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Lullaby

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 45,947 ratings · 1,668 reviews

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Choke and the cult classic Fight Club, a cunningly plotted novel about the ultimate verbal weapon, one that reinvents the apocalyptic thriller for our times.

Carl Streator is a solitary widower and a fortyish newspaper reporter who is assigned to do a series of articles on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In the course of this i...more

Paperback, 260 pages

Published July 29th 2003 by Anchor Books (first published July 28th 1999)

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May 10, 2012 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reread, spooky-powers, playing-god, modern-lit, horror

To most people a lullaby is a soothing song meant to help coax a child to sleep, but in Chuck Palahniuk’s hands it becomes a death spell that can kill anyone. Of course, that’s not twisted enough for Chuckie P. so he had to throw in some witchcraft, necrophilia and dead babies to really make it a party.

Carl Streator is a newspaper reporter working on a feature about infant crib deaths, and he has his own tragic experience in that area. When Streator sees a book containing an African chant at se...more To most people a lullaby is a soothing song meant to help coax a child to sleep, but in Chuck Palahniuk’s hands it becomes a death spell that can kill anyone. Of course, that’s not twisted enough for Chuckie P. so he had to throw in some witchcraft, necrophilia and dead babies to really make it a party.

Carl Streator is a newspaper reporter working on a feature about infant crib deaths, and he has his own tragic experience in that area. When Streator sees a book containing an African chant at several homes where the baby died, he does more digging and discovers that it‘s a culling song that can be used to kill just by thinking it. Since Carl has a few anger problems, this leads to a lot of deaths of people who annoy him as he tries to get control.

Streator seeks help from Helen Hoover Boyle a realtor who specializes in flipping haunted houses and who also knows the culling song. He convinces her that they should take a road trip to destroy all the copies of the book, but her secretary Mona, a witch wannabe, and her animal rights activist and all around asshole of a boyfriend Oyster end up coming along for the ride. Mona also convinces them that the culling song probably came from a powerful spell book they should try to locate.

The culling song is a nifty hook for the story and Streator’s tendency to off anyone who’s pissing him off provides some dark hilarity. My biggest problem with this one is that Streator is a complete moron. He instantly realizes the chaos that would occur if anyone else figured out the culling song and how to use it, but then he promptly blabs about it to Mona and a disgusting EMT with a penchant for corpse sex. He often can't control himself with the culling song and kills people for offenses like having their TV’s too loud or bumping into him on the street, yet somehow he manages not to whack the ultra-annoying Oyster.

Then he invites Oyster and Mona on the road to destroy the book. So you’re trying to destroy a dangerous spell that can kill people and you bring along a guy who spends every waking moment telling you all the crimes people have committed against animals. Guess how well that turns out?(less)

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Aug 05, 2007 Jeff rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who dye their hair black.

Oh Chuck Palahniuk, why do the kids love you? Years and years and years have passed while I have worked in a bookstore and every single year is the same, some kind of cool hipster guy or girl will come in and ask for anything by Chuck Palahniuk, bestowing praises upon his writing. Okay, I get it. The hipsters love him. Brad Pitt was in a movie based on a Palahnuik book, which was about crazy wacky anarchy, which the young hipsters love.
So, I finally sat myself down and cracked open this lovely b...more

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Aug 16, 2007 Logan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian-fiction, fiction, joyous_nihilism

When you pick up a Chuck Palahniuk book you know that you are going to plunge ever-so-briefly into a raging torrent of absurdity, horror so whimsical that you laugh even as you cringe, and insightful looks at contemporary living. It seems a cheap shot to call his work formulaic, but once you've read through 6 or 7 of his books, the pattern emerges and you have a vague idea of what to expect.

It was Lullaby that finally brought this realization home to me. You have the protagonist, a man who seems...more When you pick up a Chuck Palahniuk book you know that you are going to plunge ever-so-briefly into a raging torrent of absurdity, horror so whimsical that you laugh even as you cringe, and insightful looks at contemporary living. It seems a cheap shot to call his work formulaic, but once you've read through 6 or 7 of his books, the pattern emerges and you have a vague idea of what to expect.

It was Lullaby that finally brought this realization home to me. You have the protagonist, a man who seems like the picture of upstanding normality at first glance but who is eventually revealed to have a dark secret hidden in his past. You have the more experienced secondary character who helps to drive the story forward by slowly revealing some answers to the mystery. Then you have the comical minor characters, the latter-day Rosencratz and Guildenstern (or the R2D2 and C3PO if you want to take it that far) if you will, who play an important roll in the advancement of events but who also provide the brilliant moments of macabre hilarity. At some point they will all go on a roadtrip and Palahniuk will ruminate on the state of human existence at the turn of the 21st Century.

And so it goes for Lullaby. Features reporter Carl Streator is assigned to report on crib death for a mid-size Portland newspaper. As he visits site after site of these tragic deaths, he notices the constant appearance of a book of children's poems all laying open to Page 27. It appears that prior to dying the infants had all been read this particular poem. Being the thorough investigative reporter that he is, Streator traces crib deaths in his area back over 20 years until he comes across Helen Hoover Boyle, a Realtor who specializes in selling (and reselling and reselling again) haunted houses to unsuspecting clients, who may know the reason why this particular poem seems to kill. It's not long before Streator, Helen, her assistant Mona (known as Mulberry in the Wiccan circles in which she travels) and Mona's boyfriend Oyster embark on a roadtrip across the country to track down every copy of this culling poem to protect the sleeping infants of the world from inadvertent death.

Like I said it's formulaic, but this just makes it easier to focus on the odd details that Palahniuk likes to toss into the mix. Oyster's long narrations about the history of invasive foreign plants and how this can be used as a means to understand the cannibalistic psyche of modern man, an EMT who learns the culling poem so that he can kill fashion models and then have sex with their dead bodies, the twisted history of antique furniture- they all add together to form a novel that, while not spectacular, definitely envelops you and reminds you why it is that Palahniuk stands out as one of the best contemporary authors of today.(less)

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Sep 18, 2008 Sean rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The only novel by the acclaimed author of Fight Club that I've read, this book is more or less an essay concerning the contaminating effects caused by the constant "noise" to which Americans have grown accustomed in their lives. Be it mass media, advertisements everywhere one turns, or talking heads always telling one what to do and when to do it, this noise is everywhere, and utterly inescapable, the author argues. While I generally agree with the author's displeasure over constant sensory over...more

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Jul 29, 2007 Michael Breen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: goodstuff

The war of who can crank their radio louder than their neighbor. Avoiding the big picture by looking at things too closely. Big Brother filling your head with marketing noise 24-7 so you he doesn't have to worry about what your thoughts cause he created them. Control. Unlikely families. Journalism. These are the tried-and-true themes that Palahniuk has worked before in other forms in other books and they all come together nicely with Chuck's dead pan, sarcastic sense of humor. The premise of the...more

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Oct 12, 2012 April rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, fantasy

I really need to sort out my feelings with Palahniuk. Since Fight Club bewitched the eyes and souls of friends, I was convinced one way or another I'd end up favoring him above other authors as some sort of writing genius.
However, I read Invisible Monsters a few years ago and I simply couldn't get into it. It remains abandoned on my shelf with an array of other books that have failed to attain my interest. Maybe it's because I was too young at the time and I just couldn't be bothered to finish...more

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Aug 07, 2007 Matt rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no.

Shelves: badnovels

Chuck has never been a very good writer. He comes up with interesting ideas, uses them as a vehicle for a shitty novel, then I read it, and am disappointed every time. I have since stopped reading his books but my girlfriend says they still suck.

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Jun 30, 2011 Marco Tamborrino rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Divertente e terribilmente reale. Diventa forse un po' troppo confuso alla fine, ma comunque un ottimo libro, indubbiamente superiore a Fight Club. Sublime il personaggio di Helen Hoover Boyle.

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Dec 04, 2008 Catten rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Palahniuk, the Portlander (Oregon, not Maine) who wrote the cult classic Fight Club, has four other novels. One of them is Lullaby, which might or might not be just as off-the-wall as its more popular brother.

The book opens with a scene from a real estate office. Helen Hoover Boyle and her assistant Mona listen to a police scanner for deaths (and potential sales) and field calls from frightened new homeowners who have bought what Helen calls "distressed" (haunted) houses. Helen sells the same ho...more Palahniuk, the Portlander (Oregon, not Maine) who wrote the cult classic Fight Club, has four other novels. One of them is Lullaby, which might or might not be just as off-the-wall as its more popular brother.

The book opens with a scene from a real estate office. Helen Hoover Boyle and her assistant Mona listen to a police scanner for deaths (and potential sales) and field calls from frightened new homeowners who have bought what Helen calls "distressed" (haunted) houses. Helen sells the same homes over and over, creating a niche market with a steady income.

Chapter two is from the perspective of an unknown character, whose identity isn't revealed until much later in the book. This narrator is hunting miracles: the Flying Virgin, who appeared in New Mexico and wrote "STOP HAVING BABYS" in the sky with a can of Bug-Off brand insect fogger; the Roadkill Jesus Christ/I-84 Messiah, who restores dead animals to their pre-accident conditions; the Judas Cow, at the Stone River Meatpacking plant in Nebraska, who refused to lead a herd of cows into the slaughterhouse, and instead took a seat and spoke at length about giving up meat, taught its audience a Hindi song, and answered questions about the nature of life and death.

The third chapter brings us to Carl Streator, a journalist trained to note details. Assigned to do a series of stories on crib death for the Lifestyles section of his newspaper, he visits the parents and homes of recently deceased babies. On his first visit, he notes, among other things, an open library book on a wicker chest in the nursery. This book, Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, is open to page 27. Carl diligently writes down the eight-line traditional African poem - a culling song, a lullaby, the book says - in his notes. This poem shows up at each of the homes he visits; he's found a pattern.

In his editor's office, he reads the poem aloud. The next day, the editor doesn't show up for work.

Carl has a problem with anger management and soon discovers bodies piling up around him. Mona, the realtor's assistant, is a Wiccan who recognizes Carl's power and the story just gets stranger from there. Carl, Helen, Mona, and Mona's boyfriend Oyster set out on a road trip to track down and destroy every copy of the poem.

Palahnuik's writing style is sometimes choppy and repetitive, which took a little to get used to. This story, which might be considered a magical realism murder mystery, is brilliantly conceived. The plot doesn't just twist, it writhes. For a little while, I had no idea what was going on. I became mildly frustrated. But I was already hooked, so I pressed on and finally things started coming together. The trip was worth it. And I think Palahniuk effectively taps into that irritated, misanthropic side of humanity that would never publicly admit that, "Yeah, once in awhile, I wouldn't mind having a culling song handy..." (less)

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Mar 27, 2008 Nate rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with a great sense of humor and/or Palaniuk fans

Shelves: favorites

Palahniuk makes another social statement(criticism) with Lullaby, but this time with more humor than he's mustered in any of his other books. It definitely helps to be somewhat cynical about the modern world, if you want to enjoy this book (good rule of thumb w/ any C.P books). But even if you love life, there's much to appreciate in the this book, mainly the fact that it's hysterically funny and the events that occur that are really bizarre.
The story revolves around the main character who stu...more

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Mar 16, 2007 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like all of Palahniuk’s work, Lullaby is a fairly strange, twisted take on society. In this case, the focus is on folklore and the rather corrupt moral compass that seems to drive modern man.

For anyone who’s read Palahniuk before, you probably already know what to expect from his writing. He uses a fairly informal tone and relies on short, rapid sentences to keep the action moving. His characters are painted in vivid, near comic terms at times, and their motivations are fairly transparent. The...more Like all of Palahniuk’s work, Lullaby is a fairly strange, twisted take on society. In this case, the focus is on folklore and the rather corrupt moral compass that seems to drive modern man.

For anyone who’s read Palahniuk before, you probably already know what to expect from his writing. He uses a fairly informal tone and relies on short, rapid sentences to keep the action moving. His characters are painted in vivid, near comic terms at times, and their motivations are fairly transparent. The paths of his stories, however, are typically less obvious, and Lullaby is no exception.

For this novel, Palahniuk asks the question – what would you do if you had the power to kill painless, without any violence or noticeable evidence of the crime? It’s a question that naturally came to Palahniuk after his father was killed by the ex-boyfriend of a woman he was dating.

The question as asked in the novel is folded into the idea that certain African lullabies — culling songs – are infused with the magical ability to kill the people who hear them. When an inquisitive reporter begins to do a feature piece on babies who have died of SIDS, he slowly unearths the cause that links them together.

While this sets off the main course of the novel, it also gives Palahniuk the tools he needs to examine the broader question of how our society would actually use this ability. As one would expect, the variety is huge, ranging from social correction to personal gratification to pure impulse killing.

Throughout Palahniuk’s exploration, the reader is fairly consistently challenged with characters that are less than moral and yet somehow likable even in their absurdity. And so you never forget who’s writing the story, the details can turn strange or twisted at the drop of a hat.

Even though I wouldn’t call it a horror novel, I will say that the premise and structure of Palahniuk’s work is interesting to behold. For fans of Fight Club, you won’t find the same fast paced, surprising revelations in Lullaby, but you will be treated to the same sardonic, black humor. (less)

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May 15, 2013 O.M. Grey rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: No one

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...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa

Palahniuk si conferma un grande scrittore, un gran narratore, uno che inventa storie e incanta con le sue parole.
Chi leggerà questo libro troverà tutte le tematiche care all'autore: i personaggi strampalati e costantemente "sopra le righe", malinconia, scrittura priva di avverbi e altre particelle che rallentano il ritmo del periodo, stile crudo e interrotto, ripetizioni ad effetto. Troverà la critica verso la società moderna, i mass-media ossessivi, troverà come sempre il finale a sorpresa.
Trov...more

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Aug 17, 2008 Michele rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aside from not knowing how to pronounce this author's last name, reading this book was quick and easy (I read it in three days worth of bus rides to school and back). But just because it's an easy read doesn't mean it's not thought provoking.

Palahniuk wrote Fight Club which was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. (If you haven't seen the movie, go see it - it combines the uncertainty of a Sixth Sense or the confusion of a Memento with the light hearted social critique/comment...more Aside from not knowing how to pronounce this author's last name, reading this book was quick and easy (I read it in three days worth of bus rides to school and back). But just because it's an easy read doesn't mean it's not thought provoking.

Palahniuk wrote Fight Club which was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. (If you haven't seen the movie, go see it - it combines the uncertainty of a Sixth Sense or the confusion of a Memento with the light hearted social critique/commentary of Trainspotting or The Big Lebowski.) The movies I choose as metaphors to describe Fight Club probably say something interesting about me, but I'd rather not psychoanalyze myself right now.

Anyway, Lullaby is about what it sounds like, a lullaby, but it's also about death, guilt, and the corruptive force of power as it affects a reporter, a real estate agent and a couple of vegan Wiccans. It begins with an unexpected twist, and shortly follows that up with an explanation of what the lullaby is all about. At this point, after only about 20 pages in, you begin to wonder what Palahniuk was thinking when he wrote the book since he seems to have thrown all the good stuff into the beginning. But it continues to mystify, and then reveal those mystifications at odd moment throughout the novel, with the final twist being held off until the last few pages.

If you're looking for a quick, easy summer read and something a little edgier than a romance, feel good story, or chick lit, this is a quick and dirty book I would recommend reading, particularly if you liked Fight Club or you're looking for something out of the ordinary.

My tolerance for "ickiness" seems to be much higher than some of my book club members because the overwhelming response to this book was that there were some really despicable and graphically descriptive parts (despicable characters and a lot more description of dead/damaged bodies than some people cared for). I was the only one who found the main character, Streacher, interesting. Although I couldn't condone the character's behaviour, I could certainly understand it, and I think Palahniuk did a pretty good job getting into the mind of an uptight middle-aged man with an excessively large amount of emotional baggage. So a caveat to my sense of the book would be that if you don't like to hear icky descriptions of the body, don't read this book... though if you've seen Fight Club, you've already seen that kind of icky when Robert gets shot, or when Norton's character pulls out his tooth.(less)

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Aug 10, 2008 Nicholas rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: First time Chuck Palahniuk readers.

Attention Readers of Edgy Black Writings, of Chuck Palahniuk

If you've read Lullaby and have felt bored you are not alone.

OKay, so this is my fourth Palahniuk book and I enjoyed the first three so much (Survivor, Choke, & Invisible Monsters)and I was very excited to read this. I got through most of it and felt really bored and unsatisfied. I mean I love the idea of the culling song and having the power to kill by voice even if you just say it in your head but I think the characters and the pl...more

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Jul 05, 2008 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, audiobooks

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 phra...more

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Dec 18, 2007 Tracey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: due-for-re-read

I got Lullaby as a pass-along from my mom a few months ago & finally started reading it earlier this week.

Wow. I don't think I've read anything this powerful & bleak since the first time I read Cat's Cradle. Carl Streator is a reporter with a terrible past, investigating SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He discovers that the deaths all seem to have something in common: a book of poems & rhymes that contains a culling song - a simple poem that kills whenever it is recited. He is...more

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Jul 08, 2007 Pwntalive rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the hopelessly depressed

I learned from this book:
That Chuck Palahniuk hates humanity.
His outlook is bleak, basicly he's unimpressed.

Here we find all of chucks old tricks painted fresh and new. The tortured, faulted hero. The antagonistic love interest. The questing, the transformative car rides, great return home. Its like Palahniuk's the monster reincarnation of Jack Kerouac living in the shadow of Stephen King.

The plot runs like this:
Magic is real, specifically magic words.

Somehow a deadly magic spell has escaped
int...more

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Jul 03, 2008 Angeld01 rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no one

Very disappointing book.I have always wanted to read a Chuck Palahniuk book. I think that "Flight Club" (the movie) makes a lot of good points about the state of society etc. I got this book as an audio book & I still couldn't finish it. If I had to hear Carl Streator count one more time...And I cannot stand in descending order, Helen Hoover Boyle, Mona & especially Oyster. Who thinks he's an activist, but is really just a pretentious a-hole. Make your characters interesting, but serious...more

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Jan 18, 2008 Rich rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

umm i still not sure if Chuck is author i want to keep reading. his books have unique spins on genre fiction. This book was more of character study on human nature when it comes to gaining power. the protagonists were very realistic in the way they reacted to the events that they put into motion. But i did not find them very likable. I kept wanting to find out more about the events that are flash forwarded to in sections of the novel but that we only learn what has led to them by the conclusion....more

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Jan 12, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to MJ by: Ever Dundas

Shelves: novels, merkins

Having partaken in Pygmy , a delightful dish of garbled phonemes and twisted terror, I returned to Palahniuk with this tale of witchcraft among realtors and reporters.

As ever, the story is ridiculous, and the satire messy and strange, but it’s all about the perverse and the shocking and the weird and the nasty. Think the Ring series set in podunk USA. Or the song "Gloomy Sunday" and its mythology.

I liked the technique of keeping the narrator’s dialogue speech-mark-free—that was neat, and Mr. P’...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Valerie by: Kim

I'd never read anything by Palahniuk before Lullaby, and I found his voice and style to be original - I was drawn in by the fact that it was unlike other books I've read, although I did think he could be a little heavy-handed getting his point across. Yes, I know - media saturation is bad! We're becoming homogenized! We're waiting to be fed our thoughts by the TV! I HEAR YOU, CHUCK!

That said, there were enough funny, witty, scathing remarks and situations in this book that made me laugh, or just...more

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May 09, 2013 Olethros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

-Duérmete, niño… y tú, jefe pesado, y tú, policía inoportuno, y tú, inocente… -.

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. Carl Streator es un periodista que investiga sobre la muerte súbita infantil, síndrome que le arrebató un hijo, para descubrir que el poema de la página 27 del libro “Poemas y rimas del mundo entero”, del que se imprimieron 500 copias, tiene el poder de matar a aquellos a los que odia quien lo esté leyendo.

¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blog ...more

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Dec 03, 2008 Brenna marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I've owned this for about 2 years and haven't even cracked it open...

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Feb 17, 2009 Dana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: must-read

My interest in Palahniuk was selfish: since suffering the loss of a loved one, experiencing a mental breakdown at PDX airport and, two days later, being terminated from my hellish job and thrown blindly into unemployment with no health insurance, no savings and a laundry list of neurological pills that needed popping (prescribing, and purchasing, too...) I was desperate for a distraction.

This book is aaaaallllllll about the distraction, the noise, and the general clusterfuck that spins on aroun...more My interest in Palahniuk was selfish: since suffering the loss of a loved one, experiencing a mental breakdown at PDX airport and, two days later, being terminated from my hellish job and thrown blindly into unemployment with no health insurance, no savings and a laundry list of neurological pills that needed popping (prescribing, and purchasing, too...) I was desperate for a distraction.

This book is aaaaallllllll about the distraction, the noise, and the general clusterfuck that spins on around us, preventing us from thinking. It's characterized as the good and the bad; honestly, how much do you really want to focus on your life when your life seems so hopeless and backwards?

"Lullaby" centers around a reporter's discovery and subsequent utilization of a "culling song," or a poem recited to individuals to put them to sleep, put them out of their misery...basically you direct the words to them, and they die. Someone has placed the poem in a book of verses from around the world, and parents are reading it to their babies, and a mysterious surge in SIDS deaths has compelled the reporter to find the connection.

The song is the connection: and, now that he knows, he holds the power of life and death over the cacophonous world around him.
Call it how you see it: in some ways this book is about a man's moral struggle with the power he finds. In some ways, a road trip, finding copies of the book with cohorts who all want something else from the grimoire from which the poem originated. In others, it's about the choices set before them when the grail (of sorts) is found. Save the world by healing and teaching and making positive changes? Rule the world by killing off your enemies and empowering your allies? Turn everything into ashes and dust, and let the world begin again? Or...

I can't recommend it highly enough. On a personal note, I'm racked with the tearful relief that there is someone in this world sicker than I am. I sincerely enjoyed this book. I was engrossed, I was impressed, I'll likely read it again. (less)

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Jan 29, 2009 Kristina King rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hi. It's been a while.

After reading Galapagos, I set off to read some short stories. I read "Colony" by Philip K. Dick (awesome!) but then I had enough. If I am trying to read a load of books and write about them, reading short stories is antithetical.

On to a review: my first experience of reading Chuck Palahniuk wasn't bad, but it didn't help me understand why so many people enjoy his work. That was Choke (which, BTW, the film comes out next month). I really had to understand the hype, so I rea...more

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May 02, 2013 Shane Jeffery rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lullaby is Chuck’s fifth novel, and this is my fifth review of a book by him since I’m going through these chronologically. Lullaby had the exact same thing going on with it for the first quarter – I thought it was brilliant, well written, exciting – just like Survivor and Choke. And then, like them, the quality fell away.

The story concerns Carl Streator, a journalist investigating the deaths of infants and other persons, which were caused by a ‘culling song’. A culling song is supposedly like a...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Jukka Kuva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Lullaby is a horror-satire about a man who discovers an ancient poem that can be used to kill people. Sticks and stones may break my bones but watch out for those words.

Palahniuk was writing Lullaby while contemplating whether or not his father's killer deserves a death penalty. As a result the book has lots of contemplating about death, who deserves it and who deserves to deliver it. Degradation of culture and constantly increasing noise waste is also a major theme in the book. Both are very go...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Dave marked it as to-read

Shelves: calibre, fiction

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Ever heard of a culling song? It’s a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of **Poems and Rhymes from Around the World**, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers.Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song’s lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrom...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Emmett Borg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my very first Palahniuk book, and I chose it out of his extremely popular library of works due to the very intriguing notion of a Lullaby that kills who ever hears it.

I flew right through the first hundred or so pages, and was very engrossed in the possible uses of the Lullaby, and how the protagonist would control his urges to run a rampage on everyone in his path.

But as the pages kept turning, it quickly felt like a struggle to get through the second half of this short novel.

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About Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American Transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist of Ukrainian ancestry born in Pasco, Washington. The press release for his book, Rant, states he is now living in Vancouver, Washington. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher.

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Trivia About Lullaby

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Quotes from Lullaby

“Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.” — 318 people liked it

“Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.” — 232 people liked it

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avg rating	preview: Lullaby Goodreads rating: 3.69 (45947 ratings)
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