Author guide
Chuck Palahniuk is an American novelist and essayist whose work often combines transgressive fiction, dark satire, horror, social criticism, and experimental forms. His bibliography includes novels, nonfiction, short-story and essay collections, graphic novels, and illustrated coloring books. He is best known for Fight Club, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Invisible Monsters, and Haunted.
Catalog record updated .
novel · First published 2024
"From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a dark, satirical parable about a string of mysterious high school disappearances, the seedy underbellies of billionaires, and the tough choices we make in the face of an uncertain future"--
Not sure where to begin?
The best-known entry point and the beginning of the Fight Club sequence.
The beginning of the Damned sequence.
Read in order
Book 1 · novel · 1996
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who…
Book 2 · graphic-novel · 2015
"Fight Club 2 is available exclusively as a Graphic Novel! Some imaginary friends never go away. Ten years after starting Project Mayhem, he lives a mundane life. A kid, a wife. Pills to keep his destiny at bay. But it won't last long,…
Book 3 · graphic-novel · 2019
Book 1 · novel · 2011
"Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison, " declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned…
Book 2 · novel · 2013
"The continued adventures of Madison, the heroine of DAMNED, who escapes Hell and comes back to Earth"--
publisher-series · ongoing
A Crown travel-writing series in which Fugitives and Refugees was published.
Book 1 · nonfiction · 2003
Want to know where Chuck Palahniuk's tonsils currently reside? Been looking for a naked mannequin to hide in your kitchen cabinets? What goes on at the Scum Center? How do you get to the Apocalypse Cafe? In the closest thing he may ever…
Outside the series
novel · 1999
Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult, is dictating his memoirs into the record of Flight 2039. The plane is on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Branson is alone on the flight; the…
novel · 1999
After an sudden "accident" leaves her with half a face, no ability to speak, and no self-esteem, a fashion model is approached by Brandy Alexander--who's one operation away from becoming a "real woman"--who teaches her that reinventing…
novel · 2001
Victor Mancini's a medical school dropout with a problem. He needs to pay for elder care for his mother, who's got Alzheimer's. So he comes up with the perfect scam: pretending to choke in upscale restaurants and getting “saved” by fellow…
novel · 2002
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the New York Times bestseller Choke and the cult classic Fight Club, a cunningly plotted novel about the ultimate verbal weapon, one that reinvents the apocalyptic thriller for our times. "A…
novel · 2003
Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that…
novel · 2005
Made up of 23 of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales readers will ever encounter, "Haunted" is Palahniuk at his finest--which means his most extreme and his most provocative.
novel · 2007
'Rant' takes the form of an oral history of one Buster 'Rant' Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, admirers, detractors and relations have their say on this evil character, who may or may not be the most efficient serial…
novel · 2008
**From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before** Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world…
novel · 2009
The Manchurian Candidate meets South Park--Chuck Palahniuk's finest novel since the generation-defining Fight Club."Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area.…
novel · 2010
Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping,…
novel · 2014
Penny Harrigan is a low-level associate in a big Manhattan law firm with an apartment in Queens and no love life at all. So it comes as a great shock when she finds herself invited to dinner by one C. Linus Maxwell, aka "Climax-Well," a…
novella · 2017
novel · 2018
Politicians have brought the nation to the brink of a third world war in an effort to control the burgeoning population of young males. Working-class men dream of burying the elites. Professors propound theories that offer students only…
novel · 2020
Gates Foster ha perso sua figlia, Lucy, diciassette anni fa. Da allora non ha mai smesso di cercarla. All'improvviso, un nuovo scioccante sviluppo gli fornisce il primo indizio su quella drammatica vicenda in oltre un decennio. Questo…
novel · 2023
From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a hilarious horror satire about a family of professional killers responsible for the most atrocious events in history and the young brothers that are destined to take over. Meet Otto and…
novel · 2024
"From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a dark, satirical parable about a string of mysterious high school disappearances, the seedy underbellies of billionaires, and the tough choices we make in the face of an uncertain future"--
short-story-collection · 2015
"Stories you'll never forget--just try--from literature's favorite transgressive author. Representing work that spans several years, Make Something Up is a compilation of 21 stories and one novella (some previously published, some not)…
short-story-collection · 2016
essay-collection · 2004
Chuck Palahniuk is an American novelist and journalist best known for Fight Club. The novel’s 1999 film adaptation helped bring him international attention and developed a large cult following.
Sources: oregonencyclopedia.org (opens in a new tab)newyorker.com (opens in a new tab)
He was born in Pasco, Washington, in 1962 and graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism in 1986. Before writing full time, he worked in journalism, as a diesel mechanic for Freightliner, and as a hospice volunteer.
Tom Spanbauer’s Portland writing workshops helped shape Palahniuk’s distinctive minimalist, staccato style. Palahniuk has also credited Landmark Education, the Cacophony Society, and Alcoholics Anonymous as important influences on his writing life.
Sources: oregonencyclopedia.org (opens in a new tab)lithub.com (opens in a new tab)
Yes. Palahniuk has publicly identified as gay and has discussed his sexuality in interviews, while also resisting being reduced to a “gay writer” label.
Fight Club won the 1997 Oregon Book Award for fiction and the 1997 Pacific Northwest Book Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association.
Sources: literary-arts.org (opens in a new tab)pnba.org (opens in a new tab)
