Tucker Max brings his ‘smut peddling’ to Chop Suey Books

Best-selling author Tucker Max will be conducting a book signing at Chop Suey Books this Thursday in promotion of his new book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.”

“If you had told me like four years ago that I was going to be a New York Times Best-seller, I would have said, ‘Get the (expletive) out! What am I going to write about?'” Max explained in an interview.

And yet now, Max is not surprised his new book has made it where it is today.

The book, in which he collects many of his stories into a compilation that recounts many nights of drinking and carousing through his young adult life, has become as much of a hit as his Web site.

TuckerMax.com, started as a bet between him and his law school friends in 2002 in which his friends bet he would not dare create a “date application” Web site, soared into one of the most highly-trafficked spots on the Internet.

An honor graduate of the University of Chicago, Tucker went through law school at Duke to get his Juris Doctorate degree. He had never taken a creative writing course, and he had not paid particularly special attention to writing.

“I concentrated in economics and law,” he said. “I never really cared about anything like English.”

Rather, the basis of his stories was from an e-mail circle started with some of his friends, in which they would all share their accounts of barhopping and promiscuous misadventures.

Regardless of his start on the Internet, Max assured me he was not a “blogger.” However, his Web site became all-but legendary on the Internet, and Max often refers to other similar, outlandish sites such as Maddox.com. The New York Times marvels that barely any of Max’s material can be cited due to its offensive content.

The new book collects many of the stories archived on his site as well as several new pieces. It is climbing up the New York Times Best-seller List, and expectations are that it will only get better with the book tour starting Feb. 1. As far as larger outlooks are concerned, he said, “Only fools and gods claim they can predict the future.”

There has been both love and hate for Tucker Max throughout his Internet career. He has been the center of intrigue after being propositioned by two sisters before they were convicted for the murder of their mother and has almost been sued by a former Miss Vermont for slander. He has at once been seen by appalled audiences as a “smut peddler” and in the same instance as a hero among every drinker who has ever woken up the next morning unsure how they got there or where their clothes are.

When asked whether or not he had any words of advice for VCU students, he was at a loss. “No. What do you expect me to say?” he said. “Just come out to the book signing. It’s not like I have any quotes to put on calendars or anything.”

Chop Suey Books is located at 1317 W. Cary St., only a few blocks from the Monroe Park Campus. The signing will begin at 3 p.m., Thursday.

Information about Tucker, his book, and other stories can be found at his Web site, http://www.tuckermax.com. Take caution of the obvious mature content – definitely not for the easily offended.