And here I thought that Chuck Palahniuk’s book “Snuff” was bad and poorly arrived at. But because Violet Blue tells us how “hilarious” it was, just goes to show what little I’ve read or know first hand about the porn industry to compare the hilarity to.

WWW- We’re standing in a Mission bar, and Tristan Taormino has just finished poking my cleavage with her index finger and giggling, when she says, “So. The story goes like this. One night, Hunter S. Thompson calls up Susie Bright. It’s late, and he says, ‘It’s Hunter. Tell me everything you know about statistics on bestiality. Details.’

“Except Hunter had the wrong number. He hadn’t called Susie, but some other woman whose number was a digit off. But the minute the woman realized who was on the phone, she hopped on her computer and started researching for him. The next day she got a hold of Susie and said, ‘You wouldn’t believe this, but …'”

It’s exactly that kind of relationship I hope to foster with “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk. Inappropriate late night calls. Referencing methods of death by sex act later immortalized in novels that would just as soon break your nose as be read by you. With characters overdosing on Viagra, death by appliance turned sex toy, a whole collection of unsavory misadventures set in the waiting room for a gangbang shoot that might well be a snuff film.

This waiting room is where the majority of Palahniuk’s complicated and gritty new novel, “Snuff” unfolds. I caught up with Palahniuk after his book tour, and when I asked him what people should know about “Snuff,” the first thing he said was, “‘Snuff’ is not about sex. Most times sex isn’t even about sex.”

And “Snuff” has a lot of sex in it, though it’s actually about the bloated, aging carcass of the mainstream porn industry and its ineffectual struggle for relevance in hard, dripping detail — so it’s not really about sex.

In “Snuff,” Cassie Wright is a washed-up golden age porn star who’s making her final comeback by setting a gangbang record. I asked Palahniuk if Cassie Wright was based on an actual performer, or if there were many “Cassies.” He replied, “Cassie is a composite of a half dozen performers I’ve met while promoting books. God bless them, but folks feel free to tell me anything.”

Mr. 600 (“Branch Bacardi”) is an equally washed up porn performer who habitually shaves his body and continually slathers himself in fake tanner; Mr. 72 is a virgin who may be Cassie Wright’s lost love child; and Mr. 137 is a closeted mainstream actor with perhaps the strangest motives of all.

Imagining that somewhere in the world, some lucky girl who wasn’t me got the 3 a.m. phone call from Palahniuk asking about gangbang waiting room politics, I asked him the ubiquitous “research” question, to which he responded, “I attended the casting and production of hundreds of adult films. It’s a tough, tiresome job, but I do get to write off the expenses on my tax return. It’s no mystery why it burns so bad when I pee.”

Palahniuk does indeed bring a rather stinging perspective on the entire adult industry though the eyes of every character, commenting on its dated incoherence even when describing something as basic as sex toys.

But everything comes into sharp focus in Sheila, the book’s no-nonsense, feminist-identified female protagonist — who is also the gangbang’s organizer. Surveying the waiting room and thinking about porn starlets who have ascribed a deeper meaning to their work, Shelia tells us, “The last thing today comes down to is personal growth.”

When I asked Palahniuk if he had a favorite character in the book, he responded, “My favorite? Sheila, the talent wrangler and mastermind behind the whole doomed production. Half of my generation is plotting to kill their Baby Boomer parents for a big cash inheritance.”

If “Snuff” sounds bleak and dystopian, it’s actually not. This is not an Irvine Welsh novel. “Snuff” is actually hilarious. It’s colorful and bizarre, highly entertaining and noir, as foolish and unintentionally whimsical and scary and compelling and as melted plastic as getting a close look at porn performers under fluorescent lights in Las Vegas can be. No small amount of fun was had in marketing the book, when Palahniuk and pals concocted and filmed a set of seriously wacked Internet-only videos about Cassie Wright’s pre-“Snuff” history.

The YouTube videos made the blog rounds in a particularly viral fashion, and when I mentioned it to Palahniuk he replied, “Viral = scary. Isn’t herpes a virus? Laptops that touch the Web shall never touch mine.” Still, the hilarious PG-rated fake trailers for “Chitty Chitty Gang Bang,” “The Wizard of Ass” and “The Twilight Bone” show that Palahniuk’s laptop has certainly been touched in that special place by something — and it seems even more so when we get a look at his “interviews” with a very Divine-inspired present-day Cassie Wright. And let’s not forget Cassie’s MySpace page, because MySpace is actually where all porn stars go to die. It certainly prompted me to remark that Palahniuk’s marketers must have some enviable drug connections.

Still hoping for the late night calls to find out if the guy who sat on the trailer hitch survived, I asked Palahniuk what he likes — and dislikes — about our fair city. In trademark fashion he responded, “Amy Tan (and Amy Tan).”

So, no “Joy F— Club” for Chuck, OK?

Full disclosure: This columnist is referenced and cited in regard to a method of sexual death in Chuck Palahniuk’s “Snuff.”