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Palahniuk was born in Pasco, Washington to Carol and Fred Palahniuk. He grew up living in a trailer in Burbank, Washington with his family. His parents would later on separate and divorce, often leaving him and his three siblings to live with their grandparents at their cattle ranch in eastern Washington.
In his twenties, Palahniuk attended the University of OregonThe University of Oregon (UO) is located in Eugene. The university was founded in 1876, graduating its first class (five students) two years later. The school colors are green and yellow. Former Oregon attorney general Dave Frohnmayer is the president of's School of Journalism and graduated in 1986. While attending college, he worked as an intern for National Public RadioFor other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation National Public Radio NPR is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. NPR was's KLCC in Eugene, OregonEugene is the third largest city in the state of Oregon. It is the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, and is positioned at the south end of the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the McKenzie River and the Willamette River, about 60 miles (97 km) eas. He moved to Portland, Oregon soon afterwards. After writing for the local newspaper for a short while, he began working for FreightlinerFreightliner, LLC is a truck tractor manufacturer. The company is owned by DaimlerChrysler. The company is known mainly for the heavy duty class 8 diesel trucks that it produces, as well as class 5-7 trucks. In the 1950's, Consolidated Freightways decided as a diesel mechanic, which he worked for until his writing career took off. Wanting to do more with his life than just his job, Palahniuk did volunteer work for a hospice as an escort; he provided transportation for terminally-ill people and brought them to support group meetings. He would later on quit this volunteer job when a patient who he had grown attached to died.
Palahniuk would also become a member of the Cacophony SocietyThe Cacophony Society is "a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society. It was started by members of the now defunct Suicide Club of San Francisco. According to self-designated memb (a network of free spirits united to pursue experiences outside of mainstream society) in his adulthood. He is a regular participant in their events, including the annual Santa Rampage (a distinctly anti-commercial public ChristmasChristmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a traditional holiday in the Christian calendar which takes place on the twenty-fifth day of December and celebrates the nativity of Jesus Christ. Christmas is also celebrated as a secular holiday throughout mu party involving pranksterism and public drunkenness) in Portland. His participation in the Society would later on inspire some of the events in his writings, both fictional and non-fictional.
Palahniuk began writing fiction in his mid-thirties. According to Palahniuk, he started writing after attending writer's workshops hosted by Tom Spanbauer , which he had attended to meet new friends. Spanbauer would become Palahniuk's inspiration for his minimalistic writing style. He first wrote a book called Insomnia: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Already, but never published it due to his disappointment with the story (though a small part of it would be salvaged for use in Fight Club). When he attempted to publish his next novel, Invisible MonstersInvisible Monsters is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk published in 1999. It is his third novel to be published, though it was his second written novel (after the unpublished Insomnia: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Already . The novel was originally supposed, publishers rejected it for being too disturbing. This led him to work on his most famous novel, Fight Club, which he wrote as an attempt to disturb the publisher even more for rejecting him. Palahniuk wrote this story in between working while on the job for Freightliner. After initially publishing it as a short story in the compilation Pursuit of Happiness (which would become chapter 6 of the novel), Palahniuk expanded it into a full novel, which, contrary to what he expected, the publisher was willing to publish. While the original, hardcover edition of the book received positive reviews and some awards, it had a short shelf life. Nevertheless, the book had made its way to Hollywood, where interest in adapting it to film was growing. It was eventually adapted in 1999 by director David Fincher. The film was a box office disappointment (although it was #1 at the U.S. box office in its first weekend) and critical reaction was mixed, but a cult following soon emerged. Two paperback rereleases of the novel, one in 1999 and the other in 2004, were later made (the latter of which contains a new introduction by the author about the success of the film adaptation).
While not all fans of the film realized that it was based on a novel, many fans did, and a fanbase for the author's work soon began to form. A revised version of Invisible Monsters, as well as his fourth novel, Survivor, were also published that year, allowing Palahniuk to become a cult figure himself. A few years later Palahniuk managed to make his first New York Times bestseller, the novel Choke. From then on, Palahniuk's later books would often meet with similar success. Such success has allowed him to go on book tours to promote his books, where he reads from both new and upcoming works.
However, 1999 was not an entirely positive year for Palahniuk. Fred Palahniuk, Chuck's father, had started dating a woman named Donna Fontaine that year. Fontaine had recently put her ex-boyfriend, Dale Shackleford, in prison for sexual abuse. Shackleford had vowed to kill Fontaine as soon as he was released from prison. After his release, Shackleford followed the two of them to Fontaine's home in Kendrick, Idaho after they had gone out for a date. Shackleford then shot them both and dragged their bodies into Fontaine's cabin home, which he set fire to immediately afterwards. In the spring of 2001, Shackleford was found guilty for two counts of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. In the wake of this event, Palahniuk began working on the novel Lullaby. According to him, he wrote the novel to help him cope with having helped decide to have Shackleford get the death sentence.
In September of 2003, Palahniuk was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly's Karen Valby. During the interview, Palahniuk had confidentially mentioned to her information pertaining to his spouse. While it had been previously believed by many that he was married to a woman (some members of the press had claimed he had a wife), Palahniuk had in fact been living with his boyfriend. Some time later, Palahniuk believed that Valby was going to print this information in her article on him without his consent. In response he put an angry audio recording of himself on his web site, not only revealing that he is a homosexual but also making negative comments about Valby and a member of her family. However, Palahniuk's fears turned out to be ungrounded, and Valby's article did not reveal anything about his personal life outside of the fact that he is unmarried. The recording was later removed from the web site, making some fans believe that Palahniuk is embarrassed of his homosexuality. According to Dennis Widmyer, the site's webmaster, the recording was not removed because of the statements regarding his sexuality, but because of the statements about Valby. Palahniuk would later post a new recording to his site, asking his fans not to overreact to these events. He also apologized for his behavior, claiming that he wished he had not recorded the message.
While on his 2003 tour to promote his novel Diary, Palahniuk read a short story titled "Guts", a tale of accidents involving masturbation (which is slated to appear in his upcoming book Haunted ), to audiences. It was reported that over 35 people fainted while listening to the readings (although it is possible that many of these were simulated by Palahniuk fans for humorous effect). Playboy would later publish it in their March 2004 issue; Palahniuk offered to let them publish another story along with it, but the publishers found it too disturbing. On his tour to promote in the summer of 2004 he read the story to audiences again, bringing the total amount of fainters up to 53, and later up to 60 while on tour to promote the softcover edition of Diary. The last fainting occurred on 25 September 2004, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Palahniuk is apparently not bothered by these incidents, which have not stopped fans from reading "Guts" or his other works.
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