Chuck Palahniuk
Rabbia

"Rabies is an infectious disease that affects warm-blooded animals and can be transmitted to humans [...] The predominant symptomatology (75% of cases) is of a furious type [...] the appearance of specific symptoms after the latency phase almost always coincides with an unfortunate outcome of the pathology."

Buster "Rant" Casey is dead. Rant, meaning "rage," was a hero. Or he was the most ruthless criminal of our era. He acted according to a precise plan, or perhaps he was entirely insane. Rant died in an accident while trying to pursue his diabolical plans. Or while trying to save his mother. Or he was murdered, a scapegoat and victim of the system. Or maybe he committed suicide, driven mad by the rabies virus. Or to transcend mortal human nature anchored to space and time. Perhaps instead Rant merely disappeared. He is still alive, like (some say) Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison. Or maybe he was resurrected, like Jesus Christ. But maybe he is just a legend, a story we tell as those who survived him: a myth, a martyr for humanity. Or a bogeyman to scare the children.

"Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey" is an investigation into the true origins and nature of Rant Casey. Interviews were conducted with those who knew him in life, but the testimonies often blend and contradict each other. Rant Casey was born in Middleton: an anonymous town lost in the countryside, where feral dogs roam fiercely and tornadoes carry condoms and sanitary pads with them. While people do everything possible to escape reality, the young Rant tried to face it as much as possible: he went into the desert and stuck his arms and legs into the burrows of wild animals. It was his vaccine against fear: no matter how shitty his future would be, it would always have been better than a black widow biting his foot. The boy grows up cheerful, with arms full of scars and an asymptomatic carrier of sylvatic rabies. Besides animal venom and the lyssavirus, his passions are fallen teeth, drops of tar that form at the sides of paved roads, and ancient precious coins he mysteriously came into possession of. And pranks: too bad his pranks result in creating a generation of enriched brats, inflating the entire city's economy, highlighting people's lies and greed. Rant demonstrates that money, like the flow of traffic, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus, have value because people believe in them. They have value because when people believe in a lie, it transforms into truth. But Rant doesn't seem very aware of all this: he seems more interested in children's fallen milk teeth and picking up as many girls as possible. The young Rant is a great lover, and claims to be able to determine a person's diet and identify any potential diseases just by tasting their vaginal fluids. Additionally, his kiss transmits rabies (but perhaps the epidemic is only a government conspiracy). After moving to the city, Rant participates in party crashing, night-time car chases that turn a road trip into something more significant than the journey: chasing and crashing into each other, the competitors feel time freeze in the tension of the moment, like a religious ecstasy. They forget shitty jobs, health problems, the terror of road accidents, and experience real emotions. Rant will meet his death in the most reckless of these races behind the wheel.

The book presents us with an already concluded story, in which we readers must navigate contradictory and opposing points of view. Page after page, new bewildering questions emerge, compelling us to continue reading. How significant are the consequences of Rant Casey's actions? Who organizes the party crashing? What is the government program I SEE YOU and why is the population divided into "daytimers" and "nighttimers"? Why do people have "ports" on their necks that allow them to relive others' emotions, modified and standardized by large companies?

Rant is a confusing book full of questions, and it is deliberately so. Chuck Palahniuk confronts us with an impressive series of unresolved questions enclosed in a book whose plot is constantly questioned, ultimately putting even the passage of time and the very nature of reality into doubt. A novel that drives us towards the continuous search for meaning in society and reality. Palahniuk, having reached his eighth novel with Rant, confirms himself as one of the greatest contemporary American writers.

"And if reality were nothing more than a disease?"