Lullaby

When it comes to Chuck Palahniuk, you either love him or hate him; there is no middle ground. (Personally, I love him). The vulgar tone he uses when he exploits the underground knowledge of what we try to stay ignorant to makes it difficult to like him at times, but the way he creates characters full of dreams, emotions, and flaws makes the connection between the characters and the reader seamless, helping the reader turn their dislike of Palahniuk into positive reception.

The main theme of Lullaby is the culling song, a lullaby sung in Africa used to help babies sleep. Now, the song has become more than a child’s lullaby; it has become deadly, killing not only children but adults as well when someone says or even thinks about the song. It soon becomes the mission of Carl Streator (a journalist focusing on the mysterious “crib deaths” of babies), Helen Hoover Boyle (a savvy realtor whose specialty are haunted houses), her receptionist, Mona (a young, devout Wiccan), and Mona’s boyfriend, Oyster (an extreme vegan with a hatred for modern culture) to find the poetry books containing the culling song and hopefully prevent the world from a telepathic and verbal apocalypse.

Lullaby is not for the weak-minded or weak-hearted. It is a crazy book, especially towards the end. Let me also say this is NOT for people who have not read anything by Chuck Palahniuk before because there is so much in this novel to be appreciated, to think about after finishing it, that if you make this the first book you read by him, you will not understand what he is talking about and consider him insane. If you have read a few others by him before reading this one, you will definitely love the unconventional family he creates as well as the metaphors he uses about everyday life. (Although I’m not sure anyone can ever get used to the way he uses his characters to dig into your soul to tell you that you could be someone better.)

A few things disappointed me in this novel. At times, the connections he made between characters or the reasoning behind background information about someone seemed to be a stretch, making the story lose its pace because of the time it took to re-read and ponder what he had said. The biggest disappointment to me, though, was the two small chapters about Streator and “Sarge” (you will learn about him towards the end of the book). Palahniuk either should have taken these chapters out or insert them throughout the novel to make it more consistent. It took until the next day for me to realize what those chapters were supposed to be, and I feel greatly disappointed about that because if he were to have done more with them throughout the book, it would have given the novel another dimension.

The ending is beautiful, if not in a very messed-up way that only Palahniuk could pull off. It is very satisfying, though, and raps up everything together so tightly you would think this had all actually happened. Lullaby is certainly another of Palahniuk’s masterpieces due to the way he pushes his readers as well as his characters to contemplate morality, life, and what we are really made of.

1) Plot (2 stars) - A reporter investigating baby deaths uncovers a spell that's killing them, and he sets off to destroy all the books that contain this spell. But once he knows such awesome power, can he really destroy it? It's an interesting premise, but I found the pace to be slow and the plot developments few.

2) Characters (3 stars) - Carl is the middle age reporter lead. He is tired, a bit of a pushover, but vaguely wants to do the right thing. There are also revolutionary secondary characters who spew their disillusionment with modern America and call for radical change. This is a pretty standard character formula for a Palahniuk book. In this work, however, the formula produced characters that felt one-dimensional and unedited.

3) Theme (2 stars) - I wasn't sure what the message was. Perhaps something about how ancient people had spells while modern man has TV and radio advertising? As usual, Palahniuk has plenty of insightful sentences, but I found it hard to pull them together into a cohesive whole.

4) Voice (3 stars) - Palahniuk writes in short, colloquial, puzzle piece sentences. What I mean by puzzle piece is that he often has two or three trains of thought simultaneously chugging on the same page (e.g., the present action, a memory, and a whimsical thought) and he splices them together to form a larger picture. In Fight Club, I thought he used this technique well, with the unorthodox prose helping to reinforce plot and theme. But here, I thought the results were a little jumpy and disjointed.

5) Setting (2 stars) -There were some interesting descriptions of furniture stores, the American road, and generic apartment buildings. But I rarely felt like was actually at any of them.

6) Overall (2 stars) - I really want to like Palahniuk. He has an interesting perspective on modern American disillusionment, and can write creative and funny prose. But this story just seemed so jumbled, so undeveloped. It's too bad, because he has lots of great ideas sprinkled here and there. They just don't, at least for me, really come together to form anything wise and complete, like they did in Fight Club.

This book is my favorite of Palahniuks second to "Haunted" thus far. It's kind of hard to describe because there is just so much going on.
The "lullaby" referred to is an ancient culling spell in the form of a poem that kills people. Our protagonist is a reporter and discovers it by noticing a pattern while working on a news story about SIDS. He then just uses it to kill people who annoy him and by an attack of morality or decides to set on a quest to destroy all copies that exist so no more people/babies fall victim to hearing it. I liked the authors rants about the epidemic of distracting noise in our culture that keeps people from thinking for themselves, (the real big brother).
In this book we have hilarious trivia, witches, magical powers, haunted pasts, quests of all kinds and a bit of gore as to be expected. There is never a dull moment and gifts the reader with so much to think about in new and surprising ways. I read it straight through and will reread again for sure.

A black comedy about SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) may not initially sound as if it would be amusing, but with Chuck Palahniuk as the writer, it moves beyond amusing into the absurd and the even more absurd. The brilliance of "Lullaby" is that the author is able to intermingle commentary about our media-saturated, noise-loving culture into the story without seeming preachy. It is a book that is often disturbing, often funny, and definitely hard to put down.

Carl Streator is a journalist who has been assigned a five story arc about SIDS. As a reporter he has been trained to note details, even the most minute. The middle-aged Streator discovers an unexpected commonality between these deaths: all of the households had a copy of the anthology "Poems and Rhymes Around the World" open to the same page. On that page is an African culling song, a lullaby meant to be sung to those who that culture could no longer support. Yet once the song lodges in Streator's mind he cannot free himself from it and he finds that he has to power to kill just by letting the words run through his brain. He knows that he must seek out and destroy all copies of this book so that this contagion doesn't spread to others (or possibly so that he can have the power and not others). He soon teams up with Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent specializing in selling the same haunted houses over and over, a woman all too familiar with the culling song's power. Along with her secretary Mona, who just happens to be a Wiccan, and Mona's boyfriend, an eco-terrorist named Oyster, this strange dysfunctional familiy hits the road to destroy these books and find the original source.

"Lullaby" is a truly unique book in that it takes a topic that no one wants to read about but that many are afraid not to read about and points out how impossible it is to know the cause. Streator's narration is detail driven and straightforward, although Palahniuk provides a look at what happens after Streator's story ends, so that the ending, which may feel rushed, really isn't rushed at all. "Lullaby" is a novel that examines what people will do for power and what they are all too willing to do to keep the power they have. It is an examination of things that have gone wrong in our nation in the name of progress and prosperity. Finally it is an honest, unflinching critique of the society we have created and what it has done to us, for better or for worse. Mostly worse.

Brilliant. That's the word, the only word, that came to mind as I started reading Palahniuk's Lullaby. I struggled to keep reading, as I was too impressed with the prose. As a writer, reading Palahniuk made me feel like a dancing monkey in comparison.

By the time I hit the halfway mark, I struggled to keep reading for an altogether different reason. It had become too fragmented, repetitive, and just plain boring.

At the beginning, this passage stopped me. Full stop. Absolute. No going further out of awe:

"Helen, she's wearing a white suit and shoes, but not Snow White. It's more the white of downhill skiing in Banff with a private car and driver on cll, fourteen pieces of matched luggage, and a suite at the Hotel Lake Louise."

By the time I had reached page 116, about halfway through, I've read about twenty passages stylistically the same.

This color. But not color like this, more like this extended metaphor.

Dull.

First time, brilliant. First few times, brilliant.

Twentieth, dull.

Okay. I might be exaggerating with the twenty mark. I didn't count, but it's repetitive enough to make it annoying. Unlike his other "choruses," like "I know this because Tyler knows this" or "these noise-aholics, these peace-aphobics" (and all the variations on that theme) or the counting to remain calm, it doesn't tie anything together. It doesn't do a thing past a look-at-how-well-I-can-write. Over and over, which defeats its own purpose. It's like those movie scenes so overdone they're obviously this-is-my-Oscar-winning-performance-scene.

Again with the ads Oyster, one of the many despicable characters in this novel, takes out to blackmail corporations. Really. Really. Old. I get it. I don't have to be beaten over the head with it.

**spoilers** -- **trigger warnings**

Then, on page 177 (Ch 29), after a skipped dozens of pages of the same-ol', same-ol' repetition, where no new character development is revealed nor is the plot projected forward, I came to the part where Streater remembers orally and vaginally raping his dead wife. Of course, he only thought she was unconscious, so it was just rape, not necrophilia. "It's not rape if they're dead."

This is where I stopped reading.

Not sure which was more disturbing, the fact that Streater calls it "the best he had" since before his child was born or that he didn't even bother to check on her after he got off with her unconscious, unresponsive form.

I'm utterly disgusted by Palahniuk, and I'm not sure I'll be reading anymore. Darkness is one thing. Disturbing is one thing, and I like things very dark, but something about this is beyond revolting. Thankfully, the protagonist and everyone, really, are all horrific people, so at least the rape isn't brushed off as something acceptable. That's the only thing that might get me to try another book.

This is the first Palahniuk book in which I'd gotten this far. I'm partially into Fight Club at the moment, the second time I've tried to read it. The first I found difficult to keep going for the same reason at the beginning: blown away by the prose. That, coupled with the movie playing in my head, made it hard for me to read. I'm trying again, and I hope to get through it this time.

Two stars, only because of the brilliant prose. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite author, at least up to Rant. His books up to that point, including this one, are just fabulous. This book cuts very deep, and shows what the power of life and death can turn us all into. A song that can kill anyone, it is quite a gripping read. There are great characters in this book. The protagonist/antagonist(?) Carl Streator, Helen Hoover Boyle, Oyster, and Mona are this little dysfunctional faux family, traveling around the country, trying to rid the world of page 27 of this one book that contains what they refer to as a culling song. It goes into a whole world of different spells, when they finally locate the Book of Shadows. It's one of those books that truly keeps your interest throughout, and is a very fun read. It is probably in his top 5 he's written, and IMO all his great works were written before Snuff. It has quite a surprising ending, where you don't know who's who if you know what I mean, or you will when you finally read the book.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Fight Club, Survivor, Choke, Rant, etc. It is one of his better novels, and deserves its due credit. Plazas.

Reading Palahniuk's novels in chronological order, I am glad to say Lullaby offers some difference from previous efforts, which all seemed more or less variations on the Fight Club theme. The main change is the arrival of more fantastic elements (magic, for short), and the more comedy-oriented tone of the novel. Although, to be fair, Palahniuk's previous novels always had their share of humor and over the top situations, so I'm not sure it's all that new; perhaps less subtle (which isn't a bad thing here).

So what's the plot? There is a poem that can kill people. I won't say more.

What to expect? Many of the gimmicks (I guess you can call them that by now - the fifth novel using the same ones) found in Palahniuk's prose: the chorus (the same sentences with slight variations), the unexpected twist (still enjoyable), the in medias res bits at the beginning of the novel (although far more confusing this time; the first few pages make you think you're going to read about a rogue character who fakes hauntings in houses to generate money, but the novel has nothing to do with ghosts and little to do with real estate in the end), the dialogue, the present tense, the trivia (this time, serial killers, a bit, how animals are killed, a bit more, and witchcraft, but not much), etc.

If you've read Palahniuk before, you won't be in unknown territory, but you will find something new in his work. It's definitely not my favourite work of his, but I am glad to see something fresh and different. It's good enough to make me go on on my Palahniuk-a-thon.

A Review of "Lullaby" by Chuck Palahniuk
In "Lullaby" Chuck Palahniuk makes a statement about our society and it's almost addictive need to consume media. The main character Carl Streator is a journalist who is constantly bothered by his neighbor's noisy televisions and radios. He finds only the slightest relief by building small detailed models and then stomping on them with his bare feet. Carl is a journalist who lost his wife and child to a sudden mysterious death years earlier. While investigating a story about sudden infant death syndrome he finds a correlation to a book of nursery rhymes and the deaths. At each scene the book is opened to a page that has a culling song printed on it. This is the same culling song that Carl read to his wife and child before their death. After making this discovery he vows to rid the world of this culling song saying, "I need to make sure every copy of this book is destroyed."(Chapter 5, p. 32). Palahniuk plays on his satirical statement about media by creating an audible plague that his main character needs to destroy.
Carl soon finds conflict with using the culling song himself on people that drive him nuts. He is able to memorize it and use it as a sort of psychic weapon against anyone he chooses. It's the perfect crime because there is no evidence of its use and no way to prove how the person was killed. Carl soon meets Helen Hoover Boyle who is a real estate agent that specializes in houses with quick turnover because they are haunted. Along with Helen's assistant Mona and her boyfriend Oyster, the four of them go on a cross country road trip in an attempt to eradicate the evil nursery rhyme. Palahniuk creates quite the dysfunctional family with this group as he utilizes dark humor and the strange dynamic of relationships between them all to create some memorable situations.
As they travel together destroying copies of the culling song they soon become aware of "the grimoire" which is the original wiccan spell book where the culling song originated and set out to find it. There journey takes them through some unbelievable twists and it is eventually revealed that Helen has had the grimoire the whole time having used it for years acting as a psychic assassin.
Palahniuk uses his fast paced prose to perfection quickly creating a detailed description of each character and location. He uses a mix of his satirical view of society with some outrageous characters and crazy twists creating an interesting story about the idea of a world where it may be deadly to watch or listen to anything on the television or radio. A must read for anyone who appreciates dark humor and thought provoking ideas of our media obsessed society.

Chuck Palahniuk is best known for his first novel, Fight Club. However, his work gets much weirder after that. With a bizarre sense of story telling and a unique writing style, it is impossible to compare Lullaby to any other work of fiction. He brings to light an interesting perspective on grief as you step into the shoes of the protagonist. Not one person in the room thought negatively about this book. Read nothing more about it, pick up the novel, and dive blindly in to the unusual mystery of the culling song. We give it two thumbs up!

Lullaby is absolutely brilliant and by far my favorite Palahniuk novel. My reading career with Palahniuk unfortunately did not start off positively; my ex was not a consistent reader but he absolutely loved Palahniuk, and thought it would be a good idea to start me off with Choke. Needless to say it wasn't for me, and if I had gone off the themes in that book as a basis for my feelings about Palahniuk and his work, I probably never would have picked up one of his books again. As much as I disliked Choke, I wasn't in denial, and Palahniuk can write.

The bizarre yet ethereal way that Lullaby, and some other favorites by Mr. Palahniuk, makes it easy to fall in love with in a very weird and self-depreciating way. He is the polar opposite of Sarah Addison Allen yet I can compare his style to hers; his books are the antithesis of a modern romance--the characters are sick, twisted, and basically bonafide mean people--but they have this quirky, witty air about them in the things that they do and the way that they speak, that you wish that they were friends of yours that didn't know where you lived.

I think all of us who have read Palahniuk wonder how he even gets through each day with the way that his mind works, or doesn't work, but I think that's his grace. A bonafide serial killer that hasn't killed anyone yet.

Not in real life, anyway

Helen Boyle is the most clever - and probably profitable - real estate agent on the planet. She researches houses that are supposed to be haunted. Once confirmed, she preys upon new home owners, facilitates the purchase, and then patiently waits for them to get spooked out of their new home. Along with her hippy assistant Mona, it's wash, rinse, repeat for the haunted house realtor, creator of mortgage misery.

Meanwhile, Carl Streator is attempting to track down the cause of SIDS when fate brings him a book of poems, one of which is a deadly African lullaby. A magical verse, a culling spell so powerful that when memorized and recited mentally, it can cause instant death.

As the groups collide into a cohesive story, they cross with Nash - a detective with an affinity for post-mortem intercourse - and Oyster, a hipster who spouts social commentary ad nauseum. He's one of those people who know a lot of facts, but really have no clue; he's an idiot in sheep's clothing (I wished him dead instantly). Although, he does provide one of the more comical aspects of the book by constantly submitting ads to the paper for class action lawsuits. The cast of characters make their way across country, searching out the benefits and risks of their new found discoveries and power, deciding on the best course of action, and all the while plotting to enact their own plans and vision of what's right in the world.

Like most Palahniuk book, this is a collection of lists. It's his schtick. It's the seemingly inane details that provide the mortar for the bricks - facts about fancy jewelry, noxious weeds, expensive furniture, hauntings across the United States; they all tie the story together. Although this time around, they are perhaps the story's strength and weakness. At times the litany of facts gets a bit tedious and repetitive.

When a reporter investigating SIDS crosses paths with a hippy throwback and a haunted house real estate agent, you know it's a Chuck Palahniuk concoction. As always, it's bizarrely imaginative, with off-the-wall characters with even more insane situations. The details are rich visual effects, the satire thick, the character descriptions thoroughly involved, and the story itself is captivating; I could picture the entire vivid world in which lullaby exists. Running throughout are clear themes of morality and mortality mixed with a look into ultimate, god-like power. While it may not be my favorite of the growing Palahniuk canon, it's definitely a worthwhile ride. It's guaranteed for shocks, laughs, and a story nearly impossible to stop before the wacky ending.

Chuck Palahniuk is a very strange author. His books are good, but they may not be for everyone. This book is no exception to that.

Characters

Carl Streator is a journalist looking into several cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He has a strange past, and is a loner. He also meets Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who regularly sells and resells houses that are haunted. All of the characters in this book have their flaws, and in many ways they aren't the most likable, but they are very believable in how they deal with the situations they find themselves in.

Setting

Palahniuk has a tendency to start his books in large cities, and then travel throughout the U.S. The setting isn't nearly as important to his books as it is to some others.

Plot

While looking into cases of SIDS, Streator discovers a culling song, a song that kills people. Once he realizes what it is, he decides that he has to destroy every copy of the book that contains the culling song.

Enjoyment

This book is one that I'm definitely going to have to read again sometime, and it's one that will be better understood knowing what happens at the end, and I'll be able to appreciate it more. For a first read, the book did a lot of interesting things looking at temptation, power (and its abuse), responsibility, family, love, and different social issues. There is a lot to this book, which is why it is one that will most likely get better with a reread. When I reread this book, I'll probably put up another post about it, but this review is for the first read through of the book.

Overall Grade

Some very interesting ideas, but I thought it went on a little too long at times. It wasn't ripping me through the pages like Invisible Monsters did, and it isn't a casual read, but I'm going to read it again. This book needs to be read multiple times to truly understand everything going on in it.

6/10

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"Lullaby" was not my first Chuck Palahniuk book so I braced myself for what was to come. Once again, this book is INSANE and extremely creative. It keeps you on your toes. It was a nice, quick and thought provoking read. I love Chuck's well-crafted stories!

The book is self explanatory by the title, it is about a lullaby. I haven't read it lately, I read it back when I was a senior in high school. (Ugh, I can't believe that was over 5 years ago!! Where does the time go!?) Anyway, this lullaby isn't all that it seems. It is a demon poem. It is death. It is a culling song. It corrupts our brilliant main characters- a real estate agent, a journalist and a couple of vegan wiccans.

Our journalist has been assigned to investigate SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, when he discovers the VERY ancient culling song. When he uncovers the power of the song, and the damage it can do in the wrong person's hands, he sets out on a special journey with the real estate agent and vegan wiccans to remove this spell from every library, bookstore and home in the world.

This book was disturbing and powerful. So many awesome quotes from this book- "Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words WILL kill you..." I think a lot of my favorite quotes come from Palahniuk books.... The best book for quoting Chuck is probably Choke... crap, or Invisible Monsters. I can't decide. Lullaby isn't my favorite Chuck book, not even close. I won't read this one again. However, it is a fascinating read and I would recommend it to anyone just so they have the full experience of this insane journey.

When I first heard the premise behind "Lullaby", I thought it sounded rather flimsy: there exists a lullaby that causes anyone who hears it to drop dead as soon as they fall asleep, and it is, thus, the cause of all SIDS deaths. I could work out how a book with such a concept could begin, but I couldn't figure out anything beyond that. This is why Chuck Palahniuk is such a great author. He did, and he came up with such a convincing and exciting story that it kept me wondering what was going to happen next right to the end.

Here is a more detailed synopsis of the plot, for those with the same doubts as I had: after being assigned to write a series of human interest articles on SIDS deaths, journalist Carl Streator discovers that the one linking factor behind all of these deaths is a particular lullaby in a book of children's poetry. Then, along with a real estate agent who specializes in selling haunted houses, the real estate agent's Wiccan secretary, and the secretary's Wiccan boyfriend, Streator embarks on a road trip across America to locate every copy of the poetry book, and the original magic book from which they believe the lullaby came from, and destroy every one of them.

Yes, the premise of this novel is far fetched (and that's just the parts of the book that I've told you - wait until you get read the end) and yet, every character within the novel's reality behaves in a thoroughly believable way. This is one of the most original books that I have read, and as a result, it is virtually impossible to guess the next twist of the plot.

This if Palahniuk's fourth novel, and the first of his trilogy of "horror" novels, along with "Diary" and "Haunted". I have now read all of Palahniuk's novels, with the exception of his latest book, "Snuff", and I would consider "Lullaby" to be among his best. I used to be able to rank all of the Palahniuk novels, but the more of his books I read, the more I realize that he has written so many good books, that I find it impossible to pick just one favourite, and even a bad Palahniuk novel is better than most of the novels that are being published at the moment.

Any novel that is this thought-provoking deserves at least 3 stars, even if it isn't all that satisfying to read (at times, unpleasant to read).

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, who also writes satirical fiction, but where Vonnegut is a humanitarian who finds humour in life, too much of Lullaby is mean-spirited. You have to admire Palahniuk for tackling such controversial subject matter, but at the same time, it's hard to find the humour in Lullaby.

The greatest strength of this type of novel is that its author has something to say.

Every other living thing on the planet evolves to adapt to its environment; but we've reached a point in evolution where we adapt our environment to suit us. There are few natural population controls and we've spread to virtually every corner of the world, disrupting and manipulating eco-systems. We are a cross between `a bull in a china shop', and those two rabbits in the pet store that are left alone until the store is overflowing with bunnies.

The culling poem, as I interpreted it, was a means to stop our destructive evolutionary path.

It turns out that the actual catalyst for the novel was the murder of the author's father. When Palahniuk wrote Lullaby he was wrestling with his own views on capital punishment when his father's killer was on trial.

Shows you what I know.

Whether or not this novel is about capital punishment, human evolution, the soul sucking influence of the media and pop culture, religion, noise pollution, or all of the above, this is a novel that will get you thinking.

Unfortunately, the novel itself is not very entertaining to read. A lot of readers will find some of the subject matter extremely disturbing (I like morbid humour, but I found myself cringing in places). The novel actually gets a little monotonous at times as our `anti-heroes' hit the road on a futile quest to find all of the library books in the US that contain the deadly lullaby.

The biggest barrier to enjoying Lullaby is the fact that every character in it is so unlikeable. Sometimes this can work (to a degree). I enjoyed Survivor despite the fact that the central characters demonstrate a similar `depraved indifference' to human life. The difference here is the subject matter.

Let's face it. Dead babies and necrophilia just aren't funny.

An exploration into the power of words, and the terms of power. What if the "sticks and stones" adage was not only wrong, but murderously so? And what if you alone could wield those powerful words?

"Maybe acts of God are just the right combination of media junk thrown out into the air. The wrong words collide and call up an earthquake. The way rain dances called storms, the right combination of words might call down tornadoes."

The central plot is a cathartic quest. In an interesting twist, we don't fully understand the protagonist's motivation until well into the book. The quest plot has some holes though...it's never fully explained why two members of the groups are along for the ride. The quest does serve as an effective vehicle for the plot though as some devices like flashback are attached to it. It has enough vile anecdotes about humanity's inhumanity towards nature to keep the prose interesting and the moral dilemmas keep the story propelled forward. If you're looking for deep characterizations, this isn't for you. If you're looking for dark introspection in the form of hard questions about what it means to be a human, then it's hard to beat Palahniuk.

But with Palahniuk you have to ask yourself: is he being witty and sardonic, or bitter and spiteful? Is his work an inventive exploration of the human soul or an artifice, shocking for purely commercial purposes? To fail to ask these questions would be succumbing to the very proclivity that he rails against.

Chuck Palahniuk has a knack for capturing the pressures of modern life, and the resulting angst and alienation of the people who inhabit it. To that extent, Lullaby is no different from Choke or Fight Club. This really isn't a twist on the horror story as some of the media reviews have made it out to be.
There's the emotionally scarred main protagonist with a dark past secret waiting to be dredged up who surrounds him or herself with a surrogate family. There's the rants against modernity and consumerism and their resulting compulsions. There's the quest on which the main characters embark that culminates in an anarchic free for all. There's the identity switches between characters. And, of course, there's Palahniuk's wisecracks, smart-[aleck] asides, and spare, almost hard-boiled writing style.
Palahniuk does all this so well, so uniquely, that his fans are not going to be disappointed with Lullaby.
What makes Lullaby different from what has come before, and what makes Lullaby his best novel, is that he seems to tackle his usual themes a bit more thoroughly and directly than he has before. And for the first time, Palahniuk introduces the notion of modern access to information as something to really worry about, rather than accept as something that will liberate society. The device he uses here is an ancient African culling spell. A magical spell that poses as a deadly information virus.
If there is anything that is unsatisfying it's the ending, which in typical Palahniuk fashion, resolves the fate in an anarchic free for all of outlandishness. It seems like Palahniuk plots his novels into dead ends, leaving him no way out to end his novels, and he has to resort to, well, what happens in Lullaby.
But that doesn't make Lullaby an unsatisfying novel. And, in the strange world that Palahniuk's characters inhabit, which is still identifiably the world we live in today, the way Palahniuk unravels it all seems to make the only sense in light of what's come before in the novel.
So far, Palahniuk can do no wrong.

The premise of this Palahniuk novel may be too hard and/or confusing for some reviewers based on their reviews. While far from being a flawless novel, "Lullaby" is original, clever, and at times hilarious. It actuality, it may be his best book.

"Lullaby" follows the discovery of a culling song by a journalist that links it to cases of SIDS. Thought the placement of the song in a children's book limits the spectrum of potential victims, the journalist finds other uses. With great power comes great responsibility. The actual culling song is never placed in the print, because it would really inhibit the pace of the book to repeat it each time. Some readers find this confusing thinking the "powers" of the song change.

The main character does seek to be responsible for his actions. Our journalist Carl Streator links himself to other misfits to destroy all copies of the children's book. This includes haunted real estate agent Helen Boyle, her secretary Mona, and Mona's boyfriend Oyster. The characters develop along their road trip, though some clues lead in unsuspecting directions.

Some of the images or ideas may be offensive to certain readers. For example, the opening scene may prove too offensive for some readers. Chuck Palahniuk's books are not for everybody. The rest of us will delight in his work.

A poorly written book that does not hold together well. Much of this makes little sense. I did not give this 1 star for the following reasons:
1) The concept of the culling spell/song is interesting and catches one's attention
2) The book reads fast - read it in an afternoon
Palahniuk is not a very good writer, but he does have some interesting concepts. This book is a good concept, poorly executed.

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk *****

Lullaby is not UpChucks best but it sure is close. It is easily among the best of his work. Better than Choke, Haunted, and Diary. On par with Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Survivor. The story is just absurd enough to almost kind of believe and gives insight into why UpChucks work is in a league all it's own.

The story of a man who works a a journalist and has a current assignment on the subject of S.I.D.S. or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. As he begins his assignment he realizes a trend across the country, as all of the parents of the children who died had read them a poem from page 27 in a book of poems from around the world; a culling song. An old African chant used to send the dying to the other side. This is all by mistake that the parents harm their children of course but once the poem falls in to the wrong hand it shows that people have a serious issue with tolerance and self-control. As the main character scourers the country in search for every copy of the book he realizes he has undertaken more then he bargained for.

Lullaby is a insightful (as is all UpChucks work), a page turner, and one that will have you transfixed on what is coming. Palahniuks signature style shines bright here and makes for one of his best novels.

It is agreeable that the writting contained in the book is repetitive when it comes to the plot, somewhat vague when it deals with character development, and narration is easy and sometimes skin deep... But the way i view it, this is all related with the central thesis of the book, our dependence of mass media.
"noise-oholics... quiet-ophobics..." This is us, demanding more and more... more plot, more words, more characters; make it better, darker, harder to read; hide the meaning of the words in paraphrases, synonims, context...
The book deals with a man who has aquired the power to kill by just reciting a spell, and he uses it on his neighbor because he plays loud music... its funnier than it sounds...
Because this is us... demanding more and more...
The humour is not as dark as its made out to be, in fact it can get to be "sitcom funny" (some would consider this a flaw), all you have to do is not take the reading that seriously... in my opinion that is what makes it so fun to read... Besides, the fact that this book is easy to read and not puzzling is sure to appeal to almost any audience, even to those who have not picked up a book in years... hey, it sure beats watching t.v.
My recomendation, pick this up if you want to have a good time for a couple of days, reading and letting the tube cool off... if you want more deepness and insight, more plot and character development, or have read other Palahniuk titles over and over, you could be dissapointed, this is the main flaw of the book... if youve read his other books, everything may seem trite and recooked...

This is without a doubt one of my personal favorite Palahniuk novels for a lot of reasons. I feel this novel starts off great and takes less time to really engage you then some of his other works. From the first few pages, I really felt engaged and "into" the novel. And that feeling stayed the same throughout the entirety of the novel.

This novel also had a very good thriller feeling at times. Especially during the middle of the novel, it really felt like the characters were in a race against time with such clear conflicting motives and it kept the reader on edge to see what would happen at every turn. There was a real sense of imminent danger looming in the novel that some of our characters were trying to prevent from happening, and this created a very thrilling experience.

The overall message of the novel also really hit home at the end of the novel. The spread of information in our era is fast as well as wide. And if dangerous information reaches this network, it can have scary effects.

This is a great novel to for both Palahniuk fans and people looking to give him a shot alike. I think it is one of his more enjoyable novels for those who have not had any experience with him and want to give his work a shot.

People have been telling me for years that I would enjoy his writing and I'm glad I finally picked this one up.

This is the first Palahniuk novel I've ever read and it absolutely captivated me. The characters are so interesting (even when Oyster is on his soapbox) that you really root for them and the ending left me kind of torn as to who I wanted to succeed.

The story itself is brilliant. A lullaby that kills people? Something I never would have thought of in a million years. It could easily come off as being completely ridiculous and stupid, but Palahniuk manages to pull it off. He also weaves humor and a sardonic commentary about humanity into the narrative without overpowering the story itself. Palahniuk takes a novel that has what amounts to murder as one of it's dominant themes and twist it so that you don't feel relieved at the end. Instead, you feel anxious. You want to know what happens to the characters. How their lives go on. What they do after the novel.

In short, I'd recommend this to anyone who thinks Twilight is garbage.

I enjoyed the general plot, characters, descriptions, and chapter structure. I did NOT enjoy some of the freakier parts of the book. I thought the message was good and some of the concepts were right on target with things are wrong with our society, but I could never recommend this book to anyone I really like because they would think I was a freakshow! Haha! It's an easy read, especially because of the repetitive sentences, simple sentence structure, and targeted points. I got VERY sick of "counting" and if I ever hear someone counting, I may have to punch them in the face. Oyster was someone I would not want to come in contact with EVER...although I think I've come across him over time. I really pretty much despised all the characters, while still enjoying the message. ...and I would like to know where to get a little house kit, as they sound fun.

I think this is the most disjointed review I've ever written, but I attribute that to the completely disjointed roller coaster I just got off of by finishing this book. If you do pick it up, have fun and enjoy the trippy ride.

Well, I read "Lullaby," and it was spectacular. This is typical of a Palahniuk novel, because his stories all feature extremely amazing characters with equally awesome first-person narrations, twisted and compelling plots, and dark, funny, and always thought-provoking social commentaries. The narrator in this story is reporter Carl Streator, who is assigned to check out multiple cases of SIDs. After a close look into each case, he finds out that the "culling song" has been read to each victim; a culling song is a song or poem read to someone to put them out of their misery. The problem: it kills even if it's recited in your head, and Carl has definitely read it enough to know it in his mind. Further investigation takes him to a woman named Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells people houses that are possessed by demons (one of the many funny things about the narration in this one is the descriptions of the houses), her strange friend and secretary, Mona, and Mona's extremely, well, opinionated boyfriend Oyster. Together, the four of them go all over the country looking to destroy every remaining copy of the book that features the culling song, and the story just gets crazier and weirder and more and more exciting as you read. Making you laugh, making you shudder, and making you think, "Lullaby" is a great novel by one of the best writers to date, and you need to check it out.

After reading Choke, I thought that Chuck Palahniuk was growing as a writer. His themes were similar, but the characters were different and seemed more real or at least dimensional. With Lullaby you get the extreme exact opposite.
The story sounds intriguing and had a lot of potential, but it just falls completely flat. Palahniuk seems more intent on pushing the idea that we are a society that has to be influenced, rather than grow his characters and let the "moral" of the story come through them.
The two main characters do not seem one bit likable, and maybe their not supposed to be, but they are also not interesting. Everyone seems to want to destroy things but we never truly understand why. The main character, Carl Streator, is one dimensional and not very interesting. His love interest, Helen Hoover Boyle, is more dimensional and somewhat more interesting (not much more), but not likable. Helen's secretary, Mona and her boyfriend Oyster are likable, but not written very well. You hope that by the time their road trip begins, we will begin to see something happen, but it all fizzles and Palahniuk begins to get a little preachy.
If you are a fan of Palahniuk then you will want to read this book, but do not expect it to be his best, that title either goes to Fight Club or Survivor.

I enjoyed, and benefited from, reading this book.

'Lullaby' offers standard Palahniuk fare: memorably dysfunctional characters, imaginative means of murdering or disfiguring one's fellow man, a smorgasbord of grotesquely interesting facts, all intermixed with uncommon viewpoints and the author's characteristic disdain and cynicism, with one of his trademark trick endings sneaked in when no one was looking. All in all, there's some good old-fashioned storytelling in this book, and the end product is a solid one. Upon finishing 'Lullaby,' I felt enriched.

Thanks to the author and the publisher.

When I first read what Chuck Palahniuk's book was about I had the feeling it sounded so much like the Japanese movie and book "Ringu", remade in Hollywood as " The Ring". But little did I know that "Lullaby: A Novel" has absolutely nothing to do with that story. What surprised me more --and it was a great one --is that this writer is back in his best shape. Not since his "Fight Club" has Palahniuk written such a good book.

All the thematic that are common in his work are present in his "Lullaby", but, this time, he is such a more mature writer that his development is much smoother and his critic to the 21st century society is sharper. That same angst that he used in "Club" is here, but, this time, it goes beyond the male hater -- more women can identify themselves with the thematic.

The narrative tangles with many themes, but in the end, it boils down to excess of information we are force fed with. We have so many resources of information nowadays, that it is too easy to make news --how reliable is everything we read? Who should we trust? And in the end, we know so much, but do we know what to do with all this information we have received?

Like Palahniuk says, the Big Brother is not watching us -- it is singing and dancing to entertain us and avoid people to use their minds. The African deadly poem is just a device to explore, the writer's funny --and why not?-- likely conspiracy theories. But this is not a book about conspiracy.

"Lullaby" grabs you for the Global World appeal --or maybe spell? -- that it has. An ancient African poem kills people in the United States in the 21st century. In other words, the contemporary word has broken all time and space borders. And this time everyone can actually be Citizens of the World -- World Travelers.

Not by chance, half of the book is a road trip. The characters, Carl, Helen, Mona and Oyster (yes, there is a man whose `name' is Oyster), are trying to run away from their pasts, their mistakes. But there is not such thing, be you at home, or on the road. Oyster has so many resonances that at some point one starts wondering if he is not a Tyler Durden is disguise --or at least they are friends.

Fueled with angst, but above all, Palahniuk's best way of dealing with passion, "Lullaby" has so much explosive that it is more a Rock `n Roll novel, that won't let you sleep until you've reached the last sentence.

Chuck P. does it again. With "Lullaby," he manages to create a pressence, a feeling of unease with amoral characters doing things that pass as normal in a very strange world.

This world in particular would have us deal with Carl, a journalist who finds out that recent maladies of crib death are due to parents reading a culling song, a death spell to their children, thinking it an actual lullaby. Inexplicably, Carl's wife and child died 20 years hence under similar circumstances, so this is a phenomenon that penetrates deeply into his already troubled brain.

During his investigation he meets a few ragtag weirdos, including Helen, a tacky and underhanded real estate agent, Mona, a young witch, and her boyfriend Oyster, a grungy wiccan PETA wannabe. Somewhere along the line fate puts them all together, sending them on a quest to find and destroy "Poems and Rhymes From Around The World," the book containing the culling song. Keeping this in mind, rest assured that Chuck P. makes certain that this road trip is anything but predictable.

Like many of his characters, the people in this book do all kinds of things that the average human being would cringe at. Random killings, witchcraft, necrophilia, malice, absolute grossness! Much of the time, Chuck P.'s descriptions are enough to make the stomach turn and retch. But, it doesn't hamper the quality of the piece. It's a good book from start to finish with one or two endearing characters to root for, the best of which is Helen Hoover Boyle.

The things I cared less about in this novel were the repetitive catches that were nice for a hundred pages, but get tiresome after awhile. "This is my life" is one. "It's brown, but not brown like a chocolate bar but brown like auburn after a woman's black hair dye is beginning to fade." We get that sort of thing with just about every color going. Then there were the constant newspaper ads and the silly side-story about the haunted houses that totally didn't need to be in there and was given no acceptable explanation whatsoever. Soon these cliche's get annoying and I found myself skipping forward when I caught one starting.

None of that stuff is enough to ruin the book though. There are enough turns to keep one interested but it didn't grab me enough to give it the highest rating possible like many very generous reviewers. I feel like 5 stars should be alotted to legendary literature and instant classics. This doesn't qualify.

"Lullaby" is a story about a reporter (Carl Streader) who is working on a story for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS.) Through his research for the story, he makes a startling discovery -- a poem that is printed in a children's book, called the "Culling Song," causes death to its listeners. The story follows Carl in his quest to destroy all of the copies of the Culling Song, and he gets mixed up with other characters who share his secret of the poem's power, if not his desire to destroy it.
I was drawn to this book because I really enjoyed the movie "Fight Club," and "Lullaby" possesses alot of the same angry undertones that made Fight Club entertaining. The book started out very strong. Palahniuk seems to have a gift for creating intelligent, edgy, and angry characters who go on rants that feel like they were borne from blast furnaces. Another thing I notice in the book that you can't detect in the movie is his unique way of describing things. Green is not good enough, he describes green as the reflection off of the yellow ball on the pool table rather than the red one. I like that.
This story does bog down a little bit. He spends much too much time on a road trip scene, and he tries to develop a love interest for Carl that feels like a movie where the two love interests are just plain miscast, (i.e., Keanu Reeves and anybody...just kidding.) These parts of the book are slower, but they do not undo all the good that Palahniuk created in the beginning of his story.
This story, though probably one of the author's weaker ones, was very entertaining to a first time reader, and I am excited to read more of his works.

Chuck Palahnuik's Lullaby was one of those reads where you imagine every detail because every detail is examined within the story. Lullaby is a story about greed, control, power, and in contrast of those, the path of redemption. Carl Streator is a detective who has a past that haunts him. When it comes back to bite him in the butt in the form of a culling song (an ancient poem that kills intended people when read), he must put his past and the poem to rest. With the aid of an over-the-top woman, a young wiccan, and an overbearing know-it-all, Carl must destroy all copies of the poem, and reach redemption before damnation takes over him.
Palahnuik captured the essence of his main character, and kept you involved with him from beginning to end. The same goes with each of these characters as we meet them and see each of their own downfalls. I must admit that the beginning of the novel is a bit confusing, but it all comes around in the third chapter, and from then on any mystery/suspense lover will be involved until the end.
What really kept me involved is how the novel is much like a social commentary. The undertones of how much power can control one's self is shown in each character. That's how it is in real life with people. Once power is given to someone, they want more. I won't get deep with this, but it's just an extra goodness of the book.
This is my first book by Chuck Palahnuik, and it's sparked my interest for his other novels.

Chuck Palahnuik's Lullaby was one of those reads where you imagine every detail because every detail is examined within the story. Lullaby is a story about greed, control, power, and in contrast of those, the path of redemption. Carl Streator is a detective who has a past that haunts him. When it comes back to bite him in the butt in the form of a culling song (an ancient poem that kills intended people when read), he must put his past and the poem to rest. With the aid of an over-the-top woman, a young wiccan, and an overbearing know-it-all, Carl must destroy all copies of the poem, and reach redemption before damnation takes over him.
Palahnuik captured the essence of his main character, and kept you involved with him from beginning to end. The same goes with each of these characters as we meet them and see each of their own downfalls. I must admit that the beginning of the novel is a bit confusing, but it all comes around in the third chapter, and from then on any mystery/suspense lover will be involved until the end.
What really kept me involved is how the novel is much like a social commentary. The undertones of how much power can control one's self is shown in each character. That's how it is in real life with people. Once power is given to someone, they want more. I won't get deep with this, but it's just an extra goodness of the book.
This is my first book by Chuck Palahnuik, and it's sparked my interest for his other novels.

What if you could kill someone simply by repeating a few lyrics in your head or outloud? What if you didn't even realize you were killing the people around you?
Carl Streator is a newspaper reporter who's been assigned a story on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. All of the deaths have one common link - an anthology of poems from around the world.
The culling song has embedded itself in Carl's brain. Before he knows it, people are dropping all around him.
As he tracks down other victims who have lost someone, he comes across a woman named Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who repeatedly sells houses whose residents don't include people from this world. The two decide to join forces and destroy every book that features the culling song.
Some people have different plans for the powerful culling song. And they're willing to use a little manipulation of their own to get it.
Chuck Palahniuk has written a novel that's not your ordinary, run of the mill fiction. The characters are very unique, not your typical cast. At times, this tale is pretty dark and if you're the sensitive type, this may not be the book for you.
But if you're up for an unusual tale, Palahniuk won't disappoint. And how can you not be intrigued by a book that has a dead bird illustration on the cover?

This is an excellent pediatric epidemiology manual concerning a meticulous journalist named Carl Streator, who discovers the cause of sudden infant death syndrome, by simply noting that the common independent variable of each case he researchers is the singing of a specific children's lullaby. Streator builds an ad hoc family with three others who know about the culling song, who together go on a road trip mission of sorts. And what they subsequently do with the ability to play grim reaper is twisted and depraved, yet perhaps, exasperatingly, morally justified.

In typical Palahniuk fashion, expect that, laced among all the killing and necrophilia, you will find detailed discussions concerning the negative externalities of noise pollution and the ecological imbalance caused by invasive alien species (apparently some dude thought it would be brilliant to introduce all birds mentioned by Shakespeare to the New World. And Hotspur in "Henry IV" says "I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak.." It is another example of Pahniuk's genius that he mentions origins of starling overpopulation in a book primarliy focused on causing death and destruction with speech, without even directly providing this quote- the dude codes his writing with multiple layers of metaphor). And, of course, this is also a love story. However, as Streator likes to say, "there are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them."

I see many reviews complain that this new novel from Chuck is the same as his others. This is simply not true. Lullaby is a story centering around the paranormal, something only Choke has lightly touched upon. The paranormal is at the core of this work, and it is interesting to see our favorite satirical writer going into this area.
The characters do have the usual Chuck feel to them. This I expect though. Most all authors I've read have similar traits, attitudes, etc. in all their characters, mainly because the authors are putting parts of themselves in these characters. But if you actually do think for a quick moment (which is part of the message of this novel, thinking) it's easy to see that Carl of Lullaby and the Narrator of Fight Club are hardly the same.
As for plot, yes the usual cross-country road trip is there. Though it hardly matters. The setting of Chuck's novels hardly matters at all. Wheather the story takes place in Denver, Chicago, New York, or Moscow, Chuck's message and humorous satire will still be spread across each page. In this case the road trip was vital to a major plot point though, unlike Invisible Monsters.
Chuck continues to mature with his writing. Each book is better than the last. He is truly a literary master.

Lullaby finds Chuck Palahniuk in a transitional phase. Chances are the Portland author won't be competing with the likes of Stephen King any time soon. And his fans should be thankful.
As a horror novel, Lullaby is anything but a traditional entry in the heavily commercialized genre. Palahniuk's sinister sense of humor prevents the author's fourth novel from achieving a significant scare factor. Or at least the typical horror type of fright.
Our hero is Helen Hoover Boyle. She is a real estate agent with an eye for "distressed" property. The kind of homes where the only permanent residents are not exactly of this world. Helen Hoover Boyle sells haunted houses. She sells them to normal families who seem happy enough, until blood starts running down the walls. After that, the buyers will scramble out of there before they even start unpacking their boxes. Easy money for a realtor who knows where to look. And with the help of a police scanner and a practitioner slash secretary named Mona, Helen Hoover Boyle is very good at what she does.
Our narrator is Carl Streator. A newspaper reporter who, while doing a story on sudden infant death syndrome, comes across a book of poems. More like a can of worms actually.
If words could kill.
The discovery of the infamous "culling song" lights the fuse of Lullaby's plot which eventually intersects the lives of our hero and our narrator, spiraling the book into a constantly building power struggle all the way until the bitter ending. With plenty of Palahniuk's signature quirks, Lullaby will surely satisfy Chuck's rapidly growing fan base.
It is the story just below the surface, however, that will get the wheels turning. Lullaby was inspired by the tragic killing of Palahniuk's own father. The murderer was eventually apprehended and convicted. During sentencing, Chuck had to testify as to whether he believed in the death penalty. Keep these facts (not included in the book) in mind, as they will provide a better appreciation of the novel.
Otherwise, Lullaby may prove just too darn entertaining for the average reader to even notice the deeper message. It is truly a page-turning, hilarious ride. Take the horror sticker off and, in my mind, the brilliantly constructed third chapter is reason enough to buy this one today.

This the third novel I have read from Chuck Palahniuk, after Survivor and Choke. I am not going to admit that I have jumped into his little fan club. On the other hand I am going to give tons of credit for his amazing imagination and very dark sense of humor.

Lullaby like the other Palahniuk's novels takes common characters that we encounter in our everyday life, a journalist and a real estate agent, apparently boring people, and places them in dark bizarre circumstances. They will take you on a trip in which you will never want to put the book down. Lullaby is a requiem for our society crippled with over population, over pollution, and over confusion from religious struggles. From the secondary characters like Oyster, Palahniuk serves tons of facts and research about history, geography, and geology like you never heard in "sane academic environment".

Lullaby is a metaphor for the crazy fast-pace life that we are living in. It is a message for the noiseoholics, for the quiteophobics. Whatever you want it to be, Lullaby is an excellent novel to read. It will open your mind to thoughts that you never knew they existed. If you thought the Da Vinci Code was dumb, you will love this book.

A solid 4.5/5.. Chuck delivers an incredibly solid book with unforgettable characters. There are supernatural elements scattered all throughout, which require suspension of disbelief. However, unlike in Rant, the supernatural elements are EFFECTIVE, because they tie in so inextricably to the developing plot. Oyster is hilariously sinister, Mona is his girlfriend yet philosophical counterpoint, and Carl is a seemingly reliable and strong narrator. The final scenes are graphically endearing, beautifully horrifying images and descriptions that only Chuck could create. It's really a great novel that requires careful reading, and definitely lends credence to Chuck's talent.

I'd recommend this as one of his best, alongside Fight Club (obviously), Invisible Monsters, Snuff (haters need to quit hating on Snuff - it's actually very good), and Diary.

Lullaby was my first book to read by Chuck Palahniuk. I was so very impressed with his writing style and his well-crafted story.
Assigned to investigate Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a reporter uncovers an ancient culling spell. When he learns the power of the spell, and the damage it can do, he sets out with some other very interesting characters, to remove this poem/spell from every library and bookstore in the country.
In my opinion, the power of Palahniuk's style is in his use of repeated phrases. This book was about the power of words and the power of humans to change the world (good and bad). With words as a central theme in the book, Palahniuk constructs many rhymes and phrases that are mentioned often through the book:
"Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will kill you...",
"These noisaholics, these quietophobics..."
They are very well-placed, and really add to the overall meaning of the story. The writing was very raw, enough to make me cringe at times, but I still loved the overall story. This book has definitely opened me up to Palahniuk's writings, and I plan to read his many others in the future.

With biting humor, brutal honesty, and more than a touch of magical realism, Chuck Palahniuk examines and satirizes American culture in his latest novel. In LULLABY, his fourth novel, the author of FIGHT CLUB again turns a critical eye on materialism and consumerism, reinvents the road trip novel and turns the idea of big brother upside down and inside out.
Carl Streator is a journalist who has put the mysterious death of his wife and baby daughter behind him until he begins a five-part series on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. As he interviews grieving parents he discovers a pattern: all the nurseries have the same book of poetry open to the same page. Page 27 of "Poems and Rhymes from Around the World" has an ancient African culling song. Could its recitation be responsible for the deaths of babies and adults around the world? As bodies begin dropping around him, Carl teams up with Helen Hoover Boyle, realtor of haunted houses and assassin for hire, to destroy all copies of the culling song. Soon Carl, Helen, Helen's assistant Mona and Mona's boyfriend Oyster are on the road, determined also to find the original copy of the song. But, as they travel across the country it becomes apparent their goals are not all the same.
Carl is a reluctant hero, but a likable one. Surrounded by disturbing and disturbed characters, Carl struggles to control his thoughts, which, he finds, have gained a new and awesome power. Helen is as hilarious as she is evil. She creates and then profits from the very misery she once suffered from herself. Still, there is a wonderful glimmer of humanity in Helen, and the reader cannot help but enjoy her honesty, wit, and instinct for self-preservation. Oyster and Mona, the symbolic children of Carl and Helen, have confused ethics and priorities, yet their values are admirable.
Carl, Helen, Mona, and Oyster quickly form a twisted nuclear family. However, like all children, Mona and Oyster eventually strike out on their own, much to the consternation of their "parents." Across the dizzying landscape of an America that is both more and less than it seems on the surface, our fractured and amazing family blazes a trail of miracles and struggles for ultimate power; the power of life and death.
Dark and clever, LULLABY pits youth against middle age, optimism against cynicism, love against lust, truth against appearance, big brother against the gullible, soulless masses, not to mention Carl Streator against calm-ophobics and distraction-oholics. A scathing presentation of life in America and a new justice that lacks morality and kindness, LULLABY taps into the greatest fears of those who are willing and able to question the assumptions made all around them. Uncomfortable and nihilistic yet thrilling and funny, LULLABY is a small masterpiece of both imagination and reality.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Lullaby is my 3rd favorite novel by Palahniuk, behind Survivor and Fight Club, ahead of Invisible Monsters and Choke. Lullaby is hilarious, chock full of the dead-on observations and comments on modern culture that made Palahniuk's first four novels so great. I'd imagine that if you liked them, you'll like this one, too.
(Warning - the following paragraph contains some possible spoilers, but nothing worse than the inside of the jacket cover, which gives way too much away.)
Now then, unless I'm missing something, there's some major logic problems with the search and destroy mission for the "Poems and Rhymes from Around the World" book. So there's 500 copies of the book. Helen, over the past few years, got rid of 300 copies that bookdealers were able to track down. Most of the other 200 copies are in libraries. Why did she ignore these approximately 200 library copies for all that time? These, obviously, are potentially much more dangerous than the bought and sold copies, with each of these copies easily resulting in many deaths. Also, it seems unlikely that 3 copies of a book with a print run of 500 would be in 1 library. Heck, with a print run that low, it's amazing 3 of these books would be in libraries, period. Also, a few things weren't explained that should have been, such as the exact source of the house hauntings, which was presumably Helen, Mona and friends (although this seems so important - maybe I just missed it), and also why some died immediately upon having the poem read or thought unto them, while it was a few hours before others, such as Duncan, died.
Even with the apparent problems listed above, though, this book is still great. After all, I didn't buy it expecting a plot completely devoid of holes.
I think that most Palahniuk fans and also those unfamiliar with his work will enjoy Lullaby immensely, as I did.

Mr. Palahniuk's writing always tends to attack mainstream Earth culture (ie Western Civilization) in very subtle manners, but in his newest work he takes it head on by encasing it in a very fast paced and confusing storyline. I dont think there is anything about the plot that I could say that other reviewers havent said so I will instead comment on Mr Palahniuk's moral stance that is evident from page 1-260. His characters tend always to be introverts whom dwell on all of society's more droll tendencies and this novel's protagonist, Carl, is no different. His nemesis comes in the form of annoyance of the constant need of distraction that the "common" man has in this era. Distraction in the forms of visual, audial, and non tangible medium which he feels could potentially train human drives instead of instinct. Words with the suffix "phobic" are thrown around constantly and Carl's irritation becomes the target of his stigma. In the end, nothing is really solved and more problems are presented but Carl comes to terms with his humanity and perhaps that of others.

Well, that was definitely different. I like it though. There were a couple dull spots, but in the end it all comes together. Very cleverly written, entertaining, a bit gruesome, and witty. If you are in the mood for a twisted witch tale, then this is your book!

Reading this book makes me want to read Fight Club, Choke and Haunted asap.

Lullaby is the first book I have read by Palaniuk and I enjoyed his writing style tremendously.

He mixes a sort of dry-witt with sneaky little twists and turns and absorbing plots. If Lullaby was this good... I can't even imagine Fight Club which was a phenomenal movie... hmmm...

I am immediately pulled in to his world, and wiped out like a chuck-flu! I didn't want to put the book down, even though I had to...

Everyone who has read him seems to love him and I heard Lullaby was a nice creepy read.

On his site: Chuck Palaniuk's quote for Lullaby... \"It makes Fight Club look like Little Women\".

That's a truth. It's creepy, about a Lullaby in a book called Poems and Rhymes from Around the World. Turns out the lullaby is a 'culling song'. ( culling; to remove or bind together). So, anyone who hears the song dies. -- it takes the reader on a journey with a reporter who stumbled across the Lullaby while researching SIDs deaths for an article.

It's a good book. Sad at times and the struggles to determine right from wrong. Good read. 4.5 out of 5 Stars!

Lullaby is a quick read about a man struggling with a world in which magic exists and can do a lot of damage. The idea behind the book is interesting: a culling spell is published in a book of children's lullabies, and all the cases of sudden infant death syndrome can be linked to this book opened to page 27. Is his search for answers, the narrator gets involved with three people who all have their own ideas about how this power should be used.

I enjoyed reading this book, but only gave it three stars because the story was nothing particularly exciting.

If anyone else had written this book I would have given it five stars based on the incredible originality and the awesome writing style that I have never come across with another author. However, Palahniuk wrote this book and I have read better by him. And so, it gets a four.

I will not summarize the novel.. that has already been done for you. But I will say that Palahniuk uses such good descriptions in his story that I actually had to stop reading to cringe (teeth & expensive jewels & blood). The whole culling song thing is also very very interesting and not something that you read of very often. Just the idea of a culling song is pretty fascinating. And, as always, Palahniuk's characters are intriguing. They're real, and they certainly aren't there to make you like them.

Either Palahniuk is incredibly intelligent or he extensively researches before writing his novels - probably both. You can tell the man knows what he is talking about and he does not falter on his facts. This is one of the reasons why I love him.

This book was very good and I would probably read it again. But I enjoyed "Diary" and "Survivor" the best (by him) so far, so check them out too!

Lullaby marks a new direction for Palahniuk. Several new directions really. The book is first person, sex isn't the overall subject matter and the characters aren't all criminally insane. Oh, and the book would also fit better in the fantasy section of the bookstore (instead of in literature).
To continue the comparison to other Palahniuk novels, Lullaby is a lot less flippant in nature. The main character actually has some redeeming, identifiable qualities. There seems a lot less hype, a better focus on characterization.
Unfortunately, I found this book to be a little too preachy. The environment this, the environment that. Palahniuk seems to discount humans as a legitimate force of evolutionary intervention. One gets the sense from Palahniuk that the world would be a much better place without humans running around buying his novels.
To be fair, Lullaby is a fun, disconnected from reality novel about too many subjects to easily define. A definite new direction for a promising author, but is it the right direction?

In a Guardian Online interview, Chuck claimed that this book would be the best book for a Palahniuk novice to enter his world of eco-hippe rhetoric and nihilistic tendencies. Having only read two of his books(This and Fight Club), I enjoyed the socially conscious message that Chuck sends through both the Protagonist and Antagonist of the story. The plot can best be described as surreal. The absurdity of the wiccan lovers and the necrophiliac co-worker and succesful real estate agent all mingling to obtain the source of the culling lullaby is laughable(in a good way). Overall the most powerful impression this book leaves is the affect that we have on the environment, how we willingly rape the land of its natural resources and habitat and slaughter animals for our own self-interests pushed me in the direction of vegetarianism or at least incited me to accept the validity of the vegan lifestyle.
Fun book that Chuck sprinkles with statements of profundity that will take your mind off the crazy store and apply much of what happens to your own life.

If you enjoyed this novel, you might be entitled to a cash award as a result of a class action settlement... Sorry, couldn't resist.

Chuck Palahniuk absolutely skewers consumer culture and the everpresent media bombardment of triviality with a one-two punch that should leave you reeling after closing the cover one last time. This is not a novel for people who don't want their paradigms challenged and their worldview turned on its ear. Chuck doesn't ask you to think, he slaps you and shoves your nose in harsh realities. At times, it can make for an uncomfortable read, but the end here surely justifies the means.

At its core, Lullaby is a book about one's place in and responsibilities to society, from the nuclear family on up to the notion of a child raised by the global village. Palahniuk accomplishes much here, bringing broad ideas and insights to bear without coming across as preachy or dogmatic. This is, every step of the way, a surreal novel and a compelling story, but it's also a rant on our current culture, and he folds the two into one another more seamlessly than any other author I've read.

The storyline begins to drag towards the end, with some wheelspinning before the emotionally draining climax, but the overall effect is one that lingers. This is a book you can devour quickly but will take a while to digest. Approach it the way you would a shot of whiskey. Down it quick and wait for it to take hold of you.

Wow! How does one describe "Lullaby"? How does one describe Chuck Palahniuk? His stories take on descriptive tones that I don't believe have ever been matched. What might on the surface appear to be constant trivial facts, are in fact, highly intelligent examples of symbolism. The man is a genius. In this story, our hero (if a man that is responsible for numerous deaths can be called that) is trying to cope with an imperfect and horrible world. Pure misery is his life and has been for close to twenty years. However, a macabre assignment presents him with a tool that might allow him to affect great change on society. Well, as Palahniuk points out, the world was perhaps ruined more by people hoping to promote positive change, than from anything else. This book has it all, humor, witchcraft, culling spells, characters named Oyster, etc.. I feel it would be ridiculous to attempt to go into any real detail on the plot. Just let me say, that the story is coherent and makes a great deal of sense and will make even more sense when you read Chapter 1 again after you are finished.

"The more people die, the more things stay the same."
Chuck Palahniuk has done it again, this time on a super-natural level. "Lullaby" is a chilling and sometimes humorous novel that forces you to ask this frightening question: "What if words can kill?"
The story centers around a widower newspaper reporter, Carl Streator. He's been investigating the latest crib deaths, and he seems to find the same thing all the time. There's always a book on the scene, called "Poems and Rhymes Around the World." And it's always opened to the same page. The page contains what some have called a "culling song." As it turns out, when the poem is read aloud, anybody who hears it dies. Now, Carl can't get it out of his head and is a lethal weapon that can't control his actions. He ends up killing people who get him upset, even if he doesn't want to. He knows that the poem and book must be destroyed, or all humanity could be doomed, and a new deadly weapon will be unleashed into the world.
I found the story very entertaining and addicting. The pages just fly by so quick, you're done with the novel almost as soon as you start it. The characters are really colorful and unforgettable. I also really like the premise of the story and the very well-structured plot. It also has a lot of twists and turns, just like in his other novels.
Palahniuk uses the first person narrative to tell this dark tale, as with his previous novels. His voice is a unique one that keeps the reader's attention all the way through. Although this is supposed to be a super-natural tale that is supposed to be horrifying, he is still able to add the dark humor he is best known for. Although some have said this book is too much like his others, I disagree. I admit I have only read "Fight Club", "Choke," and this new one "Lullaby," but from just those books alone I can see the improvement and maturity in his latest accomplishment.
I found "Lullaby" to be a great novel. I finished it in less than three days. I was sad to finish it so quickly, but that just means I'll be able to re-read it again very soon. I still think "Fight Club" is his best work, but "Lullaby" was a lot better than "Choke." I will have to read his other two novels when I get the chance. I think Chuck Palahniuk is a fantastic writer with a very creative mind. One thing is for sure, when you read a Chuck Palahniuk novel, you know you're in for a wild ride. "Lullaby" is no exception."
Remember, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you......."
They'll just kill you instead.
SLEEP TIGHT!!!

An audible plague. A book written in "peter tracks" bound with human skin, nipple included. Counting 1, counting 2, counting 3...
"Lullaby" tells the tale of 4 deranged characters (one named Oyster for goodness sake) who travel cross country in attempt to destroy all remaining copies of a culling poem, a poem that if read aloud kills the listener. The journey begins as a quest to save the innocent from unnecesary deaths, but quickly turns into a power struggle between those who know the poem and those who know of the poem. There's a difference, and that difference is the center that "Lullaby" revolves around. Save books by burning books, save lives by killing. All these oxymorons make for an incredible read that won't let you put it down, especially if this is one of your first or second Chuck books. If not...
Chuck's stories are uniquely his own, and while "Lullaby" is filled with plots, observations (television is filled with laughing dead people)and analogies that could only be made by him, "Lullaby" was, well, too Chuck. No one writes like him, but perhaps he should experiment a little and apply his style to characters that don't have so much in common (and I mean all of his characters, not just those in "Lullaby") - the book just didn't seem new.

Yes, indeed, you may say this is Chuch Palahniuk, what's the point?
I woke up this morning to a ringing phone, Caller ID: "Unknown Caller", added to the previous 22 "Unknown Callers" that have come before. I arrive at work, clear my email inbox of 15 emails trying to sell me Viagra and Breat Enlargement pills; others worry about whether I have the lowest mortgage rates. Afterwards, I proceed to my fax machine, throwing away reams of paper advertisements, saying goodbye to a couple arces of the storeian rainforest. I then log on to the Internet to come here to tell you about this book, but first I must Alt-F4 a few times and kill ads for X-10 spy cameras that lurk under my browser window.
Confused about what this has to do with the book you've come here to purchase? Read it, you will understand.
In Lullaby, Palahniuk once again comments on the life in which we live. Life where words, information, noise flow at us in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. What happens when a viris can be spread to our ears just as easily as to our email? There is no Blue Screen of Death for the people in Palaniuk's novel.

Palahniuk has a gift for creating a thought provoking read while maintaining a fast pace laced with sarcasm, wit and intellect. `Lullaby' is no exception. Truth be told, I am not as in love with this novel as I am with `Invisible Monsters' or even `Fight Club' but I am impressed with his prose and development, and that is something that speaks volumes. As any fan of his previous work will know, Chuck loves to create characters from the lowest walks of life with this strangest of hobbies and put them in the weirdest of situations. Here, in `Lullaby', he does the same thing with haunting results.

The main characters, four of them, are all distressed in their own ways, all suffering from something. Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter, has lost both his wife and child and is dealing with that on his own terms. When he's assigned to write an article on SIDS, what killed his child, he's sent on a strangely gratifying journey for some answers. This is when he meets Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells possessed homes in order to assure an instant turnover. She herself lost a child to SIDS and it's her knowledge of what `really' killed their children that begins this witch-hunt so-to-speak.

The killer here is called a `culling song', an ancient lullaby that was sung to the dying to ease their journey to the other realm. Unbeknownst to parents, when they sing this song to their children they are in affect killing them. After hearing this Carl and Helen become determined to find every copy of this song and dispose of them. Helen's secretary Mona and her boyfriend Oyster decide to accompany the duo, but as the novel progresses we, the reader, become aware that intentions are shady (on the part of almost everyone) and no one is really who they seem.

Palahniuk's writing style is engrossing, and here he ups the ante almost with mesmerizing imagery and impressive character development. Chuck constantly wants to make a statement, and here is no exception as he rips apart the media and their constant impact in our lives and their grip on our decisions. Whether or not you buy into his views rarely makes a difference for the talented web he weaves here is worth the ride either way. With characters that will both endear and repel you, `Lullaby' is classic Palahniuk and thus should make it's way into any avid readers lap. Sit back and be mesmerized!

WOW! Palahniuk is out there. This is the third book of his I have read, and without a doubt my fave. His writing is so raw and demented. He's not the best storyteller ever, but his books are impossible to put down.

Lullaby follows a lonely newspaper reporter who is investigating a story about crib deaths. Along the way he stumbles across a poem that apparently is killing anyone who hears it. He goes on a mission to find and destroy every copy in print. With the help of some unlikely friends, his is a journey into insanity.

Palahniuk's writing is like a nervous energy put on paper. He has a very fast pace, all over the place style. He is definitely not for the casual reader, though. If you enjoy a different kind of storytelling and don't have a weak stomach, then you will enjoy Palahniuk.

"Lullaby" tells the story of Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter investigating SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) for an upcoming article. As Carl delves into his investigation, a peculiar pattern begins to emerge: a fairytale book, "Poems and Songs from Around the World," is always nearby when a baby dies from SIDS. Carl eventually discovers that the book contains a "culling song," an ancient African song capable of killing anyone who hears it -- instantly. Armed with the culling song's power, Carl soon becomes an unwitting murderer; even *thinking* the culling song in someone's direction is enough to kill that person. Along the way, Carl meets up with Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who deals in haunted houses, her Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's boyfriend, Oyster. Forming an "anti-nuclear family", they set out on a cross-country road trip to destroy all known copies of the song book, before the "virus" is able to spread any further.

Palahniuk's premise is certainly intriguing (albeit difficult to swallow at times), but he stumbles with the execution. The culling song presents the kernel of an interesting idea, but the book feels padded even at a slim 260 pages -- simply put, this is an idea that would have worked much better as a short story. Palahniuk is clumsy in communicating his major themes, taking a heavy-handed approach that simply involves bludgeoning the reader into submission through sheer repetition.

But there is an even larger problem here, one beyond the scope of just this book: Palahniuk is becoming repetitive. He has an incredibly unique voice, but it hasn't expanded much since Fight Club: A Novel and Survivor: A Novel. While reading "Lullaby", I was suddenly struck by an observation -- all of the characters sound exactly alike -- in this novel *and* in Palahniuk's other novels. Likewise, the themes of nihilism, media saturation, and salvation-through-destruction are used and re-used over and over. I understand that authors have common themes that they revisit, but after a while, it begins to feel more like a rut than a style. Palahniuk needs to show more growth in this area quickly or he runs the risk of being seen as a one-trick pony.

Overall, the book is interesting, but it never rises above the level of just "OK". If you've never read Palahniuk before, I'd recommend reading either Fight Club: A Novel or Survivor: A Novel instead of this. Here's hoping that Palahniuk branches out into some new areas with his next novel.

In this book by Chuck Palahniuk, you better believe silence is golden. The plot revolves around a culling song. A culling song is described as a song that was used in ancient times to put warriors, the sick, or those suffering from wounds or disease out of their misery. It also was used to kill off some of the extra popluation when a tribe started getting too large or during times of short supplies of food and water.

Fast forward to modern times and this song, now a poem, gets placed into a children's book of poetry. When the poem starts causing deaths, labeled as SIDS, a reporter makes the link. Only he finds out that through the words written in that poem he can control life and death. Marked with memorable characters and page turning adventure and mystery, the reader is thrust into a new world where magic still exists.

At the end of the book, reading to your children any poem requires an act of faith for fear of accidentally giving them the boot to the next world. This book hits home psychologically by making one aware of the power of words and their reacing effects.

When you close the book and place it on the table next to you, you realize that "sticks and stones may break bones, but words can most definitely hurt you". Palahniuk has shown us that words do speak and what we say is heard.