Chuck Palahniuk

Provocateur author Chuck Palahniuk is synonymous with Fight Club, arguably one of the most important novels of the last 20 years. True, many more people have seen that 1999 movie than have read any of Palahniuk’s books since, but that might be because it’s hard to keep up with his output: In the last 10 years, he’s released nine novels and three collections of essays and short stories, nearly all of which can be seen as an attempt to outdo himself both in transgressive subject matter and how he tackles it. His latest, Damned, is a fictional, first-person perspective through Palahniuk’s version of hell, narrated by 13-year-old Madison Spencer, who finds herself in the netherworld after a marijuana overdose. Palaniuk will read from Damned here.

Updated 10/19/2011