Fuck Club

The outer reaches of porn are a little hard to fathom. Splosh films? Furry fetish? 2 Girls 1 Cup? (Wait — forget about 2 Girls 1 Cup.) Fortunately — or maybe not — Chuck Palahniuk makes the world of world-record gangbanging a little easier to swallow with his new book, Snuff. Using first-person alternating narratives, he gets into the heads of three of the 600 people awaiting their shot at Cassie Wright, aging porn star, who is attempting to make history by taking on the entire horde over the course of a day. Obviously, those three heads are a scary place to be — but also thoughtful and meditative, full of backstory and emotion. Palahniuk writes literary novels and not letters to Penthouse. On the book jacket, Snuff is described, almost gleefully, as “thoroughly researched,” and by God it is. You feel you’re actually standing there in the green room, stripped down to your boxers, shoveling down greasy chips, popping Viagra, shaving your ass, reeling from the stench of the single-toilet bathroom (and of bronzer and cologne from the male ringers in the mix), awaiting your turn to briefly cohabit with Wright using one appendage or another (the rules for world-record gangbangs aren’t as specific as you think). Palahniuk has had a little fun with promoting the book as well, releasing a fake trailer on MySpace for one Wright’s old films, The Wizard of Ass, and interviewing the lady herself (who, for some reason, is a man) in a faux interview on Amazon.com. Palahniuk appears for an onstage interview and book signing.
Wed., May 28, 7 p.m., 2008