Portland couple's reno reveals a time capsule from Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk
Jolynn Winter wasn't totally surprised to find a time capsule from novelist Chuck Palahniuk in her ceiling.
In fact, she asked her contractors to keep an eye out for "something unusual that's hidden in the walls" while renovating the Portland, Ore., home she and her husband bought from the Fight Club author 10 years ago.
"The reason I did that is because Chuck kind of had a little tendency to do some awkward things on this property that I noticed," Winter told As It Happens guest host Rosemary Barton.
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For example, she suspects the property's rock walls are an homage to Palahniuk's novel Choke, in which a character collects rocks to build his dream home.
She said she remembered that his book Diary features a contractor who leaves "disturbing messages" inside the walls of a home.
"So I said, 'You know what? This sounds like a Diary thing that could happen.' And sure enough, it did," she said.
But instead of disturbing messages, the contractors found a backgammon case filled with treasures from 2002.
The contents include an autographed copy of Fight Club, old newspaper articles, family photos and a letter from Palahniuk describing the history of the house and what it meant to him and his family.
"We hope you're as happy in this house as we've been," it reads. "We've done our best to leave it much nicer than we found it."
After posting pictures of the time capsule's contents to Facebook, Winter made photocopies of the pictures and documents for herself, then put the originals back in ceiling — signed book and all.
She and her family also added some items of their own.
"We decided to just kind of pay it forward and add to it and talk a little bit about our lives and put some photos of our remodel and our lives and what we do and how we ended up here and left that for whoever might find it," she said.
"Wouldn't it be fun, if, you know, maybe 20 years down the road, somebody else finds it and just kind of pays it forward again? And then 200 years down the road, if this house is still standing, you'll find 20 time capsules somewhere in a wall."
Palahniuk has not commented on the story, though it was shared by his official Facebook and Twitter accounts. As It Happens has reached out to his Random House publisher for comment.
"I do understand that he has seen the Facebook post and that he did see the local television coverage," Winter said. "I'm glad we were able to at least preserve it for him."
