Official Synopsis For 'Damned,' The New Novel

she dies of a marijuana overdose..?

My exact thoughts, mydoe. I suppose it's meant to be humorous.

I haven't read a Palahniuk book since DIARY, but this looks like maybe something I'd read. It sounds surprisingly Bizaro. I guess it all depends on his style though, because PYGMY was something I was all excited for, until I learned the prose was bullshit.

I think he is having fun with the whole Young Adult thing.

I do hope the overdose is meant to be funny. Sounds super fun outside of that tid-bit. And it's not "one of his longest," vague as that comment is. Survivor is 289, Choke, 293, just to name a couple. Actually, Fight Club is the only one that comes to mind that's shorter, closer to 200. What's with the lies, Random House?

Can't wait to read it regardless of length!!!

Tell-All was less than 200.

I guess it all depends on his style though, because PYGMY was something I was all excited for, until I learned the prose was bullshit.

I wouldn't say the prose is bullshit. It's genius.

Instead of guessing - check it out for yourself.

I did check it out; I read about 1/3rd of the book before I put it down. I get the idea he had, sure. But I found the gimick annoying and too impractical for me to continue.

so, hes just remaking the breakfast club? maybe i'll just save my money this time. i mean christ, even the synopsis says its a remake...

The marijuana overdose is probably just going to end up being her passed out and then she'll wake up 4 hours later and realize it was all just a nightmare. I'm calling it.

if this wasnt a chuck book, and i hadnt read pygmy, or tell-all, i would scold you.

October 18th? ...the fuck?!

i've got lullaby, rant, diary, choke, survivor, haunted, and invisible monsters on the shelf next to me and they are all over 256. I think 256 is a pretty average length as far as chuck's novels go.
I've got total faith in this next novel. only chuck could have his main character die from something like a marijuana over dose and keep the reader from rolling their eyes. If you don't like the synopsis remember that it was posted by random house and that they can't even count the number of pages in a chuck book, so how can we expect them to summarize the plot of one.

I could barely get through the synopsis, let alone bother with the whole book. Fuck. He's having a laugh, isn't he? Isn't he?

This is ridiculous. In the very worst way possible.

I absolutely agree. I will admit that I was skeptical about Pygmy at first but it just took a little getting used to. It was genius. Chuck is genius, if you're a true fan of his, you can see the value and the reason in everything he writes.

I am always excited for anything new from Chuck, and I'm sure he won't disappoint

* btw that comment was mean to be a reply to soap's comment

She's 11 and dies of a marijuana overdose? Eleven? Hmmmm.

I think I will check Damned out though.

He wrote a few pretty good books a long time ago. He is by no means a genius. And Pygmy was one of the worst books I've ever read. Worse than Angels and Demons. Not as bad a Snuff, though.

Well put GsullivanNY, couldn't agree more. Scuba, I'm not sure you could compare Angels and Demons to anything Chucky wrote. Apples and oranges friend, rather apples and hockey sticks might be a closer analogy.

I bet Madison went to hell because she had nothing better to do, as it turns out.

Step One

Take deep breaths

The nice thing about a dick is that you know one when you see one.

wow, some of the comments..on Chuck's site..without even reading the work. Of course, you've never read anything all the way through, not every word. Slackers is too cool a term for you.

why post at all? post-junkies. Run a-ways. Orphans of culture. Let's just start calling them Annie (no offense to the adopted of us).

Once your writing is read by thousands, then judge, and I'll read.

Chuck, looking forward to Damned. I'm sure lots of us care.

because you read much more practical novles like..what? Please define the opposite of prcatical.

wow how time passes and we matter little every day

First off I am a huge fan and will always be. I'll buy this preorder, and I'll read it the day it arrives. That said, I really haven't appreciated anything since Haunted to the point that it garnered multiple reads, and if you can judge a book by its back cover, I'm not what you'd call excited for this release either. Yet I am. Perplexing isn't it? I want it right this second. But why? Chuck's work has taken on a collect them all action figure sort of aesthetic to me. Small, brightly colored, uniformly dimensioned, and the prose just as constructed, formulaic, and so tightly reigned in as to present a message wholly without nuance. Imagine how difficult that is to do. I surmise that Chuck, as a minimalist crusader, has given himself challenges to do the most with the least amount of tools, and that is surely an impressive feat.

But as a reader I'd rather see him take a couple years to write something of thicker substance and page count. I can easily relate to the braying above about a lack of originality in this synopsis, the convenient pairing of teen cliches, and the plot twist lurking, daring us to ignore it, and after the disappointment of Tell-All who can blame them? That book simply did not appeal in either tone or aesthetic to the typical Palahniuk fan who are looking for shock, awe, currently relevant sociopolitical subversion, and loads of quotable moments.

This will entertain me for a day. Is a day worth the $16.47 I'll pay for this on Amazon? I'm betting Yes. But I worry on how he portrays each stereotyped kid, because flat puppet is going to offend a lot of young readers that identify with one or the other.

frounfelter,

you said, "The nice thing about a dick is that you know one when you see one."

If noticing that one of my favorite authors stopped making good books 9 years ago, then I guess you can call me a dick.

you wrote, "wow, some of the comments..on Chuck's site..without even reading the work. Of course, you've never read anything all the way through, not every word. Slackers is too cool a term for you."

I've read a lot of books. To continue doing so, I put down books that aren't worth the time. Life's to short to read PYGMY and TELL ALL over and over, or even once, if i'm concerned. [now, something like CHOKE, FIGHT CLUB, SURVIVOR? yeah. I've read those multiple times, always will. LULLABY, too.]

you wrote, "Once your writing is read by thousands, then judge, and I'll read."

and this makes no sense. My writing has to be read by other people for me to be able to form an opinion on another authors writing? what? no.

you wrote, "Chuck, looking forward to Damned. I'm sure lots of us care."

and I'm sure lots do, which is why he's allowed to write a shit book every year and make bank -- there are fans willing to read his books, regardless if he focused and put his talent into it. Or, I don't know. Maybe he is putting eveyrthing he has into it, and he's not just doing a cash grab like I think. But then that's even more depressing of a thought, because that means that he actually turned into a bad author.

Success has a way of creating complacency, and complacency is the death of angsty art. And he built his career on pure angst.

The Breakfast Club was the first thing I thought about also.

Palachuck Inferno. I like it.

I read all of Palahniuk works so far, except FUGITIVES, and TELL ALL.

I really enjoyed PYGMY and connect with the character ergo the story (maybe because I am not a United states citizen). English is not my first language so, I like how it is written, and I have been to the states for quite a time on holidays in order to understand how pygmy feels . At the same time I think It should have ended in dispatch 35 And that Dispatch 36 is completely "de mas". An open ended book would have been more funny, and less a happy ended book. Its my opinion. I think that Its undeniable that it is not his early work. Should it be like those works? I don't think that Chuck is a worst writer that his early self. Also think that INVISIBLE, FIGHT CLUB, CHOKE are his best work. I think it just means that he tries different things in his books. I think that at least he does not repeat himself over and over again. I don' t got into TELL ALL, I am not very fond of the way it is written with the constant name tourette al over the book , I am sure that if I were more into 50 hollywood films I would enjoy it more, but I Can see how somebody would not connect with the prose in PYGMY and do connect with TELL ALL. Maybe I would do that connection with the book on some years, maybe not. But i think that this DAMNED book will be a funny one. I was re reading INVISIBLE MONSTERS and HAUNTED and those are, over everything else, undeniable funny books. And that is what got me into Chuck Palahniuk in the first place. He is a funny guy. He has something that Oscar Wilde used to have, although in a different way, because after all they are two different persons into two different enviroments, wit. I wish I could write as half as funny as he does. For sure.

I like that face in the cover artwork too

I'm a bit less excited now than I was when all I knew was that it was about an eleven year old girl in hell.

However, I hope it turns out to be a great read, I'll check it out when it's available.

The marijuana overdose is likely a parody of the over-sensationalized cautionary-tale storytelling of After School Specials and Judy Bloom novels. He's said that's where the idea for this book came from, so that would make sense. At first it put me off, but in thinking about it I could see it working.

This line is interesting:

and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell.

Seems similar to a story I posted on this site, Hell Cube (in CC's 200 proof) and F'ng Hell (in Zen Beginner's). Those who have access to the Master's classes I posted segments in will know what up.

I'll be curious to see Palahniuk's take on dialing for souls.

How about all you fucks read the book before you bash it. And to the people who didn't like Pygmy... lets not kid yourself, you're too fucking stupid to understand it. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ON A CHUCK PALAHNIUCK FAN SITE IF YOU DON'T LIKE HIS WORK?

Heh.

I can't even read. I don't know how I got here.

"I absolutely agree. I will admit that I was skeptical about Pygmy at first but it just took a little getting used to. It was genius. Chuck is genius, if you're a true fan of his, you can see the value and the reason in everything he writes."

My thoughts exactly.

I have to say Pygmy was a syntactic nightmare, but once I got three or four chapters in...I realized all that hard work was for a reason. By writing exactly as the character would be speaking/writing...Chuck forces you to somewhat become Pygmy/Agent #67, see things the way he sees them, through his eyes. In struggling with the language of Pygmy's narration, a small part of you begins to relate to the character and understand his difficulties with the culture he's thrown into.

It's kinda like those emails with a paragraph full of words missing letters here and there...the sentences telling you that those missing letters don't matter because the human brain somehow manages to piece the words together accurately anyhow. Somewhere in the middle of that paragraph you have that "Aha!" moment. Took me a little longer to read enough of Pygmy to reach that moment, but I'm glad I did and finished the book. It was well worth it.

Did we ever satisfactorily answer the question as to why Pygmy's dispatches home would be in Pidgin English anyway? Presumably, he was fluent in his native tongue (which is not Korean) as well as English.

The main problem (mine anyway) with the story was not with the writing style - it only takes a few pages to get used to - but with, well, the story.

I'm a turtle in a lobster's body.

I hate when people assume that I didn't get something just because I didn't like it. Do you really think Pygmy was that hard to understand? But not hard for you and all the people who agree with you, right? NOBODY CAN DISLIKE ANYTHING I LIKE(unless they're stupid)! WE ALL HAVE TO LOVE THE SAME THINGS.

I didn't dislike it because it was a hard read(it wasn't). I disliked it because it was a shitty book.

Also, I love how nobody is defending Snuff. Like everybody agrees it sucked. But, I guess it's because nobody can make the claim that I didn't "get" Snuff. That is you're only argument.

It's not that you didn't get Snuff, it's just that you're not cultured enough to appreciate its subtleties.

How about all you fucks read the book before you bash it. And to the people who didn't like Pygmy... lets not kid yourself, you're too fucking stupid to understand it. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ON A CHUCK PALAHNIUCK FAN SITE IF YOU DON'T LIKE HIS WORK?

How can you be older than me?

You know, the synopsis makes it sound like it could be pretty funny.

Everybody forgets (and I don't blame them) that I liked Snuff. I found it enjoyable in a strange way, and I actually liked the ending. It was fucked up, but I don't care. So suck on that!

just because this is chuck palahniuk dot net, does not mean that we need to lap up all the diarrhea that happens to have his name on it.
for the record, the following books sucked:
-haunted
-diary
-tell all
-pygmy
-stranger than fiction

the following were passable as being literature
-invisible monsters
-snuff

the only chuck book i've had trouble enjoying is diary. huge fan of everything else he's written. lullaby being my favorite. I'm actually in the middle of reading snuff right now and i love it. im not sure how he did it but he did.

diarrhea

Harsh.

That's probably what his next story revolves around. The inner workings of diarrhea. The kids'll love it!

When you're sliding into the third, and you feel a sudden turd, diarrhea!

Lullaby is my favorite too. Beautiful writing in that book.

I liked Diary though. That may have been right on the edge where I started falling out love, but I've read it a few times and it's got some strong stuff.

Yeah, see, despite the hatred for Diary, I actually quite liked it. It had that whole Stepford Wives-type suburban horror feel. But after Diary, shit got out of hand.

Actually, I love Lullaby as well. It was my first Palahniuk book and I loved the premise and the plot. And on Pygmy, I thought that that was one of Chuck's funniest the observations and satirical characterizations of our culture were biting yet funny.

English is not my first language so, I like how it is written, and I have been to the states for quite a time on holidays in order to understand how pygmy feels .

You came all the way here just to understand a fictional character?

Also, why don't posts in the news section have quote buttons? Weird.