Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk latest novels, Damned and Doomed, feature Madison Spencer, the liveliest and snarkiest dead girl in the universe.

From Palahniuk's Q & A with Emma Chastain at The Barnes & Noble Book Blog:

Could I ask about your belief in the possibility of an afterlife? When we meet Madison [in Damned] and she’s in hell, and now [in Doomed] she’s moved into purgatory, and as a fellow ex-Catholic, I’m curious about your beliefs.

I think it’s harder to believe in the lack of an afterlife. It would be ruling out so many things just because we can’t see them. I think it would be akin to living in past centuries in denial of microbes or germs or the galaxy. Just because we can’t see something, we shouldn’t be dismissing it so easily.

Do you think it’s possible that hell is a physical place in some way?

No. I ascribe to the belief of I think it’s Thomas More, who said that hell is where you take yourself when you’re not being the person that God intended you to be. So hell is, in a way, a state that you create yourself.

Read the complete Q & A.

Learn about the literary character Palahniuk believes most resembles him.

--Marshal Zeringue