It's doubtful that Chuck Palahniuk - literary genius, torchbearer for the nihilistic generation and Portland's answer to Irvine Welsh, with his haemorrhaging ribbons of toxic chiffon prose that sits somewhere in the vicinity of "Naked Lunch, A Clockwork Orange and Last House On The Left" - had any idea of the storm of controversy that was brewing as he dotted the i and crossed the final t on his anthemic Fight Club manuscript. But, then again, he probably had little inkling when one afternoon he was cruising down the Portland Freeway and a driver - "a freeway sniper"- slowly pulled up alongside him and pointed a gun directly at his head, that he would become the avatar against a violent world and society.

He's been accused of perpetuating and glorifying violence and subscribing to an emotionally barren and destructive philosophy, but on the other hand, critical acclaim has gushed in and Hollywood scouts have scrambled to buy the film rights (20th Century Fox eventually won the battle) to his gloriously, bleak vision Fight Club. Seven Director David Fincher will be directing and actors Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are vying for the lead role, whilst elfin bohemian Winona Ryder read for the part of the dysfunctional and self mutilating Marla only a week ago.

So what's all the fuss about? Is it the fictional messianic madman and anarchist Tyler Durden who gets his rocks off on "disaster, tragedy and dissolution"? Is it the voice of youth that tears at its own flesh and rapes its own mind or is it the symphony of virological terrorism and flood of catharticism that swings in favour of a unhealthy obsession with death, pain and black humour? According to Palahniuk, it's all of the above.

"With Fight Club I figured if you can play on the basis of something that really scares people like fights or terminal illness ... if you go right up to it and laugh at it, and have fun around it, and really disempower it by doing that, then that's the greatest thing you can do. I can make people laugh about death, laugh about fights, laugh about pain. Y'know, I did some volunteer work in a hospice for the terminally ill a couple of years ago and that's where a lot of the stuff in the book came from. I really loved how people who were really facing it - facing death - could be really honest and funny and I found that really inspiring to be around," explains Palanhiuk.

"It is a backlash. It's about dealing with things that haven't been dealt with, and sort of fantasising about it, whereas, I could have written about things that have been resolved, or just things that you have to put up with, things you have to tolerate every day."

It's a grey and overcast morning in Portland's Freight Terminal, where a very shy, sardonic and softly spoken Palanhiuk staves off the curious glances of his boss and co-workers. He's a glorified technical writer who churns out manuals on trucks, service and cars in an environment that has the scent of industrialisation and blue collar America. It's not the kind of haven you expect the new face of American fiction to be incarcerated in. But then, Palanhiuk isn't the archetypal writer who pours his bruised emotions onto a page to the backdrop of sparse furnishings and the lingering odour of bourbon on his breath.

The 34-year-old author writes on the run, so to speak. He'll be sitting at the gym, pumping iron (a favourite pastime) and suddenly a surge of words will come, or, at the laundromat, or at a party where a stranger will tell him of a particularly nasty experience, Palanhiuk will run to the bathroom, grab a leaf of toilet paper and scribe it down, fold it up and put it in his pocket for later, just another piece to add to the puzzle.

"I'm not really one for describing scenery as much as action," he offers dryly. "But, it's frightening the amount of adventure that happens to people, especially my friends and within their lives. Not too much from any one person, but many of the things that happen in Fight Club are actual things that have happened to people I know. It's funny, friends who have recognised themselves in the book come up to me and are really flattered that I remembered them at a party two days ago. People recognise their cars, houses and their story and they're so thrilled to have read it in a book."

When the graduate of the University of Oregon finally did sit down to weave the tapestry of words and post-it pad notes together, he'd lose himself in the industrial dirges of Nine Inch Nails. He appears almost embarrassed to admit this, just as he is unable to take seriously the praise that has been lavished upon him. His lip curls back, a sly grin spreads and he mutters, under his breath that "it's been a trip."

He continues by smarting at suggestions that he is the '90s answer to Camus, Burroughs and J.G Ballard, "They don't seem real to me," he responds. "I mean, they are people I've been amazed by, so I can't take them very seriously although they're flattering and I try not to let them go to my head." Palahnuik's thoughts are dangerously close to those of the narrator of Fight Club.

A narrator who sees himself as the archetypal outsider and loser. In fact, it's eerily reminiscent of the folk prodigy Beck when he released his critically acclaimed album, Mellow Gold, and then a couple of years later mused that he never viewed himself as the icon of slackers. But, Palanhiuk does ultimately view himself as a loser. Just like many of our generation, he shrugs his shoulders and sniffs, "I most closely relate to the narrator because he IS the constant loser, who's always doing the wrong thing and who is only beginning to realise it. It always ends in disaster and it's nice to finally be able to say it."

Ask him how he feels about being crowned Portland's answer to Irvine Welsh and he grins: "I really love where he's taking things. I loved Marobu Stork and some of his other books. He's completely redoing literature and it's fantastic to see people and publishing companies taking chances."

With his debut novel creating ecstasy, angst and condemnation wherever it lands, Palahniuk has one more surprise up his sleeve, and it's currently sitting on a publishers desk and was inspired by the "Freeway incident". The Portland native fidgets and is on the verge of breathlessness as he explains what the book is about. "It's about a woman whose incredibly beautiful and used to being the centre of attention, and then after a drive-by shooting her face is shot off.

"She's so hideous that no one will look at her, address her or even acknowledge her. She becomes culturally invisible, y'know, like the Emperors New Clothes, and whilst this is terrible and horrific, she realises that it gives her the ultimate freedom to do whatever she wants and gets away with it. So she goes on a crime spree."

Hunter S Thompson once opined that "America.. just a nation of two hundred million used-car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable," and for the reviled and revered Palahnuik, that's the truth. From barbarity to degeneration without the intervention of civilisation.

His world is one filled with zombies, cults, violence, schizophrenia, self mutilation and emotional rape. It is also a shrill scream trumpeting for the revolt against order, conformity and the death of humanity. Fight Club is the bible for the new World Order and to the backdrop of jack boots marching Chuck Palahnuik is finally happy. "I've done my little thing for the world and I finally feel complete and liberated ...."

But, he's also aware that tomorrow is another day..

jayne margetts, between the lines
www.thei.aust.com/isite/btl/btlinchuck.html