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In Review

22 November 2008 01:00 BST

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Published by Jonathan Cape, out May 10th, 319 pages, £12.99.

In a nutshell…

Compelling, fast, surreal, horrifying, contagious.

What's it all about?

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey tells the story of a dead, rabies-ridden man killed in a fireball of speed, mystery and disease. Buster 'Rant' Casey is not in this novel – or oral biography – except for small excerpts of his philosophising diction which his friends and enemies took note of.

Instead Rant is a collection of small interviews told in a rough timeline of the protagonist's life – including, of course, the typical Chuck Palahniuk twists and hints of something not quite right. It begins in the town of Middleton where pretty much nothing happens. It is notable only for its flatness and freak winds which whisk whole rubbish bins away causing a whirlwind of condoms and food scraps flying through the air.

It is here that Palahniuk introduces us to Rant through the small pieces of information gathered from his school friends and immediately Palahniuk manages to both make you laugh, feel sick and want to look away from the page in disgust all at the same time.

As Rant develops, the plot moves forward into what becomes a dystopian view of the future; a 1984 for 2007 which Palahniuk moulds around a group of people who live in the daytime and a group that live in the night. To entertain themselves they can 'boost' through Matrix-style ports in the back of their heads – which all sounds very sci-fi, but Palahniuk is careful to not stray too much into a futuristic time zone. It's not particularly any more technological than elements of his debut novel Fight Club, or perhaps Invisible Monsters.

Palahniuk does not do what Tom Wolfe loves to call a 'realistic novel'. His work isn't completely off the scale in the sense that it does often reference and even criticise elements of today's society, but it does not bother itself too much with minor details and an exact backdrop of, for instance, New York City or London. Palahniuk's depth and feeling comes from the characters themselves – usually social outcasts and people angry with society – rather than the world they inhabit. And so it is with Rant, despite the fact the character never utters a word, or does he? Did the narrator in Fight Club shoot off a tumour to get rid of Tyler Durden? Rant poses a similar question that will have you frantically turning back to read the earlier interviews all over again – an ability that few authors have.

Who's it by?

Chuck Palahniuk is best known for his debut novel Fight Club which was made into a film by David Fincher starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. It was released in 1996 and the movie has since spawned a number of reprints of the book. He then released Invisible Monsters and Choke – which is the subject of another film currently in pre-production.

Palahniuk has since been steadily releasing varied work, with Lullaby written shortly after the death of his father and perhaps the most conventional, thriller-type novel he has ever written.

Diary followed in 2003 followed by Haunted and now Rant. Characters in Palahniuk's novels are typically detached from society. Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, Choke and Survivor all follow central figures with no ties to friends, family or any central figure or job. Lullaby and Diary are somewhat different, although they still feature characters pushed to the brink who are ultimately destroyed.

As an example

"Lynn Coffey - Nighttimer (Journalist): On the first day after Rant Casey died – an apparent suicide witnessed by thousands of people, millions if you count the television rebroadcast of his car exploding – on the very next day, a curfew officer named Daniel Hammish, age forty-seven, a nineteen-year veteran of curfew patrol, was making his evening sweep when he assaulted a passerby. Hammish bit this stranger, with his teeth, in an unprovoked attack, on the exposed skin of the neck."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

So many of Palahniuk's books make fantastic film material. Survivor was often considered the obvious choice, but its conclusion – a man crashing a plane into the ground – was considered inappropriate. Since Fight Club many of Palahniuk's books have been considered and it seems that Choke – the story of a sex addict who tries to find his mother's medical bills by pretending to die by choking on his food – will be the next.

What the others say

"Two pages before it begins, Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel is already asking you if you wish you'd never been born." - The Guardian.

"There is no question that Palahniuk is an important writer, with a huge popular following. But as his conceits grow ever more ludicrous, his books become more like art-statements than novels." - The Independent.

So is it any good?

Rant is a typically enjoyable novel by one of the most controversial, but grimly humorous writers in the last 20 years. Vitally, it's a return to form after the indifferent Haunted and the varied Diary, which had passages that were notable for the slowness of the narrative – something which Palahniuk usually avoids like a rabid dog.

The structure of Rant is something Palahniuk wanted to try out and the oral history element makes for an interesting read. Often Palahniuk's work is very fragmented anyway and has a short and crisp style with snippets of speech and long lists, of drugs, injuries or some other ailment.

Rant is of course an exiled character and a man detested by many of the 'interviewees' in this novel. He has rabies and he passes it on to many people, who then pass it on, who then pass it on before it becomes an epidemic. But the subject matter sets Rant (the book) apart from the author's previous work and is a highly ambitious sojourn for a writer who has a dark and off-centre critique of American society completely nailed. The bizarre nature of Rant and the central hobby of 'party crashing' can give a surreal impression of this work, but Palahniuk never gets carried away and focuses the reader's attention on the central character's despair and suffering.

Party crashing is how Rant meets many of the other characters in this book; it is also how he dies. It involves nighttimers – those who must sleep in the day and live at night – getting thrills out of tagging their car with a flag showing they are party crashers and engaging in deliberate crashes with other cars part of the game. It can be risky, but the rules on the severity of the crashes are strict.

The point of these crashes is for the characters who engage in them to feel the thrill of normal life for one instant. The moment when they crash, adrenalin is pumped around their body and they are temporarily unsure whether they will live or die. This is the polar opposite to the so-called boosts, an entirely false form of stimulus detested by Rant and the other party crashers.

Palahniuk's backbone to this story is strong and surprising. Rant dies before this book begins, but the genius narrative that Palahniuk crafts will throw up a few shocks along the way.

In the very first chapter of the book, Rant's father, Chester Casey, makes a reference to almost all of the events in the story. He explains what happened to his son, how he witnesses many horrific things and then passed on in a fireball on every TV set in every small town.

"When you got to collect his body for his funeral," Chester says, "the airline gives you a special bargain price on your ticket.

"Any way you look at it, it's still a damn sweet deal on an airplane ticket."

But the truth behind the existence of the Caseys is the riveting finale of this book and it is one well worth waiting for.

8/10

Karl Pike