10th MAY 2007. JONATHAN CAPE HARDBACK. £12.99Our generation has found its Don DeLilloBret Easton Ellis
What Typhoid Mary Mallon was to typhoid, what Gaetan Dugas was to AIDS, and Liu Jian-lun was to SARS, Buster Casey would become for rabies. RANT is the eagerly anticipated and twisted new novel from the author of Fight Club. It 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 killer of our time.Buster Casey was every small kid born into a small town, searching for real thrills in a world of video games and action/adventure movies. Anyone whos ever kissed him would do well to seek treatment, for his recreational drug of choice is rabies and he gets bitten by black widow spiders for the priapic effect of their venom. The high school rebel who wins, Rant Casey escapes from his hometown of Middleton for the big city, where he becomes a leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing, where on designated nights, the participants recognise each other by dressing their cars with tin-can tails and Just Married toothpaste graffiti. Or, with forgotten coffee mugs bolted to their car roofs or Christmas trees tied from bumper to bumper. During specific windows of time, in limited areas of the city, Party Crashers look for the designated markings in order to stalk and crash into each other. Its in this violent, late-night hunting game that Casey meets three friends. And after his spectacular death, these friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short life. Their collected anecdotes explore the charges that his saliva infected hundreds and caused a silent, urban plague of rabies .
Provocative, confronting, hilarious and inventive; this is Chuck Palahniuk at his best.
Chuck Palahniuks seven novels are the bestselling Haunted, Lullaby, Fight Club, Diary, Survivor, Invisible Monsters and Choke. He is also the author of two non-fiction books, Fugitives and Refugees, a profile of Portland, Oregon, and Non-fiction. He lives in Vancouver.
PRAISE FOR HAUNTED:A triumph A novel of exceptional originality Wonderful A remarkable book, the most original work of fiction this yearThe Guardian
An immensely skilful writerDaily Telegraph
Deeply satirical, brutal and provocative, Haunted is harshly compulsive, eye-bleeding stuffi-D
PRAISE FOR LULLABY:There are more plot ideas in the first thirty pages of Chuck PalahniuksLullaby than some writers manage in a whole bookIndependent
Palahniuk starts with a throwaway thought what if words could hurt? and stretches it until it snapsArena
PRAISE FOR CHOKE:There is no doubt that Palahniuks reputation as an anything-goes entertainer is well deserved. His language is fresh and vibrant and he isable to frame his most outrageous visions in a classic set-piece structure that has a strong pay-offLiterary Review
There is an adolescent verge about Palahniuks outraged and outrageous comedy, but there is too, a mature poise and polish to his writingThe Observer
PRAISE FOR DIARY:His most scarily nihilistic and resonant book since Fight ClubIndependent on Sunday
Part Rosemarys Baby, part The Wicker Man The shocks are shocking and the twists nice and tautTime Out
Rant