Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our resident scientific genius, Copernicus who came out of his own personal Wonderland to inform us lowly souls about the status of Chuck Palahniuk. He was awakened by a report I posted a couple days ago from another attendee who got some of his facts mixed up. This attendee had emailed me around this same time with his own clarifications, but Copernicus' eyes are fresh and his detail is more exact, so here you go. Some good stuff here! And it's no exaggeration about Harry's disgusting phrases and rants. He once invented (with the help of Tom Joad if memory serves) a sexual term specifically for my (outtie) belly button and that's Harry at his tamest. Anyway, enjoy the report!
Hey Harry, Quint, Moriarty!
I was also at the Toronto book signing by Chuck Palahniuk, and I agree with your spy that it was a really great time. There were about 500 people crammed into that bookstore!
Chuck P. is maybe the best person I've ever seen at telling a story to a crowd. He had the whole audience captivated for almost two hours between telling stories, reading from his new book HAUNTED (he read the "Guts" story), and answering questions. So far on this tour, legend has it that 68 people have fainted at these signings. Before I went to this reading I thought that was all hype -- how can someone make people faint using only words? But now I believe it (though no one fainted at our signing). "Guts" is the most disgusting, horrifying, and humiliating story I've ever heard someone tell (and that is saying something given that I've listened to Harry pontificate on disgusting themes for years). And the most disturbing part about it is that each of the 3 sub-stories in "Guts" is that Palahniuk claims that they are based on true stories that have happened to people he has known.
Anyway, to correct and add to a few things your spy said:
- The possible, and he emphasized possible, book to be serialized by HBO is his current one, HAUNTED, not DIARY. That makes sense when you think about the structures of the two books. The part about David Fincher possibly directing seemed very uncertain, like they wanted him to do it, but I don't know if they are seriously in talks.
- SURVIVOR had been optioned before, but that lapsed, and it has recently been reoptioned to this CONSTANTINE team. I believe his exact words were, "Hey, their check cleared!" In other words he didn't necessarily sell it to the highest bidder as the other spy's version of the quote implied.
- For CHOKE, the only casting rumor he passed on was that they think Meryl Streep is going to play the mother.
- He mentioned that all of his books have been optioned, except for LULLABY, which is too bad because it is one of my favorites.
Don't fuck with a scientist when it comes to getting the facts straight!
-Copernicus
