Salon.com > Justin Hopper http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 02:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The company of men http://www.salon.com/2001/04/20/palahniuk_2/ http://www.salon.com/2001/04/20/palahniuk_2/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2001 20:37:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/04/20/palahniuk Entering the wood-paneled hall, it's tempting to check the surrounding faces for telltale signs: mushy black eyes, hospital-shaven heads, the acknowledging smirk on a bruised face. In advance of "Postcards From the Future," the first-ever Chuck Palahniuk conference, no one seems quite certain who will show up in the sleepy northwestern Pennsylvania town of Edinboro, nor what form their dedication to the cult-favorite author of "Fight Club" might take.

"It's kinda weird," says Amy Dalton, coauthor of the Chuck Palahniuk.net Web site, one of the conference's sponsors, "because I'm a little bit afraid of some of these people. I try to think that they're just like me, and they're interested in this writer. But there're people on this other [online] message board who are really 'fight clubbing' it -- not like the guys on our board saying 'Why isn't there a fight club in Omaha?' These people are really doing it!"

Christian McKinney, the 22-year-old Edinboro University senior who is the main organizer of the conference, was similarly anxious in the days leading up to the event. At some of Palahniuk's recent speaking engagements, McKinney explains, the author has been asked disconcerting questions: "People were asking him, basically, to tell them how they should live their lives. And when he refused to tell them, they started shouting at him."

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