From Chuck Palahniuk, the bestselling author of "Fight Club" and "Diary," a collection of essays and journalistic pieces that proves real life has imagination beaten cold in the strangeness and wonder departments. The pieces that comprise his first nonfiction collection, prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling, his world has always been. Each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of our most flagrantly daring and original literary talents. [Doubleday Books]
Critic Reviews
|
Favorable
|
Booklist John Green
But the best narratives here--particularly a lengthy one on Americans who build European-style castles--show Palahniuk's deep compassion for oddballs and misfits, a hard-boiled kindness for which his fans revere him. [15 May 2004, p.1591]
|
|
Favorable
|
Kirkus Reviews
Dolorous yet exhilarating dispatches from the edge.
|
|
Favorable
|
Los Angeles Times Carmela Ciuraru
It's the autobiographical material that proves most compelling. Yet Palahniuk's voice is so distinctive and intimate -- he writes as though he is recounting a great story to a close friend -- that even the slighter pieces are full of wonderful moments.
|
|
Favorable
|
PopMatters Stephen Rauch
So in the end, the lives and stories documented here are actually pretty inspirational. Wholesome, even. The people involved in whatever it is they are doing come out okay. Even when they don't.
|
|
Favorable
|
Publishers Weekly
Palahniuk's fans will undoubtedly revel in the secrets the author reveals. Newcomers might initially feel queasy, but they're likely to warm up to his visceral prose.
|
|
Favorable
|
The Globe And Mail [Toronto]
The first collection of non-fiction by the author of "Fight Club" and "Choke" brings Palahniuk's fearless style to a series of fascinating and sometimes unsettling encounters.
|
|
Favorable
|
The New York Times Janet Maslin
Mr. Palahniuk's candor and humor can get him through just about anything; each piece here is studded with small but priceless grace notes from an exceptionally droll and sharp-eyed observer.
|
|
Mixed
|
San Francisco Chronicle Andrew Roe
But despite the interesting subjects and subject matter, several of the portraits start to sputter after a while. The problem is that Palahniuk has trouble rendering these people and places vividly enough.
|
|
Mixed
|
Boston Globe Barbara Fisher
A guy's guy, he is mostly interested in himself.
|
|
Mixed
|
Chicago Sun-Times Stephen J. Lyons
The results are mixed. More than narrative or scene construction, observation and subject selection are the hallmarks of a Palahniuk fact piece.
|
|
Unfavorable
|
The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
But as with "Fugitives And Refugees," the genre's standards often get in the way, leaving individual installments feeling detached and aloof, or simply like rote reportage.
|
|
Terrible
|
Entertainment Weekly Noah Robischon
Chapters about Palahniuk's murderous grandfather and his fondness for Brad Pitt's lips should sate biographical completists. Everyone else will wonder why Palahniuk is more obsessed with his first novel than his next.
|
|
