A trip into the weird netherworld of Tucker Max

Party guy blows in to sell books and score stories

He's just a dude, hanging out in a crowded college bar filled with them, when the two young women approach. One whispers into his ear.

He doesn't whisper back. Instead, he twists around and points to a reporter. "Tell him what you just told me," he says.

She asks why. He says because I told you to.

So she says this: I'm a sorority pledge and I've been issued a challenge to make out with him.

The dude offers his cheek, the pledge gives him a kiss and her girlfriend snaps a picture.

Tucker Max, drunken story collector, didn't get this far without learning to work his image.

He may have graduated from Duke University Law School, but Max makes his living writing stories like "This'll Just Hurt a Little," and "She Won't Take No For an Answer," winning crazed fans along the way. He gets drunk and says mean things to people, gets drunk and fights hockey mascots and gets drunk and has anonymous sex. Then he writes it down.

College kids worship him, reverently invoking him as an adjective: "I'm going to get Tucker Max drunk tonight." His latest story collection, "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," appeared on the New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction. It's not the kind of stuff that Oprah picks for her book club, but with a boost from the Internet, Max has carved out his own piece of fame.

His present status, he says, is like living in a "weird netherworld between being a nobody and an actual celebrity."

Max's writing career began when he posted an online dating application for potential female suitors. It got him some attention, and then he started posting stories. He says each one is true -- only some names and a few details have been changed to keep him out of trouble with the authorities. His buddies get pseudonyms.

That online project grew into a couple of self-published books and then "Beer in Hell," his first for a big-time publisher. He's on the road this month promoting it. Some signings are at frat houses. He stopped last Friday at Barnes & Noble at the Streets at Southpoint in Durham.

He dismisses readings as "old school." So he just signs books -- sometimes it's "I'm awesome. T. Max" -- and poses for pictures with his fans, some of whom are crazier than others. In Richmond, Va., a young man referred to Max as "God" and said he would mutilate and kill a woman for him.

Afterward, Max heads straight to a local bar to drink and hook up with girls.

"I totally fell assbackwards into this thing," says Max, who is 30. He's only taking advantage of the opportunity.

Right now it's what he does for a living: his Web site, www.tuckermax.com, is filled with ads that boast "Kegerators 4 sale" and "Rate my nude photo."

He says it brings in $10,000 a month.

There are plenty who hate his shtick. A reader once wrote to him: "Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."

We know this because he included it as a blurb on the back of "Beer in Hell."

"I actually like having critics," he says. "No one hates on the anonymous and unimportant."

He revels in the fact that many of his stories portray him in a bad light. He shares things that many men would forever hide -- like the fact that he may have had sex with a post-operative transsexual -- but it's that honesty, he believes, that has won him so many fans.

"I pretty much don't have any secrets," he says. "It makes life much easier to live."

Dad is OK with his career path, says Max, who grew up in Kentucky and lives in New York City. Mom is another story.

"My mom doesn't get it, dude. She just cries and asks why I can't be a nicer person."