Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

#144
Title: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Doubleday
Year: 2007
Genre: fiction
336 pages 

After Rant, I feel much more hopeful about Palahniuk's future works. It isn't perfect, and still doesn't attain the crispness of his earlier work, but it marks a return to the characteristics that made that earlier work interesting and engaging. Palahniuk still doesn't trust his reader and undermines his work (here, by a ham-handed and entirely unnecessary front note telling the reader that oral histories may be contradictory. Yes, we know this.

The oral history aspect of the novel works well; the plot doesn't always cohere across those multiple, unreliable narrators, and some of the devices are not well-explored. Still, this "biography" is interesting and engaging and represents a welcome return to Palahniuk's earlier style, with much more of his pleasing world-building. If you haven't read Haunted, just skip it. If you have, you'll find Rant less gross for the sake of gross.