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1-Page Summary of Fight Club
Overall Summary
The book begins with a man named the Narrator sitting on the top floor of a skyscraper that’s about to explode. A man named Tyler Durden is pointing a gun into his mouth. The story then flashes back to when it all began, and we learn how they got here.
Before this passage, the Narrator developed insomnia. He was bored with his life and started attending cancer support groups. The support groups allowed him to express strong emotions and sleep well. Soon after, another person named Marla Singer began going to the support groups as well. She claimed that she went because she wanted to feel close to death.
The narrator has no place to go after his condo explodes and he calls Tyler Durden, who allows him to stay at his house. The two men then decide that they love fighting because it makes them feel alive and real.
While the narrator is staying at Tyler’s house, he continues his job as a corporate drone traveling around the country calculating how much it would cost to recall cars that have been built with faulty brakes. Meanwhile, Tyler works odd jobs as a waiter and projectionist in order to sabotage society by urinating in fancy dishes and splicing pornography into family movies. Together they found an underground group called “fight club” where men fight each other to get back in touch with their primal instincts and masculinity.
Tyler gets a call from Marla at his house, and goes to see her. After that incident, Tyler and the Narrator have sex frequently in the house. The Narrator is irritated by this behavior, but Tyler tells him not to tell Marla about their relationship or he will never be able to see Tyler again. In addition, Tyler shows the Narrator how he makes soap with lye as one of its main ingredients. One time when they’re making soap together, Tyler kisses the Narrator’s hand and pours lye on it; this leaves a scar resembling a kiss mark on the Narrator’s hand. This marks an important turning point for both characters because before then neither had ever been hurt physically by another person; now both are changed forever emotionally by each other’s actions.
Tyler regularly receives shipments of collagen from Marla, who removes it from her mother’s body. Tyler turns the collagen into soap and sells it for a profit. When Marla finds out about this, she is angry and tells the Narrator that he should not be in their house if Tyler is there too.
Marla calls the Narrator and asks him to examine her for breast cancer. They learn that she does have breast cancer, so she begins attending support groups. The police call the Narrator and tell him that they suspect he blew up his condominium because of fight club’s increasing popularity across the country.
Tyler forms a secret society within the larger secret society, called Project Mayhem. Tyler subjects his recruits to an intense initiation process, and after that he encourages them to sacrifice their happiness for the good of the movement. He hosts hundreds of members in his house and they all follow him blindly. The Narrator continues to help Marla through her cancer treatment while also trying to get back with her.
One evening, Tyler calls The Narrator at work and tells him to get into a Project Mayhem car waiting for him. The Narrator does so, and the driver asks him what he wanted to do before he died. He answers that he wants to quit his job. They drive around while the Narrator becomes depressed with the meaninglessness of life until they almost crash into another car—the Mechanic prevents this from happening.
While the narrator continues his work with Project Mayhem, Tyler disappears. The narrator tries to find him, but all he finds are people who think he’s Tyler Durden. Eventually, the Narrator realizes that everyone thinks that he is Tyler Durden because they share a body and have similar personalities. He tells Marla the truth about himself and she doesn’t believe him at first until she sees it for herself.
