Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

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Description
In this fictional oral history, Buster RRantS Casey's friends, enemies, admirers, detractors, and relations have their say about him--an evil character who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time.

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Publisher’s Weekly (03/05/2007)
Buster Casey, destined to live fast, die young and murder as many people as he can, is the rotten seed at the core of Palahniuk's comically nasty eighth novel (afterHaunted ;Lullaby ;Diary ; etc.). Set in a future where urbanites are segregated by strict curfews into Daytimers and Nighttimers, the narrative unfolds as an oral history comprising contradictory accounts from people who knew Buster. These include childhood friends horrified by the boy's macabre behavior (getting snakes, scorpions and spiders to bite him and induce instant erections; repeatedly infecting himself with rabies), policemen and doctors who had dealings with the rabies "superspreader"; and Party Crashers, thrill-seeking Nighttimers who turn city streets into demolition derby arenas. After liberally infecting his hometown peers with rabies, Buster hits the big city and takes up with the Party Crashers. A series of deaths lead to a police investigation of Buster (long-since known as "Rant"-the sound children make while vomiting) that peaks just as Buster apparently commits suicide in a blaze of car-crash glory. This dark religious parable (there's even a resurrection) from the master of grotesque excess may not attract new readers, but it will delight old ones.(May)

Library Journal (05/01/2007)
"Rant" Casey, a small-town boy with amazing senses of smell and taste and a gift for creating mayhem, blazes through his brief life, leaving behind a minefield of Easter egg grenades, old coins, rabies infections, and suspicious deaths. He races up the seating chart of the Casey Thanksgiving table and on to a near-future city in which "Daytimers" are segregated from "Nighttimers." Virtual experiences piped directly into neural ports have replaced other media, and teams of "Party Crashers" cruise in cars designated only by "Just Married" signs, Christmas trees, and the like, watching for other teams to smash into. Using the narrative form of an oral history drawn from dozens of incomplete perspectives, Palahniuk (Fight Club; Haunted ) creates a biography that twists one's view of his subject with each chapter. Palahniuk's writing churns with adrenaline and other bodily fluids: the result is gruesome, lightning fast, and the darkest kind of funny. Like rubberneckers at the crashes he details, readers will be appalled yet enthralled, unable to stop reading. Highly recommended for all libraries except those frequented only by the faint of heart. [See Prepub Alert,LJ 1/07.]-Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

ISBN: 0385517874 | EAN: 9780385517874
Publisher: Doubleday Books  | Publication Date: May, 2007

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