Chuck Palahniuk agent, Edward Hibbert, Hibbert eventually guided and brokered the deal that took "Fight Club" to the big screen. In 1999, three years after the novel's publication, the film adaptation by director David Fincher was released. The film was a box office disappointment (although it was #1 at the U.S. box office in its first weekend) and critical reaction was mixed, but a cult following soon emerged as the DVD of the film became popular upon release. Three editions of the novel have been published in paperback, in 1999, in 2004 (with a new introduction by the author about the success
Haunted (Palahniuk novel) carrot," referring to both the mother in the first story and to the total denial of all the parents involved. Purportedly all three of these incidents are based on true stories. According to Palahniuk, the first two tales came from his friends' experiences and the third he heard while shadowing sexual addiction support groups as research for "Choke". In one of these groups, he met an extremely thin man. When Palahniuk asked him how he stayed so thin, he told him "I had a massive bowel resectioning." When Palahniuk asked what he meant, he told him the story which was