Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories

by Chuck Palahniuk

Book Overview

Chuck Palahniuk's world has been, well, different from yours and mine. The pieces that comprise Non-Fiction prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Encounters... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385504489
• ISBN13: 9780385504485
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 233 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

couldn't get past the first chapter

NOT my 'cup of tea'...couldn't get past the first chapter and never bothered to finish it....

Love it!

Love it!

Possibly Chuck's best

I know a lot of people mainly read Chuck's fiction, but I have to say that I consider this to be right up there with fight club as possibly his best work. It is as entertaining as his novels but possibly better, because of the reality to these stories.

Interesting takes from an uncanny observer

I was fascinated by the level of thinking that went into the movie FIGHT CLUB. It motivated me to read Palahniuk's novel which was the film's basis. The thinking, the cleverness, was there too. And though the novel was extreme, on the verge of being sci-fi or a futurist fable, there was something quite plausible about it as well. The emotional jadedness, the fear of emasculation, the fakery by which the nameless main character lived out his life all seemed quite authentic. I was genuinely intrigued by what Palahniuk had created and made a mental note to read more by this author. STRANGER THAN FICTION is a collection of articles written by Palahniuk for a variety of magazines. If you're fascinated by the "fight club" phenomenon, you'll find some satisfying glimpses into that story's little sojourn into Hollywoodland and the popular consciousness scattered among these articles. But even more so, STRANGER THAN FICTION offers glimpses into the absurdities, shallowness, and violence that constitute the end-of-the-millennium, life-in-America backdrop for that novel: the world of amateur wrestling ("Where Meat Comes From"), conferences where writers have seven minutes to pitch their stories to agents, publishers, or movie producers ("You Are Here"), a demolition derby in Washington State for combine drivers ("Demolition"), people obsessed with building medieval castles in the late 20th century U.S.A. ("Confessions in Stone"), users of steroids ("Frontiers"), the homoerotic nature of life on a submarine ("The People Can"), and an amateur rocket-maker seeking to win a ten million dollar prize being offered to the first private group to put a rocket into the atmosphere ("Human Error"). My favorite pieces, however, were the longer ones gathered in the "Portraits" section: actress Juliette Lewis ("In Her Own Words"), gay editor and political observer Andrew Sullivan ("Why Isn't He Budging?"), shock-artist Marilyn Manson ("Reading Yourself"), and Michelle Keating, a handler of rescue dogs ("Bodhisattvas"). What you get from Palahniuk consistently is a vision of people coping--one way or another, but coping nonetheless. And in an end-of-the millennium sort of way, this is the closest any of us is likely to get to hope. As Palahniuk says of himself in "Almost California", a self-mocking description of his visit to 20th Century Fox when FIGHT CLUB was in development, "That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because you can't control life, at least you can control your version."

great book

This was the first nonfiction book that I read of Mr. Palahniuk's and it was great!! I loved that the stories were so random but each one of them had my undivided attention. The book got me so intrigued in subjects I didn't even knew existed like the demolition derby. Fantastic book.

A Little out of the Ordinary

If you are looking for that book to fill the void after reading, or even watching "Fight Club" the movie, well this book is not for you. I was miss led at first also. I was really looking forward to the next great fiction novel from Chuck after "Diary". Once I read a few pages I just had to change my perspective a bit to understand where this was coming from. I truely connected with all the stories some how. Not everyone will though. I do look forward to the next adventure with Chuck...

B-Side Stories...

From the author whose novels have always focused on people out of the mainstream, "Stranger Than Fiction" is a collection of essays/stories/articles that focus on real-life weirdos and other non-conformists.- Demolition Derby drivers that crash around in farm combines.- Amateur wrestlers trying out for the Olympics- Men who build castles- Disaster rescue people and their dogs- etc...While most of the pieces are very good, there are a couple weak spots, most of which consist of the person just talking and very little writing by Chuck. I am a fan of his writing style and would have liked to see more of that instead of those couple interviews. My guess is that they were just thrown in to fill out the book.I gave it 5 stars because of those 6-8 pieces that I really liked (worth the book price alone).If you like this book, check out "Fugitives and Refugees", also by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a collection of pieces and lists about his hometown of Portland, Oregon.