Loser and Zombies by Chuck Palahniuk

This week's selection includes two short stories by one of my favorite contemporary authors, Chuck Palahniuk. Zombies was published in Playboy last year and will be collected into a new short story collection to be released later this year or next. Loser was published in Stories: All New Tales in 2011.

You may have seen the movie adapted from his first published novel, Fight Club. If you haven't, your students certainly have. The movie came out while I was in college, and I remember hearing from several of my friends at the time of how it made them reevaluate their lives. My brother, while serving in Kuwait, said that he had friends who wouldn't read at all, except for all the Chuck Palahniuk novels he'd been sent. On a more personal note, Chuck Palahniuk wrote me back when I wrote him fan mail as a youth, and he sent me a hand-made necklace, as well as thoughtful answers to all my questions, so yeah, I adore him more than any other artist I admire.

This week we'll drink sweet white wine since it's close to my birthday. I'll have some dry wine as well, if like my wife, you can't stand the sweet stuff.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How did the style of writing (POV, tone, language, etc.) affect the reading of the story? (Palahniuk is sometimes considered a "transgressive fiction" author, transgressive fiction being stories with taboo subjects, unique voices, shocking images, etc...)

2. General impressions?

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. Reading both of these stories reminded me of the passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920), about a recent Princeton graduate arguing with an older man about how restless he is with the options available to him upon graduation. Both of the protagonists in Palahniuk's stories reject a perceived future role they find unsatisfactory but they feel is expected of them. Do you recognize this angst? Is it universal? Or is it unique? Have you ever dealt with it yourself? How did you resolve the conflict? Have you ever counseled a student struggling with what they see as a path all of their peers seem content to embrace but doesn't fit them? 

4. Are there any student development theories that explain the struggles our protagonists face?

5. How are the protagonist’s answering the questions in Baxter-Magolda’s theory of self-authorship: How do I know? How do I want to construct relationships with others? Who am I?

6. If you recall the Alexander Astin quote from "The Christian Roommates" discussion, what role does our protagonists' peer group play on their decisions / actions?

In What Matters in College?: Four Critical Years Revisited, Astin (1993) says that "Viewed as a whole, the many empirical findings from this study seem to warrant the following general conclusion:  the student's peer group is the single most important source of influence on growth and development in the undergraduate years (p. 398).

However, in both these stories, parents are also a strong influence. In your experience, is one more influential than the other?

7. In “Loser,” the protagonist talks about his knowledge differs from that of his parents or what society values. How does this disagreement on the value of certain kinds of knowledge affect our students? How do they decide what to remember? What to know?

8. There's an epiphany in both of these stories that seems to be a realization of uncertainty, of accepting that it's okay to not have the answer as long as you know what the answer isn't (Loser) and that it's okay to not have the answer since neither does anyone else and you recognize you're all in it together (Zombies). Agree/disagree? How common is this response amongst the students we support?

9. Do you want to see the necklace Chuck Palahniuk made me?