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Stranger Than Fiction True Stories Chuck Palahniuk Books

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Stranger Than Fiction True Stories Chuck Palahniuk Books

From Americans building their own castles, to search and rescue dogs in Honduras, to male escorts, and to stories behind the scenes of filming the movie Fight Club, this collection of non-fiction journalistic articles and essays is a panoply of personal candor. With the exception of "Fugitives and Refugees", I have read all of Chuck Palahniuk's books. This was the last of them. In it, I felt like Chuck opened up about himself and I got to see the type of person he is. Sure he's got a fascination with the gross, but his primary concern seems to be with those people who feel they are on the fringes of what mainstream media deems normal behavior. He had a great interview with Juliette Lewis and another one with Marilyn Manson. Both interviews paint very intimate pictures of two creative and beautiful artists in their own right. You also get to read about some startling coincidences between his grandfather and father's deaths that surely have shaped his worldview. This is an indispensable read for all Palahniuk fans.


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Stranger Than Fiction True Stories Chuck Palahniuk Books Reviews

Not digging this. Half way through the book and I keep hoping something will capture me. It's all just to 'Telly' - no show, no making me think, no wowing me, like Palahniuk usually does. At the least I was hoping for some 'how to write' guidance through great stories, but all I've gotten so far is 'how not to'. I suppose, sometimes, that is the most you can hope for!
This collection of short stories is the dark, quirky, word play one would expect from Chuck. These deeply personal stories captivate the imagination.
Chuck Palahniuk out-does his own fiction writing, (which can be strange at times) with this collection of "True" stories.
Any fan of Chuck will appreciate this book. It lives up to it's title, and delivers it's helping of strange and obscure topics.
One of these topics is masturbation. And, he has much to say about this, including the reactions of the listeners when he read this story at bookstores around the world. And, let's not exclude the "Testicle Festival," the yearly event near Massoula Montana, that includes public nakedness, sex, and debauchery of all sorts. And, of course, the consumption of fried bull testicles. (dipped in ranch dressing)
So, get on...hold on tight. You may wish you hadn't, but, then again, if you are already familiar with Chuck's work, you probably would expect no less.
Chuck is one of my three favorite authors, but this book is super dated and a bit trite. It has it's moments and is a fast read,but is the least of all his books. Reading it in 2009, his interviews with Juliette Lewis and, especially, Marilyn Manson are passe and ridiuculous. Repeated comments by him and others that they don't watch television are smug and supercilious.

Yet it has some quick entertainment value and fascination. I can never quite figure out Chuck's pov. For example, his interview with Juliette Lewis seems to be a completely positive puff piece about a personal friend, but then he seems to let her hang herself by simply quoting truly absurd Scientology comment she makes.

Interviews with Marilyn Manson and the Rocket Guy are just so out of date, it is worthless to read unless you want to relive the stupid spectacle, both pro and con, of Marilyn Manson's career. I wish I could recall the program which featured a MM imitator going house to house trying to "shock" people. it was dead on.
I went on a Palahniuk binge and loved most of the novels I read. This collection of nonfiction pieces is a big miss though. It feels thrown together, less than complete, and really outdated (i.e. an interview with Juliette Lewis that is there for no reason whatsoever). Stick to his fiction.
Being a fan of the movie, "Fight Club", I decided to check out some of Palahniuk's other work. I didn't want to start with the, "Fight Club" book because I've already seen the movie and wanted to start with something new.

So I picked this one. The reason being, I was interested in the person behind the movie phenomenon.

At first, I was pretty happy. "Stranger Than Fiction" reads like the narrator talks in "Fight Club". This was pleasing at first because the first couple of stories really piqued my interest, not just for the narration, but because they were stories that I truly enjoyed. Palahniuk's insight in the first "story" was spot on, I could relate to it - and the insight in regard to writer's conferences I could relate to, as I'm a writer myself but have never even attempted to publish one of the many novels I've penned although that's soon to change.

Further, the story about the combine derby sounded like fun to me and was well described. Monkey See, Monkey Do was pretty scary, but things I've already assumed were true.

Unfortunately, the rest was rather dull. While I do find it interesting that people have built their own castles from scratch, or are attempting launching themselves into space, it just wasn't that much fun to read about here.

Furthermore, some of these stories just did not interest me at all. I'm now convinced that Juliette Lewis is a complete idiot, even though I've never paid much attention to her in the past. Hearing her ramblings peppered with a series of questions that she asks people made me want to reach out and smack her, and the story of Marilyn Manson using Tarot cards just didn't do it for me. I could have appreciated them some what had they been written from Palahniuk's perspective - how he felt or what he got out of conversing with these people. But it isn't, these "portraits" as they're called in the book completely leave Palahniuk out of the picture, and might as well have been written by the celebrities in question, in a room by themselves. This didn't shed much light on Chuck for me.

Last but not least, I was a bit dissatisfied that Palahniuk's personal experiences and insight later in the book is not really stranger than fiction. As a matter of fact, he talks about things that most of us already realize and understand, but just don't think about that often. The creative element is missing here (which is fine in a non-fiction work) but profound experiences do not take the place of the creative writing. What we're left with is a lot of boring reading with some parts here and there that really talk to us, and being that such a wide range of topics are covered, there is bound to be something you can really appreciate about this work.

Having said that, most of it will likely leave most people bored. I tried to think of a better word other than, "boring" but none are more appropriate. However, the good parts were good enough to have me plow through the book in less than 2 days, looking forward to the next part I could relate to.

If you're just starting off with Palahniuk, I'd take my chances with a different work. If you've read his other stuff and like him, then you won't be completely disappointed here if you're a fan already. I score it 3 out of 5.
From Americans building their own castles, to search and rescue dogs in Honduras, to male escorts, and to stories behind the scenes of filming the movie Fight Club, this collection of non-fiction journalistic articles and essays is a panoply of personal candor. With the exception of "Fugitives and Refugees", I have read all of Chuck Palahniuk's books. This was the last of them. In it, I felt like Chuck opened up about himself and I got to see the type of person he is. Sure he's got a fascination with the gross, but his primary concern seems to be with those people who feel they are on the fringes of what mainstream media deems normal behavior. He had a great interview with Juliette Lewis and another one with Marilyn Manson. Both interviews paint very intimate pictures of two creative and beautiful artists in their own right. You also get to read about some startling coincidences between his grandfather and father's deaths that surely have shaped his worldview. This is an indispensable read for all Palahniuk fans.