Chuck Palahniuk (edit name/settings)

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist of Ukrainian ancestry born in Pasco, Washington. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher. The press release for his book Rant, published in 2007, states he is now living in Vancouver, Washington.

Palahniuk's books prior to Lullaby have distinct similarities. The characters are people who have been marginalized in one form or another by society, and who react with often self-destructive aggressiveness (a form of story that the author likes to describe as transgressional fiction). Starting with Lullaby, his novels have been satirical horror stories.

The narratives of Palahniuk's books often start at the temporal end, with the protagonist recounting the events that led up to the point at which the book begins. Lullaby used a variation of this, alternating between the normal, linear narrative and the temporal end after every few chapters. However, exceptions to this narrative form include the more linear Choke and Diary. There is often a major plot twist that is revealed near the end of the book which relates in some way to this temporal end (what Palahniuk refers to as "the hidden gun"). His more linear works also include similar plot twists.

Due to the content of his works, Palahniuk has earned a reputation as a nihilist. However, Palahniuk claims he is not a nihilist, but a romantic, and that his works are merely mistaken for being nihilistic because they express ideas that others do not believe in.

Laura Miller of Salon.com wrote a scathing review of Diary, saying of Palahniuk's books: "<they> traffic in the half-baked nihilism of a stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine-Inch Nails" and that "everything even remotely clever in them has been done before and better by someone else".

In response, fans as well as Palahniuk himself (who had never responded to a review before) sent angry e-mails to Salon's Letters section. Palahniuk stated "Until you can create something that captivates people, I'd invite you to just shut up. It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one."