[I ordinarily don't repost my Goodreads reviews, but I think this one would interest a great deal of people. And so I'm not just doing this once today, I will do so again shortly. I have two more reviews to write this morning before I head out into the world for my meds and comic books. Here's the first one.]
I bought this expecting an autobiography. And it is, indeed, that. It is also an excellent book on writing for people who are just starting out. I'd put it right up there with Tom Piccirilli's Welcome to Hell. One problem: he's a minimalist, and his writing advice is mostly for writers who want to be minimalists. I believe less is better, and sometimes it's the things that are left unsaid during the process that turn out to be the most important. But I'm not a minimalist. Regardless, there is some great advice for beginners in here. "What's your gun?" is a great question for struggling writers to think about. "Did you put a clock in?" is another. Great stuff.
What I really enjoyed, though, are the parts that most authors who do books on writing, from Stephen King to Richard Laymon, don't tell you about the profession. Like, taking your author photo, for example. Because it is kind of important for readers to know what you look like. Personally, and I think Palahniuk would agree with me, the writer should be invisible. You should never know you're actually reading a book, contrary to all logical sense. The moment the author is discovered, suspension of disbelief is gone. But people care. They want to see the monster who wrote Diary and Lullaby. And Dong of Frankenstein, for that matter, I guess. (It should be noted that his author photo for this book shows him with a shaved head and a face covered in tattoos. I really hoped he'd gotten those tattoos for real. He's a weird dude, and I wouldn't put it past him. Alas, in the book he said they were temporary tats. Ah well.) My favorites are the postcards from the tour sections. The white mice story is flat out insane, and what the perpetrators said on their protest signs is absolutely mortifying. I would not have taken that as well as Palahniuk did. And I love his story about the guy who worked at the sex shop with the Polaroids.
Confession time. I've met Palahniuk twice. Once in Skokie as he was doing his Haunted tour. The second was in Naperville when he said he was on tour for his new collection of short stories, but he was really there to promote issue one of Fight Club 2. (Irvine Welsh was also there and did a reading.) That second experience was amazing. Palahniuk threw bags of candy into the crowd, and one of them nailed me in the stomach and nearly bowled me over. And the autographed limbs he discusses in this book? I got one of those, too. It bounced off the hand of a guy two rows in front of me, and I snatched it as it rebounded back to me. Incidentally, Palahniuk has one of the most elaborate autographs I've ever seen, right up there with Stephen King. As compared to, say, Brian Azzarello who signs with a legible A followed by a straight line that may end in an O. Possibly.
That was an amazing experience. I still have my beachball somewhere. But that first time bordered on profound. There, as he does in the book, he talks about how the last guy in line is a wild card. You never know what they're going to say. The Polaroid guy, for example, was the last guy in line. Palahniuk also told us that people see him as a confessor because if he could write a story like "Guts," then he's not going to judge you for anything.
I was the last guy in line for the Skokie event. I had time to read the entirety of Survivor, and I still had a lot of time before I got to meet the man himself. Knowing that I was the last guy in line, I decided I had to say something to him. Something he'd never heard before. But what? Nothing could beat the Polaroid guy, right? But I had that time, and I did remember something about a book signing I'd attended a couple of years previous.
So I got up to the man himself, who stood at a lectern where he signed books. I had all of them that were out at the time (except Choke, which I couldn't find in my collection for some reason). I introduced myself and as he started signing that first book (Fight Club, I think), I told him that I believed it was my solemn duty, as the last guy in line, to confess something to him.
I asked him, "Have you ever seen the Kevin Smith film, Mallrats?"
He said he hasn't.
"Have you at least heard of the concept of stinkpalming?"
I saw a change come over his face. While he still signed, he didn't look me in the eye. He kept looking down like he was getting ready to take mental notes.
"I once went to a signing at a Borders, and it was Oliver North promoting his new fictional war book. I don't like him. If he'd only rolled on Mr. I-Don't-Recall, I think our country would have been in a better place. So at first I had no interest in meeting him. But then I realized that I could stinkpalm him."
If you're unfamiliar, stinkpalming is when you put your right hand in your butt on a hot sweaty day and just let the smell bury itself into your flesh. Then you shake the hand of your enemy, and it will sink into his skin, too. And it doesn't wash off for days. For days, his hand will smell like your butt. Sure, yours will, too, but as Brody said, "It's a small price for the smiting of an enemy." So I told Palahniuk that's what I did to Ollie North.
Then, pausing his pen over the last book in the pile, Haunted, he asked me, in the mildest possible voice I have ever heard, "You didn't stinkpalm me, did you?"
I assured him that I liked him a lot, and I would never do that to him. An almost imperceptible relief came over his face as he signed the last book and rubber stamped it. The stamp proclaimed that this was his Shit and Roses Tour.
I thanked him and left and years later read this book. I'm kinda disappointed I didn't make the cut. Ah well. This long and rambling review is just to advise you that if you were my student, I would have you read this book and consider this.
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