has a "normal" job and isn't addicted to a substance of some sort.  Perhaps like the movie American Beauty, Palahniuk's point is that their is no average family, average person, that everyone is secretly a psychic prostitute or transgender beauty queen wannabe or white collar weekend warrior with rage issues.  In this way Chuck's books seem unrealistic, but deliberately so.  They are modern fairy tales of a sort, or cautionary tales.

Give me hilarious exaggeration.
Flash.

One of my favorite scenes in Invisible Monsters involved one of the worst Christmases ever.  The main character's older brother runs away after their parents discover he's gay and throw him out of the house.  Later someone calls the house to say that the brother has died of AIDS.  The parents swing the other way, suddenly becoming PFLAG supporters and activists for gay rights.  Their whole world becomes gay rights.  And for Christmas, because their focus is still entirely their dead gay son even years later, they decide to give their daughter....condoms.  Lots and lots of boxes of condoms.  Condoms for every sort of sexual encounter you can imagine.  And they proceed to describe the benefits and sexual experiences suitable for the various types of rubbers.  It's "the talk" on steroids.  This scene is pure awkward, comic genius.

Give me total mental collapse.
Flash.


I keep reminding myself that the Operation Chuck challenge was my idea.  It's been an experience thus far, to say the least.  I'm diving into what I will consider Chuck's greater works now, in that they are the ones published by Random House.  I am a corporate whore.  I'm not ashamed.

Next: Lullaby

Operation Chuck: Survivor

As I mentioned in the first "Operation Chuck" post, I took it upon myself to read all the Chuck Palahniuk novels I hadn't previously read before Chuck's major event at Lemuria Bookstore on October 20th....which meant that I would be reading ALL of Chuck's books.  I read most of Survivor while flying to Denver for the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association trade show in Denver on Saturday morning.

Here are some observations about Survivor:

• It's probably not the wisest choice to read a book that basically uses a hijacked and crashing plane as its setting.  The protagonist, Tender Branson, is telling his life story to the little black box.  I'm going to choose to believe that the reason I was patted down even after going through the porno scanning machines at airport security was because Survivor was in my book bag.  This assumption, though, would suggest that the TSA agents were surprisingly literate, and I admittedly am snobby about the intellectual capacities of airport security personnel.
• It's also probably not the wisest choice to read a book about religious cults and fanaticism when sitting next to the woman who was reading over my shoulder on the plane.  She kept tsking every time she saw words like "penis" or "cult" or "porno landfill."  And this is why I own an iPod.
• I learned how to clean stains out of my microwave!  Thanks, Chuck!
• Survivor is hilarious in places, and generally a fairly shrewd critique of religious fanaticism in the US in all its forms, from fundamentalist sects with suicide pacts to football culture and Super Bowl worship.  It also questions the media-driven mechanics of modern religion.  Think about modern "church" leaders like Joel Osteen who have covers on magazines and billboards promoting their latest books, yet don't actually talk about spiritual doctrines.
• I LOVED the book allegedly written for ex-cult member and spiritual guide Tender Branson, Inc, called The Book of Very Common Prayer.  Prayers not to go bald, prayers to delay sexual release, prayers for good parking spots.  This is first rate satire.  I actually know people who pray for parking spots.  

I liked Survivor.  

Blind faith...hello Chuck!

Next up: Invisible Monsters