If you asked my parents’ generation who best represented the needs and wants and desires and fears of their time, they’d probably answer President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Or maybe FDR. Later generations might say JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr. If you asked my generation, they’d give you an entirely different answer in scope. It most likely wouldn’t be politically related. The answer would probably be artistically related. If you asked me who best represented the needs and wants and desires and fears of my generation, personally, I’d say CHUCK PALAHNIUK. Others might answer COBAIN or TUPAC, for some TARANTINO.

You and I have been part of a lost generation. This is nothing you haven’t heard before, especially if you belong to the cult of CHUCK. There’s Generation X, there’s Generation Y (as in “Why?”). There’s also Generation Pepsi. This sentiment was undoubtedly best summed up in CHUCK PALAHNIUK’s monumental debut novel, a classic work of transgressive fiction called FIGHT CLUB. Within those pages, PALAHNIUK gave a disenfranchised and disowned culture/youth something to believe in, something besides the units that were sold to them by Gap and MTV. Maybe more important, he gave a generation something to be remembered by. Do we exist if no one remembers us? Do we even care? Like he wrote, the things we own end up owning us. It was time that we as a generation owned up to that.

For those that haven’t paid close attention, CHUCK PALAHNIUK is about more than his debut novel FIGHT CLUB, in the same way that COBAIN is about more than “Smells like Teen Spirit,” and in the same way that he was about more than a shotgun blast to the head…more or less. COBAIN was about more than addiction and rain clouds and ultimately pain, he was about an entire generation being remembered, and finding at least the justification to be remembered. (Coincidence that the same place responsible for Starbucks was also indirectly responsible for KURT COBAIN?)

COBAIN’s death was just as much about me and you as it was about him because it could have been me or you, and it very likely may have been. FIGHT CLUB is about all that, too, only…not. It’s a revolution that is still transpiring. You see, the author has amassed quite the body of work since his debut saw print. He keeps fueling the fire. The author and his readers are alive and well and the revolution marches onward. Who knows, maybe Cobain would still be here with us today if he had read FIGHT CLUB. Sure, all of this may sound braggadocios, mawkish, even a stretch, but who else can we rally behind in the world these days besides the writers, musicians, artists, and one another? Not every generation finds identification or validation behind the actions of their elected officials. To paraphrase a line from FIGHT CLUB, “I know this because, well, I didn’t vote for Bush.”

PALAHNIUK’s latest, STRANGER THAN FICTION, is a first for the author. It’s a collection of his non fiction pieces. It’s very much a personal reflection of PALAHNIUK, the person and the artist, but like all of PALAHNIUK’s work, it’s very much about me and you. And it’s very much true,--too good to be made-up.

The book is broken down into three sections: People Together, Portraits, and Personal. The introduction begins, “If you haven’t already noticed, all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people. In a way, that is the opposite of the American Dream: to get so rich you can rise above the rabble, all those people on the freeway or, worse, the bus.” PALAHNIUK’s work forces readers to get on the bus, to enjoy the ride, hopefully even to steer the bus. You may think of PALAHNIUK as the bus driver, but he’s just as much a passenger as you or I am.

You’ll get this sense that PALAHNIUK is one of us while reading STRANGER THAN FICTION. From his stories about introducing star-struck friends to Brad Pitt (the actor who played the character of Tyler Durden, a man that PALAHNIUK made-up), to the time he cleaned out a male cancer victim’s closet stocked with dildos when he volunteered for Hospice.

PALAHNIUK also shares his memories of shaving his head prior to being flown out to Hollywood to meet people at 20th Century Fox, the studio involved with the film adaptation of his book FIGHT CLUB. It was then that his head got all infected because he used a bottle of men’s depilatory (“This is like Nair or Neet, but extra-strong, for black men to shave their faces with.”). Thing was, he used it with a razor, which is apparently a big no-no. This kind of thing never happens to big stars. It happens to people like you or me, guys like PALAHNIUK, the people on the bus. It’d never happen to a guy like Brad Pitt. And certainly not to a guy like Tyler Durden.

PALAHNIUK’s grandfather killed his grandmother with a shotgun, before pointing the gun onto himself. This all happened while PALAHNIUK’s father was still a child, hiding under a bed to escape a similar fate. During the summer of 1999, the same year the FIGHT CLUB movie came out and when PALAHNIUK should have been enjoying his first real taste of success, uncorking champagne bottles, riding in limos to premiers and whatever else it is that big stars do, PALAHNIUK’s own father was killed by the jealous ex-husband of a woman that he’d just started dating. This isn’t the kind of thing that happens to big stars. Not to Brad Pitt. Not to Tyler Durden (Well…not exactly). Hell, it’s not even the kind of thing that happens to people like you or me, thank God. Sadly, it happened to a guy like PALAHNIUK. And PALAHNIUK wrote it down because he’s a writer and that’s what he does. In one of the pieces in STRANGER THAN FICTION, the author surmises that “writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.”

PALAHNIUK takes great pride in being one of us, in maintaining a connection or bond with his audience heretofore unheard of with artists at his level. Or maybe it’s his readers that take great pride in the author being one of them, one of us. In the piece titled “In Her Own Words,” PALAHNIUK profiles Hollywood sex kitten/rocker Juliette Lewis. In “Reading Yourself,” it’s Marilyn Manson, who the author observes reading his own Tarot cards. These are the kind of people you only read about, and PALAHNIUK is the one assigned the duty to document this for us, a sort of intermediary between us and them, the real world, and the made-up movie-kind of world. But these strange creatures, they seem to gravitate to PALAHNIUK, or he to them. Still, he fits in with them in a way that maybe you or I can’t, all the while making them accessible to us, much like a zookeeper does. He’s making them one of us, or at least presentable to us, but keeping them in their natural habitat, where we all belong.

Then there are chapters in the book that make the people like you and me, well, not so like you and me. “Where Meat Comes From” details the dedication and unrelenting drive of amateur wrestlers, and the passion that pushes them and their bodies beyond normal physical limits. “Demolition” is about a one-of-a-kind motor event involving the inhabitants of Lind, Washington, and the massive combines they destroy in friendly competition.

The book also includes chapters that force you to ask yourself, who exactly are we? “You Are Here” does this. It is my favorite chapter in the book, worth the book’s price tag alone, about writers of all walks of life being allotted a handful of minutes for pitching their life stories in hopes of netting a book agent or publisher or movie producer. PALAHNIUK could devote an entire book to the topics covered in this single chapter. “Most of the writers here are old—creepy old, retired people clutching their one good story. Shaking their manuscript in both spotted hands and saying, ‘Here! Read my incest story!’”

Then there’s talk of modern day weekend warriors who build old school castles. There’s talk of spending time on a submarine, that the Navy brass feared might have been a “big exposé about homo activity in a submarine setting.” It would appear that nothing is as it seems, even when it’s not made-up, as in made-up like the movies made-up. There’s talk about steroid usage, personal usage and otherwise. There’s also talk about the supernatural. There’s talk about a man who built his own space rocket. There’s plenty more, but you need to hear it from CHUCK. They may not all be his stories, but they are told with his unique voice. It’s all very compelling. It’s all very real, but not in the made-up movie kind of way.

When not hitting himself as hard as he can, Josh Jabcuga can be found writing Squib Central, published every Thursday, exclusively at www.MoviePoopShoot.com.

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