Lullaby Author:Chuck Palahniuk Ever heard of a culling song? It’s a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, wait... more »ing to be picked up by unsuspecting readers.
Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song’s lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he’s reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant’s truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.
Written with a style and imagination that could only come from Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby is the latest outrage from one of our most exciting writers at work today.« less
Awesome, fascinating book, and darkly humorous as usual for Palahniuk.
A reporter who lost his wife and daughter to mysterious circumstances (his daughter was ruled SIDS) is called upon to investigate reports of crib death in his city. He finds that what all of these deaths have in common is a single book present in the nursery. The book contains a poem which, when read aloud, causes the listening party to die in his or her sleep. Carl joins forces with a witch who sells haunted houses for a living, a hippie girl and her sociopathic boyfriend on a road trip from hell to find and destroy all of the remaining copies of this book, before more innocents are killed.
Definitely a neat, quirky, thought-provoking read. Highly recommended.
More mainstream than Haunted and slightly less abrasive than Choke, Lullaby is a fun supernatural mystery. There's also something Orwellian about this book, about his work in general, that examines our culture and asks us, point blank, "What the hell are we thinking?"
Classic Palahniuk...lots of philosphy, crazy plot twists, and his perpetual lists. Contains sensitive subject matter (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) that might make some readers uncomfortable. Other than that highly recommended.
The story was just average, the most interesting part was the philosophical and ethical arguments that the four characters had in the car on their roadtrip. Wish there was more of this. I also wish there were more interludes of what the characters were doing in the future with their powers and knowledge (like the story about the town that worshipped the 'cow'). Not the best Palahniuk, I am sure.
Quite frankly, I didn't know how to judge or what to think of this story. I kept reading, seemingly clued to the story and wondering what the outcome would be. Sometimes I was amused, other times I was grossed out. So, because it caused these emotions I have to say it was rather good. Odd, but good.