- School & Library Binding: 260 pages
- Publisher: San Val (July 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0613998863
- ISBN-13: 978-0613998864
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (178 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem.
In his previous works, including the cult favorite Fight Club, Palahniuk has demonstrated a fondness for making statements about the condition of humanity, and he uses Lullaby like a blunt object to repeatedly overstate his generally dim view. Such dogmatic venom undermines the persuasiveness of his thesis about mass communication and free will, but thankfully, Palahniuk offers some respite here by allowing for sympathy and love, as well as through his razor-sharp humor, such as his mock listings for Helen's possessed properties: "six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls...." At such moments, Lullaby casts a powerful spell. --Ross Doll --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
"I need to rebel against myself. It's the opposite of following your bliss. I need to do what I most fear." Beleaguered reporter Carl Streator is stuck writing about SIDS and grieving for his dead wife and child; he copes by building perfect model homes and smashing them with a bare foot. But things only get worse: Carl accidentally memorizes an ancient African "culling song" that kills anyone he focuses on while mentally reciting it, until killing "gets to be a bad habit." His only friend, Nash, a creepy necrophiliac coroner, amuses himself with Carl's victims. Salvation of a sort comes in the form of Helen Hoover Boyle, a witch making a tidy living as a real estate broker selling-and quickly reselling-haunted houses. She, too, knows the culling song and finances her diamond addiction by freelancing as a telepathic assassin. Carl and Helen hit the road with Helen's Wiccan assistant, Mona, and her blackmailing boyfriend, Oyster, on a search-and-destroy mission for all outstanding copies of the culling song, as well as an all-powerful master tome of spells, a grimoire. Hilarious satire, both supernatural and scatological, ensues, the subtext of which seems to be Palahniuk's conviction that information has become a weapon ("Imagine a plague you catch through your ears"), and the bizarre love affair between Helen and Carl offers the lone linear thread in a field of narrative flak bursts. But the chief significance of this novel is Palahniuk's decision to commit himself to a genre, and this horror tale of both magic and mundane modernity plants him firmly in a category where previously he existed as a genre of one.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sing me to sleep,
By Bammo Sambuco (S.A.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lullaby (Paperback)
Who would have thought that Palahniuk's LULLABY would be such a knock-out book? The power of words has no equal. They can inform, inspire, motivate, pacify and entertain. Words can also hurt, deceive, and kill. Kill? You know that words have inspired others to kill, but what if words themselves could kill? In LULLABY, the new novel by Chuck Palahniuk, words have exactly that power. I'm not going to give anything away, because I want you to read it with no preconceptions or knowledge of the subject matter. If you've already read a review. Too late, but you'll still enjoy it. Chuck has taken his ablilities in a slightly new (The book is still 100% vintage Palahniuk) with wonderful results. Highly recommended, along with another great Amazon by Jackson T. McCrae titled "Katzenjammer."
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lullabies and Culling,
This review is from: Lullaby: A Novel (Hardcover)
The only other exposure I have had to the work of this writer, Chuck Palahniuk, was the cinema version of his work, "Fight Club". If you have seen the film you already know how original a thinker he is, and while I don't know how much the story changed from book to screen, I had no trouble recognizing, "Lullaby", as the work of the same writer. I even found myself placing the same actors in the primary roles in this book that appeared in the previous film."Lullaby", is thought provoking at a minimum, and will take you to areas of conduct that are still among some subjects that virtually all will consider taboo. An example is Necrophilia which I think will make most people feel they are reading material that will cause varying degrees of discomfort. The entire book is meant to press the darkest buttons inside of readers, Mr. Palahniuk will venture wherever he decides his story needs to go, he offers no respite, no safe haven. Whether you like this style or not I think it is refreshing to find an author that will go in to the darkest areas of human nature, not to be puerile or exploitative, rather to utilize material that is a valid piece of his tale. He is not afraid of offending, or perhaps he is just completely honest, he writes what he needs to write, if some are put off and he sells less books, so be it. The man is not commercial. Placing topic aside for a moment and turning to style, I find this writer's work to be original in how he presents detail. Colors play a large part in this book, so when he needs to use green it becomes much more than simply green. He describes the green that appears on the felt of a pool table, but only when the red number 3 ball is upon the felt, as opposed to the yellow number 1. Or green is not lime but rather like the color of key lime pie, not avocado but avocado bisque topped with a thin sliver of lemon. This level of description is not meant as sleight of hand or an effort to fill space; it makes the reading incredibly rich, or perhaps lush Mr. Palahniuk is not for everyone but if you like stepping away from what you usually read, and take a bit of a risk, you may be pleasantly surprised and appropriately rewarded. This writer follows only his own path.
3.0 out of 5 stars
observer of the absurd,
By SibyllineWitch (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lullaby (Paperback)
What first fascinated me was the "culling song" plot element. Really the only part of the synopsis you need to know is "The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters..."You don't need to read more as it will give away some plot points that are nice to discover rather than having them exposed on the dust jacket. The culling spell leads to even more old world spells which when used in modern day have some interesting applications... so of course I suggest it because it has magic and as one review put it "it's chock full of eco-hippie rhetoric and nihilistic tendencies". But I also found some beautiful paragraphs about color - yes it was the artist in me that drooled over these - and moments of startling profundity that awaken the reader to the absurdity of modern culture and make you wonder whose world is crazier - his or ours. This is a modern day Film Noir pulp detective story - complete with haggard-life-weary detective. It's got a lot of dark and dry humor and is a little gritty. Half way through it get even more surreal and though I finished it I thought there were two books under one binding... I was not as enthralled with the second half. In Fight Club I identified with Marla (yeah say what you will) in this one I'm just an observer of the absurd.
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