180 – Chuck Palahniuk & What Kind of Sex Do You Want?

Talking Scared

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Yes I put sex in the title to make you download it. Did it work?

It shouldn’t be necessary, ‘cos this week’s guest is an absolute literary icon. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, Haunted, Lullaby, Choke, and last year’s Not Forever, But For Now – a writer who helped shape the nihilism and extremity of 90s and noughties fiction. The man who makes people faint with his short stories.

He’s here, talking to us!

In this conversation Chuck and I roam all over the blasted map of his fiction. We talk about transgression and provocation, about extremity in life and story, about bad reviews, toxic interviews and toxic masculinity. And yes, we talk about “Guts.”

This was a privilege. I hope you are shocked and appalled.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

• Fight Club (1996) by Chuck Palahniuk
• Haunted (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Lullaby (2002), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Diary (2003), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Adjustment Day (2018), by Chuck Palahniuk
• Cold Comfort Farm (1932), by Stella Gibbons
• Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
• “The Lottery” (1948), by Shirley Jackson
• Interview with the Vampire (1976), by Anne Rice
• Geek Love (1989), by Katherine Dunn
• Most Delicious Poison: From Spice to Vices – The Story of Nature’s Toxins (2023), by Noah Whiteman
• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca

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