Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by…

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (original 2007; edition 2007)

by Chuck Palahniuk

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
5,046	95	2,187	(3.67)	90
Buster "Rant" Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. With hilarity, horror, and blazing insight, Rant is a mind-bending vision of the future, as only Chuck Palahniuk could ever imagine.… (more)

▾Book information

Member:	abductee
Title:	Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
Authors:	Chuck Palahniuk
Info:	Doubleday (2007), Hardcover, 336 pages
Collections:	Your library, Currently reading
Rating:
Tags:	fiction

Work Information

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk (2007)

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English (91) Spanish (1) German (1) Italian (1) French (1) All languages (95)

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Showing 1-5 of 91 (next | show all)

So, this definitely wasn’t my favorite book by Palahniuk. To be fair, i feel like I feel like my inferior mind has missed the brilliance of his writing, because, let’s face it, his writing is use quite brilliant...but I really didn’t get this one. I was hooked in the beginning, enjoying the unique format of the story, laughing at the characters, slowing figuring bits and pieces out. Then BAM! The story takes this crazy turn and I’m left wondering wtf happened? It was weird how the whole story shifted more than halfway through the book!
So, anyhow, still a big fan of his work, just didn’t dig this one. It happens. Still feel like I missed something though. (

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jbrownleo | Mar 27, 2024 |

What did I just read??? It was a thought provoking, insane, confusing ride! (

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HauntedTaco13 | Dec 29, 2023 |

This book is like watching a car crash and I couldn’t stop rubbernecking. It was a *disaster* of a read. Sorry, Chuck. This is one of those stories that tries to be all cerebral and smart by making connections but all it ends up feeling like is a ton of random ideas that got shoved into a novel with a pretty cover. It had its fun moments, likable characters, some unique concepts? But everything feels rushed, out of place, and underdeveloped.

If Lullaby hadn’t been my first Palahniuk book I definitely would never have picked up another one. Good thing I’m in it for the morbid curiosity of these continual car crashes of books. (

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CozmicDotCom | Nov 22, 2023 |

My twentysomething nephews & nieces rant & rave about Chuck Palahniuk all the time so I decided to finally give one of his books a chance. After reading Rant with it's theme of youthful rebellion I now understand his appeal. A bit to much "out there" for me , but overall fairly entertaining stuff. (

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kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 |

After reading Fight Club, which blew me away due to the innovate approach, I decided to read others, this one included. The authors attempt at telling the story via what he calls an oral biography is in my opinion, lame. Far too much back story via anecdotes from those who knew or were associated with the character, it meanders continually without continuity. You find yourself asking, when will the story begin? Rather than trudge through the incongruity, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. (

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Jonathan5 | Feb 20, 2023 |

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Showing 1-5 of 91 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

12 reviews

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thingScore 52

At its best, Palahniuk’s prose has the rat-a-tat immediacy of a bravura spoken word performance. When he misses, which he does often in “Rant,” it’s just overcooked and indulgent.

added by stephmo | editNew York Times, Field Maloney (Jun 3, 2007)

An altogether more complex novel than that earlier faux-Nietzschean call to arms, this ‘Rant’ is anything but.

added by stephmo | editTime Out London, Adam Lee Davies (May 25, 2007)

His latest novel, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, is even more ambitious, but here Palahniuk's swirl of characters and plotlines never gels, and the story lurches dangerously toward incoherence.

added by stephmo | editThe Washington Post, Joe Hill (May 20, 2007)

Reading the latest Chuck Palahniuk novel is an invariably gripping, always disturbing, and -- more and more often -- ultimately disappointing experience.

added by stephmo | editBoston Globe, Kevin O'Kelly (May 16, 2007)

There is no question that Palahniuk is an important writer, with a huge popular following. But as his conceits grow ever more ludicrous, his books become more like art-statements than novels. The plot of Rant is so overheated it approaches self-parody, and occasionally trivialises what are clearly serious concerns.

added by stephmo | editThe Independent, Matt Thorne (May 13, 2007)

Rant is the novel you might expect if Philip K Dick met Dennis Johnson and they took crystal meth together and spent a week telling one another everything they knew about epidemiology, economics, cars, coin-collecting, generation warfare, spiders and the physics of time.

added by stephmo | editThe Guardian, M. John Harrison (May 12, 2007)

Mr. Palahniuk’s best books really do have mind-blowing twists and turns, to the point where the reader walks away from them in an altered state. They offer entrée into all-encompassing strange new worlds. But “Rant” lacks that kind of vision. Instead it carries a whiff of desperation, as if Mr. Palahniuk had ratcheted the fantasy stakes too high and strip-mined the same parts of his vast, fertile imagination too often.

added by stephmo | editNew York Times, Janet Maslin (May 7, 2007)

Palahniuk, usually in such complete control of his considerable narrative gifts, falters badly here. It's the first time this voice of cultural apocalypse sounds gratuitously ugly and like a pale imitation of itself.

added by stephmo | editUSA Today, David Daley (May 7, 2007)

Chuck Palahniuk, author of "Fight Club," may have one of the strangest brains on the planet. There's a place deep inside the subconscious that understands pain and joy, but not time, and it's the same place where snot and spit, those gross-out childish bodily fluids, are precious.

added by stephmo | editSan Francisco Chronicle, Laurel Maury (May 6, 2007)

Is the writer searching for some soul in the dank scuzz of American culture — or does he just like getting really dirty? Who knows? That's Palahniuk for you too.

added by stephmo | editEntertainment Weekly, Jeff Jensen (May 4, 2007)

In "Rant," Chuck Palahniuk adopts the oral biography format used by George Plimpton for "Truman Capote" and Jean Stein for "Edie" in his study of Buster Casey, a "naturopathic serial killer." This style, you would think, might lend an air of authenticity to the story. Instead, Palahniuk's eighth novel is a high-minded version of "South Park."

added by stephmo | editSeattle Times, Mark Lindquist (Apr 27, 2007)

It's unfortunate that Palahniuk chooses to spike his compelling mix of two-fisted tales of near-future eccentrics with what amounts to an inelegant hack of Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies."

added by stephmo | editAustin Chronicle, Wayne Alan Brenner (Apr 13, 2007)

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▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

Gallimard, Folio SF (342)

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Dublin Literary Award (Longlist – 2009)

Distinctions

New York Times bestseller (Fiction – 2007)

Notable Lists

I 50 Libri del Decennio

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

Original title

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Do you ever wish you'd never been born?

Dedication

For my father, Fred Leander Palahniuk. Look up from the sidewalk. Please.

First words

Like most people, I didn't meet and talk to Rant Casey until after he was dead.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Rant (novel)

▾Book descriptions

Buster "Rant" Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. With hilarity, horror, and blazing insight, Rant is a mind-bending vision of the future, as only Chuck Palahniuk could ever imagine.

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