Setting

The novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is set in an unnamed major city in the US, probably at some point in the mid-1990’s. There are various indications that help point to the time setting, but one of the major ones is the references to making a presentation to Microsoft (Chapter 6, 0%), as the mid-1990’s was the period when Microsoft really started to dominate the IT sector. 

Although the narrator’s home city is depicted as a depressing place, we also get the sense that traveling to other cities across the US only serves to deepen his frustration and sense of alienation. We can see this most clearly in the chapter that describes the various journeys he has to take in the course of his job:

“You wake up at Boeing Field. You wake up at LAX. [...] I set my watch two hours earlier or three hours later, Pacific, Mountain, Central, or Eastern time; lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.” (Chapter 3, 50%) 

Throughout this chapter, the narrator suggests that all of his business travels are a waste of life, and prevent him from connecting with anything real and meaningful.

When it comes to more specific settings, the novel gives us an early description of the narrator's apartmen...