Street: You've had a lot of criticism from people who call you a "shock writer." What do you think about being called that?
Chuck Palahniuk: I consider myself a romantic. There've been fight clubs before my book - they existed during the Depression. I just wrote about it, published it and put a copyright on it. I don't feel bad about that. And I don't think my stories have sad endings. I can't imagine happier endings for any of them. Maybe [upcoming release] Pygmy will have a happier ending, but hey, I grew up in the '70s: Rocky loses, Serpico dies, Saturday Night Fever - he wins but it turns out he shouldn't have won because it was fixed, the child of Satan is born to the president of the United States.
Street: You say a lot of your tales are true stories you've heard in different circles. Are these circles of college students?
CP: The truth is, everyone's life seems to just get boring after college. What happens to us? Like I said in Fight Club, if you work five days a week, Monday through Friday, it's only fair you plan a few hours of chaos into your lives. I think that's why people like drugs. You can plan it, arrange it and then have three hours of chaos. That's why my group of writers and I spend time to go out into the world to play pranks on people.
Street: What's it like seeing actors playing your characters on screen?
CP: It's like watching people doing impersonations of friends you have. It's great to see famous people reenacting things that happened to my friends, and my friends are just thrilled that someone was paying attention at the time.
Street: How did it feel to get published for the first time?
CP: The first hundred "no's" were exciting, but by the time I actually got published, it wasn't about that for me anymore. It was about actually doing something which I love, which is a helpful thing to have practiced when you start to write another story, and then another one.
Street: How does the press junket for Choke compare to the press junket for Fight Club?
CP: This is a hundred times the press junket for Fight Club. I'm going from place to place without getting to hear from the people I meet. It's just me, telling my stories over and over again, rehearsing them, beta-testing them. I can't believe how much it's been.
Street: Some people see you as a kind of Hunter S. Thompson. How do you feel when it comes to choosing between solitary writer and public figure?
CP: I think Hunter S. Thompson was known for rebelling, but if you keep standing against things, and standing against everything, there isn't much left you can actually stand for.
