Sept. 12: ‘Fight Club’ author Chuck Palahniuk talks temporary face tattoos, flying candy bars and his new book

PORTSMOUTH, NH – With more than 20 books to his name, Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most acclaimed authors of the past 30 years. Casual fans most likely know him from his books Fight Club, Choke and Invisible Monsters, with the first two being made into mainstream motion pictures. His work has centered on a wide array of topics, subjects and storylines, with his most recent book having a satirical sense of macabre serving as the undertone. It’s titled Not Forever, But For Now and it just came out September 5. As part of a string of appearances in support of the book, Palahniuk is going to be at The Music Hall in Portsmouth on September 12 at 7 p.m.

We had a talk ahead of the appearance about the theme behind Not Forever, But For Now, the headshot he took to accompany the book’s release, his unique structural approach to writing and throwing candy at people who look at their phones.

Rob Duguay: Not Forever, But For Now is a black comedy about a family of professional killers and a pair of brothers who are bound to take over the family business. How did you get the idea for the book to have this theme?

Chuck Palahniuk: My intention originally is always about structure and in this case, I wanted to write what they would call a “cozy mystery.” It’s typically a book set in England or Ireland where somebody gets slaughtered in a village and the most unlikely person has to solve this grizzly crime, so structurally that’s how I started out. Unconsciously, I was kind of exploring empire and how a small number of people live a fantastically wonderful life based on the death and suffering of everybody else.

RD: That’s an interesting concept. Is there any story behind the photo of you accompanying the book’s release with you wearing a black hoodie while having face tattoos?

CP: I worked with a friend to have that taken, we set it up a million years ago. Author photos have always kind of struck me as an ultimate assurance to the reader that the author is something different and that a freaky book had a very conventional person behind it. These photos usually look like realtor photos, they’re kind of like glamour shots in real estate ads. We just wanted to set up this photo that had the pathos I’ve always seen in these mugshots of people online who have these face and neck tattoos. It’s this combination of clown, a menacing predator and a very regretful person, this combination of power and suffering has always been very engaging to me.

RD: Throughout your career, your books have covered various topics ranging from dual personalities to death cults and to sex addiction among others. When it comes to writing new material, does the inspiration come from a variety of places from your everyday life or is it more of a mental thing where ideas randomly come to mind?

CP: It’s always the kind of freedom of my conscious, or subconscious. Once I establish a structure, it sort of frees my mind, I’ll say that. It’s kind of like when I’m washing dishes or taking a shower, I’m performing a task and the task keeps my conscious mind occupied so my subconscious can present what it wants to present. That’s where Fight Club came from, I knew that I wanted to do something with rules so I sat down and I arbitrarily dreamt up seven different rules. Once I had that structure, it allowed my subconscious to write the rest of the book.

RD: With this structure that you’ve been talking about, how do you go about forming it in your mind? Do you let your imagination run through while making up some rules for yourself or do you get inspired by other procedures and approaches?

CP: I always start with a non-fiction structure. With the rules in Fight Club, the oral history of my book Rant or the fourth step in addiction where you have to create a ruthless history of your addiction, which I used in my book Choke, I always used a non-fiction structure because it lends me an authority and a gravity that I don’t normally give myself. It gives me permission to tell a story that my subconscious is going to tell.

RD: It’s very intriguing that you have this approach. Speaking of Fight Club and Choke, you’ve had both of these books get made into feature films, with the former becoming a cult classic. When it comes to your work being put forth into a different medium like film, what are your thoughts on it? Do you feel bothered when what you think is an important part is left out due to constraints or when the underlying message is ignored?

CP: When a book of mine gets put into a film or another creative piece, it’s kind of funny and affirming because in a way my books are recordings of the events of my life and the things that people have told me. Once I record them, they become parts of other people’s lives and it’s a fulfillment and a completion when they’re echoed back to me.

RD: What are your thoughts on Fight Club’s status with it having a cult following, a fanbase and a niche all around both the film and the book?

CP: Well, I gotta be very happy about it because it’s the book that bought me my freedom from sitting at a desk working at a shop job. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that, I’m just really happy about it.

RD: With this upcoming appearance at The Music Hall in support of your new book, what can people expect from it without giving too much away?

CP: Ever since I was a bus boy and a dishwasher at the age of 14 in a diner at a truck stop, I have always felt that it’s my responsibility to have fun at whatever job I found myself doing. I wasn’t going to suffer through work for the rest of my life, so ultimately for this tour, I set it up by shipping out all these props and prizes to every venue. We play games, there’s a Q&A, I tell stories and I throw bags of candy at the audience, especially the ones I’ll see on their telephones. I’ll try to hit them with a thing of candy bars and it’s just a whole bunch of stuff flying through the air.

Tickets are available here for Chuck Palahniuk at The Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, NH. Sept. 12. Show starts 7 p.m.