A controversial short story, "Guts," by Chuck Palahniuk is set for release in the March issue of Playboy. Rumor has it that when the author reads it in public, audience members flee, faint, and — vomit. We don't know if this is true, but it sounds cool enough.
Link 1, Link 2, Amazon link . (Thanks, Susannah!)
UPDATE:
Listen to a bootleg copy of one recent GUTS reading here (MP3, 12 MB) or here (thanks, Boogah!) or here (thanks, P!)
BoingBoing reader Evan DiBiase says: "It's definitely made people flee and faint when read in public, at least. I attended a reading of the author's at the University of Pittsburgh, and several people left during the reading of the story, and at least one gentleman who was sitting near me fainted, went completely stiff, and was carried out by a few men who I presume to have been his friends. Additionally, Pahlaniuk did mention that similar things had happened elsewhere, so it seems that we Pittsburghers are not especially squeamish. (For what it's worth, I sat through the whole thing…)"
And Joshua Terrell says, "This seems to be a sort of ongoing and semi-organized public art performance that your witnesses were party to – people have been faux-vomiting, fainting and having fits at Palahniuk readings going back several years. In fact, from what I have read and heard (and seen, once, in San Francisco), something like this happens at every single one of his readings. Google it and you will find many, many references & even a few people planning "barf-ins" at his readings."
Audblog founder Noah Glass says: "Wondering if you checked out the audblog posts where he talks about people vomiting in the isles. Link, goto features, goto audioblogs, scroll down to Tuesday, September 09, 2003. There are a couple of posts where he talks about people passing out and people vomiting. "
