Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey - Hardcover

Palahniuk, Chuck

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385517874 ISBN 13: 9780385517874

Publisher: Doubleday, 2007

Synopsis

“Like most people I didn’t meet Rant Casey until after he was dead. That’s how it works for most celebrities: After they croak, their circle of friends just explodes....”


Rant is the mind-bending new novel from Chuck Palahniuk, the literary provocateur responsible for such books as the generation-defining classic Fight Club and the pedal-to-the-metal horrorfest Haunted. It takes the form of an oral history of one Buster “Rant” Casey, who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time.
“What ‘Typhoid Mary’ Mallon was to typhoid, what Gaetan Dugas was to AIDS, and Liu Jian-lun was to SARS, Buster Casey would become for rabies.”


A high school rebel who always wins (and a childhood murderer?), Rant Casey escapes from his small hometown of Middleton for the big city. He becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. On appointed nights participants recognize one another by such designated car markings as “Just Married” toothpaste graffiti and then stalk and crash into each other. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. Their collected anecdotes explore the possibility that his saliva caused a silent urban plague of rabies and that he found a way to escape the prison house of linear time....
“The future you have, tomorrow, won’t be the same future you had, yesterday.”
—Rant Casey


Expect hilarity, horror, and blazing insight into the desperate and surreal contemporary human condition as only Chuck Palahniuk can deliver it. He's the postmillennial Jonathan Swift, the visionary to watch to learn what's —uh-oh—coming next.

About this title

Review:

Chuck Palahniuk is, of course, best known for Fight Club, a remarkable novel which gave rise to an equally remarkable movie. As a writer, his specialty has been in having no speciality -- other than that of refusing to conform to any expectations readers might have of him. Except in one regard: a book by Palahniuk will be edgy, dark and iconoclastic. Which is very much the case with Rant, The Oral History of Buster Casey. This is a novel that leaves the reader notably off-kilter for a number of reasons; its coal-black vision of a society in a state of near savagery and its sardonically funny approach to the scabrous narrative. The ‘Oral History’ here relates to Buster ‘Rant’ Casey -- and the picture we receive of him is conveyed through a motley group of enemies, friends, relations and sexual partners. Through their wildly differing accounts, we build up a picture of a very unusual man indeed: a charismatic, sinister figure with a predilection for one recreational drug (the main component of which is rabies, no less). His other substance-of-choice (in terms of highly dangerous stimulants) is the venom of a black widow spider (for its aphrodisiac qualities). Living in a small town which is barely civilised (and the passages relating to this bizarre locale are conveyed in Palahniuk’s most phantasmagorical writing), Rant opts to strike out for the big town, and quickly establishes himself at the head honcho of an urban demolition derby which goes by the name of ‘Party Crashing’. The group, on selected nights, conducts a demented game of lethal dodgems, seeking out each other in cars to bring about satisfying motorway mayhem. And in the midst of this madness, Rant, a truly toxic figure, is spreading a variety of very nasty things among those he encounters.

This is nothing less than a vision of society plunged into insanity, with every comforting conventional aspect ruthlessly torn away. It's futuristic, it's very dark, and it's very funny. And (as the foregoing might suggest) it is most definitely not for those who like their literature sedate and unshocking. And in that way, of course, it's a typical Chuck Palahniuk novel. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

One of the most feverish imaginations in American letters. . . . More than your weekly prescribed dose of humor and humanity, cleverness and outrage.
The Washington Post
Brilliant. . . extremely fun. . . . With his love of contemporary fairytales that are gritty and dirty rather than pretty, Palahniuk is the likeliest inheritor of Vonnegut's place in American writing.
San Francisco Chronicle
Mr. Palahniuk doesn't write for tourists. He writes for hard-core devotees drawn to the wild, angry imagination on display and the taboo-busting humor.
The New York Times
Unpredictably hilarious. . . . The writing is vivid, raw, and mordantly knowing.
Chicago Sun-Times
Truly unique. He writes at the edge of crazy, and you can feel his desperate urge to get at the truth of things.
The Seattle Times
Twisted? Come on, it's Palahniuk. Impossible to put down? Same answer.
Men's Journal
It's a rare novel that's as funny and as brain-bending as this one. Buckle up.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
A white-knuckled what-if, Rant is the author's most idiosyncratic work to date.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
A strong dose of gore and sinewy prose.
Time Out New York
So funny that your facial muscles soon tire.
The Guardian "

"One of the most feverish imaginations in American letters. . . . More than your weekly prescribed dose of humor and humanity, cleverness and outrage."
--The Washington Post
"Brilliant. . . extremely fun. . . . With his love of contemporary fairytales that are gritty and dirty rather than pretty, Palahniuk is the likeliest inheritor of Vonnegut's place in American writing."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Mr. Palahniuk doesn't write for tourists. He writes for hard-core devotees drawn to the wild, angry imagination on display and the taboo-busting humor."
--The New York Times
"Unpredictably hilarious. . . . The writing is vivid, raw, and mordantly knowing."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Truly unique. He writes at the edge of crazy, and you can feel his desperate urge to get at the truth of things."
--The Seattle Times
"Twisted? Come on, it's Palahniuk. Impossible to put down? Same answer."
--Men's Journal
"It's a rare novel that's as funny and as brain-bending as this one. Buckle up."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A white-knuckled what-if, Rant is the author's most idiosyncratic work to date."
--The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"A strong dose of gore and sinewy prose."
--Time Out New York
"So funny that your facial muscles soon tire."
--The Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0385517874
• ISBN 13: 9780385517874
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320