Ah Chuck, where would I be without you? Who else can enthrall and repulse me with a single, perfectly crafted sentence?If you only know Chuck as 'that guy who wrote Fight Club', then let me tell you my friend, you are missing out. If you've yet to delve into the messed up world that is Chuck Palahniuk's imagination, then Rant is an awesome place to start. A weird place, but an awesome one.
Meet Buster Casey, known as Rant, the worst Patient Zero in the history of disease. A 'superspreader'. A guy who is addicted to getting bitten by various animals, insects and spiders. A guy who infects hundreds of people with rabies. He turns a Halloween horror house into a real horror house. He single-handily manages to destroy the economy of his hometown. He is so cool.
Rant is written as an oral biography, and we learn about Rant reading anecdotes from various people who knew him - childhood friends, his parents, policemen, a used car sales man and various party crashers / nighttimers. (Just to clarify- a party crasher is someone who goes out driving and crashes into other party crashers for fun. Not an uninvited guest. A nighttimer is someone who is only allowed out at night. Nighttimers are the section of the population who are initially overcome by the rabies epidemic.)
Aside from his crazy crazy spectacular imagination, Chuck is amazing because of his super detailed, ridiculously graphic descriptions - no one else can describe a smell and actually make you feel queasy. Just like reading Fight Club is like getting punched in the face, reading Rant is like getting rabies in the back seat of a car that has just driven off an overpass. *Sigh*
Rating: 9/10
Posts
