If Chuck Palahniuk's new novel "RANT: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey" was a television show, it would be rated TV-MA for adult language, sexual content and violence.
The title character gets his nickname from the sound that little kids make when they vomit ("rant"), following a particularly gruesome scene at a community haunted house. In this particular world, from the writer of "Fight Club," Rant gets sexually aroused from the bites of poisonous insects, snakes and rabid animals. He contracts rabies so frequently that he creates a new airborne strain of the virus.
The mysterious deaths of his elderly relatives are rumored to have been due to some of Rant's poisonous insect friends that he may have planted on their person. No matter if he killed them, Rant is quite the ladies' man, infecting numerous women in his hometown with rabies from kissing and/or sexual contact despite his tar-blackened teeth.
When the title character moves to the big city, he finds a world that is divided up between "daytimers" and "nighttimers," initially instituted by the government to cut down on horrendous traffic. There are curfews for each section of the population, and if they are caught outside after curfew, they are given a hefty fine. The "nighttimers" (the section that Rant joined) engages in "party crashing," a joy riding activity in which people spend their evenings dressed in bridal gowns, tuxedos and bridesmaid dresses and crash into each other's cars.
Rant is presumed dead at the beginning of the novel after he is killed in a car crash. Written in the style of an oral biography for the entire novel, friends, family, enemies, admirers and a historian eulogize Rant's life and fiery death. All of these people's thoughts and stories are punctuated by traffic reports giving gruesome yet accurate details on car wrecks and signing off with: "We know why, you rubberneck!"
If as many kids get into "party crashing" as made their own "fight clubs," "party crashing" could become a new teenage fad, created by Palahniuk's fiction. Palahniuk has a devoted fan base, many of whom did not read before they stumbled upon his novels, and of course, a fan site known as The Cult, www.chuckpalahniuk.net.
He uses various props during his readings, such as meat-scented air fresheners, WWE Undertaker masks and life-like plastic limbs. Palahniuk also sometimes sends care packages to those who write him letters, sending things along the lines of fake dog poo and rubber duckies.
"Rant" is full of surprises and plot-twists. Characters are not who or what you think they are, and society is just as complicated. With the technology to "boost" other people's experiences through neural transcripts, the party crashers seek to have real human interactions and experiences along with something more elusive. This novel satisfies throughout with its dark, unexpected plot developments and strange characters.
This is Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel. "RANT: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey" is available now from Doubleday in hardcover for $24.95.
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