Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread

by Chuck Palahniuk Narrated by Chuck Palahniuk, Scott Sowers, Ken Marks, Luis Moreno, Rich Orlow, T. Ryder Smith

Overview

Chuck Palahniuk, literature's favorite transgressive author, gives us twenty-one stories and one novella in Make Something Up, a compilation that disturbs and delights in equal measure. In “Expedition,” fans will be thrilled to find to see a side of Tyler Durden never seen before in a precursor story to Fight Club. And in other stories, the absurdity of both life and death are on full display: in “Zombies,” the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze-electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators; in “Knock, Knock,” a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments; and in “Tunnel of Love,” a massage therapist runs the curious practice of providing “relief” to dying clients. Funny, caustic, bizarre, poignant, these stories represent everything readers have come to love and expect from Chuck Palahniuk. You'll never forget them. Just try.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Chuck Palahniuk and Make Something Up:


"Palahniuk doesn't write for tourists. He writes for hard-core devotees drawn to the wild, angry imagination on display and the taboo-busting humor."
—The New York Times 
 
"Palahniuk is a bracingly toxic purveyor of dread and mounting horror. He makes nihilism fun."
—Vanity Fair

“Palahniuk displays a Swiftian gift for satire, as well as a knack for crafting mesmerizing sentences."
—San Francisco Examiner

“Few contemporary writers mix the outrageous and the hilarious with greater zest.”
 —Newsday

"Few authors have captured the pathologies of modern life quite like Palahniuk."
—Rocky Mountain News

“Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most intriguing writers of our time.”
—Tucson Citizen

"For the first time, Palahniuk collects his short stories, which feature his signature humor, horror, and grit. [The] other stories deal with fire, bodily fluids, malfunctions, critiques of material society, bestiality, a bewitched tennis ball, and a murder at a Burning Man-type retreat. The collection is essential for Palahniuk fans and will likely win him some new ones."
—Publishers Weekly

"Palahniuk comes roaring back from a stretch of experimentalism with 23 tales celebrating his ongoing affection for the macabre... Pathos and panic and penitence from one of the darkest and most singular minds in contemporary American lit."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Even as you likely suffer debilitating motion sickness from the jarring emotional turns on every other page, you’ll be inescapably restrained by an author who knows exactly what he’s doing and has you right where he wants you. Palahniuk’s uniquely modern style throws out any antiquated conventions that could keep him from destroying any expectations that keep you in complacent narrative comfort."
—Booklist

Kirkus Reviews

2015-03-02
Palahniuk (Beautiful You, 2014, etc.) comes roaring back from a stretch of experimentalism with 23 tales celebrating his ongoing affection for the macabre. It's been a while since we've seen Chuck at his most hard-core; he spent the last few years toying with satire, working his way into the heads of female narrators and curating the twisted anthology Burnt Tongues (2014). Here, he makes it absolutely clear that he's still the man who wrote "Guts," the infamous story that made fans pass out at readings. "The Toad Prince" makes "Guts" look like a fairy tale by comparison. It's the story of an enterprising young pervert who has infected his member with a fistful of vile diseases in order to launch a new era in extreme body modification fetishism. "Romance" takes apart traditional relationships with the story of a chubby dude who falls in love with a superhot Britney Spears look-alike who may or may not be dimwitted on a level approaching disability. There are some echoes here—"Eleanor" is written in a strange, imitative patois that strongly recalls the novel Pygmy (2009), and a trio of fables resembles David Sedaris' Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. But the core stories are pure muscle. The book opens with "Knock-knock," about a son trying to save his father from death with dirty jokes. The best (black) comedy comes from "Zombies," which finds America's gifted teens indulging in the hot new fad of taking a defibrillator to their skulls. The purest horror comes from "Inclinations," which begins with an adolescent girl using her unplanned pregnancies to collect Porsches from her parents before delving into a catalog of horrors at a sexual reorientation camp for teens. For fans, the book has "Expedition," which contains Palahniuk's first hints about Tyler Durden's true nature in advance of the upcoming Fight Club 2, to be released as comic books starting soon. Pathos and panic and penitence from one of the darkest and most singular minds in contemporary American lit.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170730179
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/26/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Knock-­Knock
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Make Something Up"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Chuck Palahniuk.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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