Fight Club Part 26

It was a cla.s.sic, ancient romance but updated to compete with the espresso machine and ESPN.

It took me three months to write that first draft, and the book sold to W. W. Norton in three days. For an advance so small I never told anyone. Not anybody. anybody. It was six thousand dollars. Other authors now tell me this is called "kiss-off money." It's an advance so low the author is supposed to feel insulted and walk away. This lets the publisher off the hook without offending any staff members who wanted to acquire the book. It was six thousand dollars. Other authors now tell me this is called "kiss-off money." It's an advance so low the author is supposed to feel insulted and walk away. This lets the publisher off the hook without offending any staff members who wanted to acquire the book.

Still, it was six thousand dollars. That would pay my rent for a year. So I took it. And in August 1996, there was a hardcover book. And a three-city tour-Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco-where no more than three people showed up at any reading. The book sales didn't even cover what I drank out of the hotel minibars.

One reviewer called the book science fiction. Another called it a satire on the Iron John Iron John men's movement. Another called it a satire of corporate white-collar culture. Some called it horror. No one called it a romance. men's movement. Another called it a satire of corporate white-collar culture. Some called it horror. No one called it a romance.

In Berkeley, a radio interviewer asked me: "Having written this book, what can you tell us about the status of the American woman in the world, today?"

In Los Angeles, a college professor on National Public Radio said the book was a failure because it didn't address the issue of racism.

On a plane back to Portland, an airline flight attendant leaned close and asked me to tell him the truth. His theory was the book wasn't really about fighting at all. He insisted it was really about gay men watching one another f.u.c.k in public steambaths.

I told him, yeah, what the h.e.l.l. And he gave me free drinks for the rest of the flight.

Other reviewers hated it. Oh, they called it "too dark." "Too violent." "Too strident and shrill and dogmatic." They would've loved "Barn-Raising Club."

Still, it won the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and the 1997 Oregon Book Award for best novel. A year later, at the KGB literary bar in lower Manhattan, a woman introduced herself to me. She was the lead judge for the Oregon award and said she had to fight tooth and nail to convince the other judges. G.o.d bless her.

A year later, in the same bar, another woman introduced herself to me, saying how she'd be designing the computer-animated penguin for the Fight Club Fight Club movie. movie.

Then, there was Brad Pitt and Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter.

Since then, thousands of people have written, most of them saying "thank you." For writing something that got their son to start reading again. Or their husband. Or their students. Other people wrote letters, a little angry, saying how they'd invented the whole idea of fight clubs. In military boot camps. Or in Depression-era labor camps. They'd get drunk and ask one another: "Hit me. As hard as you can...."

There have always been fight clubs, they say. There will always be fight clubs.

Waiters will always pee in the soup. People will always fall in love.

Now, seven books later, men still ask where to find the fight club in their area.

And women still ask if there's a club where they can fight one another.

Now, this is the first rule of fight club: There is nothing a blue-collar n.o.body in Oregon with a public school education can imagine that a million-billion people haven't already done There is nothing a blue-collar n.o.body in Oregon with a public school education can imagine that a million-billion people haven't already done...

In the mountains of Bolivia-one place the book has yet to be published, thousands of miles from the drunk cowboy and his Haunted Tunnel Tour-every year, the poorest people gather in high Andes villages to celebrate the festival of "Tinku."

There, the campesino campesino men beat the c.r.a.p out of one another. Drunk and b.l.o.o.d.y, they pound one another with just their bare fists, chanting, "We are men. We are men. We are men..." men beat the c.r.a.p out of one another. Drunk and b.l.o.o.d.y, they pound one another with just their bare fists, chanting, "We are men. We are men. We are men..."

The men fight the men. Sometimes, the women fight one another. They fight the way they have for centuries. In their world, with little income or wealth, few possessions, and no education or opportunity, it's a festival they look forward to all year long.

Then, when they're exhausted, the men and woman go to church.

And they get married.

Being tired isn't the same as being rich, but most times it's close enough.

ALSO BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK.

Invisible Monsters

Survivor

Fight Club

Choke

Lullaby

Fugitives and Refugees