Our hero is not the kind you take home to your mother. Our hero doesn’t draw lines, he solely crosses them. And keeps on running, with a pen in one hand, in the other your scribble-covered heart. Our hero is not some kind of God, or Dog, but he could be.

In lieu of his next masterpiece, ’Non-Fiction’ is a collation of ‘pieces’ which Chuck Palahniuk (most infamous for writing Fight Club), our hero, has published elsewhere. These are true stories, found in publications ranging from L.A. weekly and the Independent to Bikini Weekly. These are the stories of Marilyn Manson, of Juliette Lewis, a day at the Testicle Festival, life aboard The USS Lousiana, and in the homes of eccentrics who really do live in castles, with moats and everything. And there’s incites into the workings of one of… fuck it… THE writer of our generations mind and life. Sometimes he’s on research trips, or telling fans at signings that there isn’t a local Fight Club and at others revealing the joy of author Amy Hempel’s minimalism and how you should never meet your heroes. He’s letting us in and letting us meet him for what feels the very first time. You should always meet your heroes like this. Never stalk them.

The reason Chuck is my hero is not because of his brutal honesty or the image-hung rhythm of his words, nor his Bukowski’ish crudeness, but simply because of his understanding. It’s a philosophical understanding of the human condition, the illogical logic of existence, and it’s nothing new, philosophers have been stepping back and talking this jazz for years, but for the first time this understanding has been made accessible and exciting, ready to be rammed down the throats of the [to be diverted] mainstream. But without the drab earnest tones of Douglas Coupland. Chuck’s humanisation of the wordy nether-region gazing world of the punker, hippier sides of Social Sciences is what’s going to save the world, in the same way Anthony Burgess could’ve and Bill Hicks would’ve.

Book of the year. For sure.

Note: Some editions of this book go under the name ‘Stranger than Fiction’

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/