What the hell is that thing? A faceheartvagina?
Rant takes the form of a (fictional) oral history of Buster "Rant" Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, admirers, detractors, and relations have their say on this evil character, who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time.
Buster Casey was every small kid born in a small town, searching for real thrills in a world of video games and action/adventure movies. The high school rebel who always wins (and a childhood murderer?), Rant Casey escapes from his hometown of Middleton for the big city and becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing, where on designated nights, the participants recognize each other by dressing their cars with tin-can tails, "Just Married" toothpaste graffiti, and other refuse, then look for designated markings in order to stalk and crash into each other. It's in this violent, late-night hunting game that Casey meets three friends. And after his spectacular death, these friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short life. Their collected anecdotes explore the charges that his saliva infected hundreds and caused a silent, urban plague of rabies....
First of all this plot synopsis completely leaves out a huge part of the story, the part of the story that should see Chuck Palahniuk put on trial for raping my brain. Of course I really don't want to give away too much of the story but lets just say that it involves time travel. I would say that the story is like a cross between Back to the Future and Memento with a little dystopian Blade Runner shit thrown in.
I was completely blown away by Palahniuk halfway through the book, he is funny, and his narrative is sharp and at times, gut-wrenching. Rant starts out following a truly weird and sick child, one surely destined to grow up to be a blight upon society as we know it. Slowly I began to identify with him as he grew up. Masterfully Palahniuk pulls the strings of his narrative and magically as Rant begins to look more and more appealing the society he lives in begins to look less and less so until the universe seems to have been turned upside down. Rant who we thought to be a villain has turned out to be if not a hero at least a pretty likeable anti-hero. All that is before time travel even begins to make a major plot appearance to totally blow your goddamn mind! What else does this book have to offer? Spider venom induced priapism. Yes you read that right. But Palahiniuk's sick sense of humor aside he and Cormac McCarthy are both going to be battling it out for the title of best contemporary novelist in America.
If you read one book this year make it this book. Even if you only read one book this decade, read this one. Then punch yourself in the crotch for being an illiterate Phillistine.
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