: A white collar with a split personality and a craving for self-destruction creates Fight Clubs, and then a project designed to destroy the world. The personalities of the hero conflict, and he ends up in a madhouse.

First-person narration. The real name of the narrator, conditionally called Jack, is not mentioned in the novel.

Jack is standing on the roof of a New York skyscraper with a gun barrel in his mouth. The weapon handle holds Tyler. Its real purpose is not a skyscraper, but the National Museum, on which the skyscraper should fall. Tyler wants to destroy "all these dead people."

It all started with Jack's insomnia. He does not sleep for weeks and is already losing his mind.

Insomnia removes you from everything around you. You cannot touch anything, and nothing touches you.

The attending physician tells him that they do not die from insomnia, and instead of prescribing sleeping pills, he sends to look at people who are much worse. Jack begins to attend support groups for patients with cancer, brain parasites, etc. He participates in group therapy, and insomnia goes away. Jack especially likes to cry on the chest of Big Bob, a former bodybuilder with testicular cancer.

It’s easy to cry in stuffy darkness, hiding in someone when you realize that everything you can achieve will turn into rubbish in the end. All that you are proud of will be thrown away.

Two years later, Jack notices Marla Singer. She is not sick, and she knows that Jack is also a “tourist”. Her presence prevents Jack from relaxing, and insomnia returns. In order not to meet, they divide the groups equally.

Jack works as a coordinator of reviews in a car company. He evaluates the damage to the company from defects in the cars and decides to recall the affected model from the market or not. Jack travels a lot around the country. He meets with Tyler Durden, waking up during a vacation on a nudist beach.

If you wake up in another place, at another time - can you wake up by another person?

Jack does not suspect that Tyler was there long before they met. Dörden only works at night. For some time he was a projectionist and pasted frames from porn movies into cartoons and family comedies. The audience did not notice anything, but they spoiled the mood. Now he works as a waiter serving banquets. Tyler gives Jack his phone.

Jack lives in an apartment "on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise building that looks like a filing cabinet for widows and young professionals." The cozy home is full of carefully selected things.

Things that you own begin to own you.

Returning from another business trip, Jack finds his nest blown up. The police believe that there was a gas explosion, and suspects Jack: he could arrange this to get insurance.

Homeless Jack has to move to Tyler. Instead of pay for billets, Tyler asks Jack to hit him with all his might. They fight every Saturday. Then people begin to join them, and the first Fight Club for people with a thirst for self-destruction appears.

Maybe self-destruction is the answer.

Soon the club moves to the basement of the bar. People gather on Saturday night, after closing. Tyler introduces the rules.

Now, Jack sees people everywhere with disfigured faces. These are members of the Fight Club. “Most come to the fight club because they are too afraid to fight it.” Jack himself’s face is also disfigured and does not heal. Jack is proud of his scars.

Now he lives on Bumazhnaya Street, in a three-story demolition house that Tyler rents. They live on money from the sale of toilet soap - Dörden occasionally brews it. Tyler soon met with Marla.At night, she calls Jack to announce her intention to commit suicide, but Jack is sleeping. Tyler picks up the phone and rushes to save her. Since then, Marla periodically sleeps in Dorden's room. Jack believes that she destroys another part of his life, and soon he will lose his only friend. Jack never sees Marla and Tyler together. Dörden always appears when Marla leaves the room. “No sound, no smell. Tyler just appears. ” He believes that Marla is trying to reach the bottom, and Jack is still far from it, he should abandon self-improvement and strive for self-destruction.

Tyler leaves a wet lip print on Jack's hand and sprinkles it with alkali. He makes Jack suffer the pain of a chemical burn, after which there remains a scar that resembles a stigma. Durden asks Jack not to talk to anyone about him.

Tyler arranges Jack to work as a waiter at evening banquets. Delivering gourmet food, they commit atrocities: urinate in soup, let out gases on a souffle, blow their nose on aspic.

Jack finds out that Fight Clubs are multiplying. Big Bob comes to one of the clubs. Marla discovers a tumor near her lymph nodes and asks Jack to examine her. Jack sees on Marla’s hand the same imprint of Tyler’s lips as he does.

A detective investigating the explosion in Jack's apartment reports that the home was destroyed by makeshift dynamite.

The liberator who destroyed my property is fighting for my spirit. A teacher who sweeps attachments from my path will set me free.

Jack feels that it was not the apartment that exploded, but he, his former life.

Tyler and Jack blackmail their bosses. Tyler threatens to tell reporters about shots from porn films pasted into cartoons, and Jack about defects in cars that have not been fixed and about urine in an exquisite soup. Bosses are forced to pay for silence.

I am Jack's Smirking Revenge.

It seems to Jack that Tyler is speaking in his place.

Fighting clubs spread throughout America. Of the best fighters, Tyler is gaining an army - the foundation of the Mutilation project. The project consists of committees for arson, violence, unrest, and misinformation. Every week, Tyler gives them “homework” - to allow themselves to beat up or pick up a wallet from a passerby. Individual assignments are more difficult and dangerous than “homework”. They are being played like a lottery. The project also has rules.

The goal of the project is to “free the world from its history” and drag it to the bottom with it. Tyler believes that the “Mutilation” project will cleanse and save the planet. He does not care about people.

Now the old house on Paper Street is packed with Tyler fighters, whom Jack calls the "space monkeys." It contains its small army, making soap from human fat pumped out during liposuction. Material is mined in a hospital dump. Jack feels superfluous, especially after Tyler suddenly disappears. "Space monkeys" continue to work - they make soap, grow aromatic herbs, and the committees are outrageous in the city. Soon Big Bob joins them. Jack searches for Tyler in Fight Clubs and makes sure that a friend has become a legend.

Once Tyler calls Jack to work and tells him to leave the office - he is waiting for a car. On the way, the driver of the Cadillac begins a risky game with cars going in the oncoming lane. The driver asks Jack what he would like to do before he dies. Jack answers: leave work.

Jack does the first “homework” - taking away a driver’s license from twelve people.

This is what Tyler told me to do. These are Tyler’s words flying from my lips. I am Tyler's lips. I am Tyler’s hands.

Jack travels around the country again, looks at the wrecked cars. Now there are Fight clubs in every city. Jack looks for Tyler in them and gradually notices that Dorden is mistaken for him. Jack calls Marla, and she confirms that he is Tyler.

When Jack falls asleep, Tyler appears. He is angry, because Jack talked about him with other people.He tells Jack that they use one body - Dörden at night, and Jack during the day. This is Jack renting a house on Paper Street. He never had insomnia, he just got tired after Tyler’s night work. Marla does not see the difference between them, for her there is only Tyler Durden. Jack with horror understands that he has a "disassociative personality disorder of the psyche." He hated his life and wanted to break out of the trap of things, to become something more. And then a pseudo-personality named Tyler appeared - funny, charming, strong, independent and free, like Jack had never been.

Returning, Jack tells Marla everything and asks not to let him sleep. He is afraid of finally disappearing, becoming Tyler. Jack is going to correct what Durden does at night during the day.

The cops kill Big Bob on their “homework,” and Jack decides to take advantage of Tyler’s power and close the Fight Clubs along with the Mutilation project. Club members do not obey and kick Jack out. He drinks stimulant pills so as not to fall asleep. Jack seems to be being chased. Around himself, he sees faces disfigured in fights.

In the morning, Jack sets off for work and discovers that his office has been blown up and the boss is dead. This was done by Tyler, who poured homemade napalm into the computer monitor.

I wanted to quit work. I gave Tyler permission. Make yourself at home. Kill my boss.

Jack realizes that he is the first suspect. Jack wants to drive away, gets on the bus and discovers that he is full of people from the Fight Club. They report that today's "homework" is to castrate Tyler, and grab him. Jack tries to escape, squeezes through the window of the bus and loses consciousness.

Jack comes to his senses unharmed in his apartment burnt out by the explosion. His life is destroyed, he wants to commit suicide, but recalls Marla, who does not realize the danger looming over her and loves him. Jack meets with Marla in the cancer support group. At night, she watched Tyler and saw how he shot a man. She called the police, but the police also go to the Fight Club. They do not come. Jack asks Marla to stay away from people with scars and goes to deal with Tyler.

Jack is given all of Tyler's knowledge. He goes to the nearest Fight Club and calls to battle all its participants.

Everyone you love will leave you or die. All that you can achieve in the end will turn into garbage. All that you are proud of will be thrown away.

Jack wants to die, but after fifty fights he remains alive. He opens his eyes in a house on Paper Street. Next to him is Tyler, the "fair-haired angel." He says that Jack's death must be inspiring, joyful, significant, and leads him to the roof of New York's tallest skyscraper. Bearing supports of the building are already mined. Tyler puts the barrel of a gun into Jack's mouth and waits for the explosion. From the side it seems that a man put a gun in his mouth. Marla appears on the roof. She screams that she now knows the difference and loves Jack, not Tyler. Time is up, but the explosion does not occur - improvised explosives do not work. The gun barrel rests on Jack's cheek, he shoots.

Jack believes that he woke up in Heaven, but in fact this is a clinic for the mentally ill. Jack takes medical staff for angels, and a doctor for God. Marla writes letters to him. Even in Heaven, Jack meets people with disfigured faces. They are waiting for him to destroy civilization, Jack does not want to return.