Lullaby

By: Chuck Palahniuk

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author of Fight Club, which was adapted into a major motion picture, Chuck Palahniuk offers a haunting tale. Winner of the Northwest Booksellers Association Award, Palahniuk is one of the rare literary geniuses who has been able to bridge the gap between a cult following and commercial success.

Carl Streator, a 40-something widower and newspaper reporter, has lived a reclusive life since the death of his wife. His latest assignment is to write a series of articles on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In doing so, he discovers that there is an underlying commonality in the deaths. A children's book, Poems and Rhymes Around the World, containing an African Death chant, is found at the scene of the cases he investigates. Having read the chant aloud, he quickly realizes the lethal power of the words. As he fights against its powerful grip, which has turned him into a serial killer, he enlists the aid of some eccentric compatriots who vow to rid every library and bookstore of the deadly text before further lives are jeopardized. But what begins as a crusade to save lives soon becomes the ultimate game of cat and mouse, as they uncover the truth about the rhyme and are hunted by the force holding Streator captive.

Newsday hails Palahniuk as "one of the freshest, most intriguing voices to appear in a long time." Richard Poe's powerful narration expertly captures every tormented detail of this paranormal thriller.

©2002 Chuck Palahniuk (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Hilarious satire." (Publishers Weekly)
"Outrageous, darkly comic fun of the sort you'd expect from Palahniuk." (Kirkus Reviews)
"In his last novel, Choke, Palahniuk proved he could write a best seller without sacrificing his trademark biting satire. And in Lullaby, he manages an even more impressive feat by showing himself capable of tenderness as well as outrage." (Booklist)
"This is vintage Palahniuk: weird, creepy, twisted, upsetting, and ultimately a great read for anyone who wants to be scared for pleasure." (Library Journal)

So-So

I am a huge Palahniuk fan and this was my first time listening to one of his stories on audiobook. I found it to be difficult to follow along and that the overall story was not that interesting. The narration was great though.

great path to travel down.

best moment is the fine details that the author makes through the protagonist. highly recommend!

great narration

interesting, thought-provoking, lewd, and hilarious. narrator was perfect.

there is a crowdfunding thing going on where fans are donating to make this book a movie. it is currently in pre-production with 400 something thousand dollars raised. I hope you'll consider throwing some cash to this holy cause of excellence.

It was ehhh?

Fabulous performance, but unfortunately not one of Chuck's most gripping novels. Tried to read it when I was younger and it was a slog, and I never finished. Thankfully the audiobook forced me through to the totally cartoonish and dissatisfying end.

Likely to please Palahniuk fans

Love him or hate him, Palahniuk???s books seem to have a common theme. In them, modern culture is cast as something of a terminal malady, a cancer rapidly consuming both the Earth and the original human spirit. For his characters, the only release is through some form of anarchic lashing out.

In Fight Club, it was young men rediscovering their smothered masculinity through basement brawls and acts of civil destruction. Here, the story revolves around a supernatural device, a lullaby hidden in an obscure children???s book that has the power, when read, or even thought, to kill. The book???s oddball protagonists (including two characters dealing, in their own strange ways, with having accidentally killed their own families with the lullaby, and a hilariously obnoxious young vegan nudist) set off on a quest to destroy, through trickery or mayhem, every last copy of the book, but, this being Palahniuk, much consideration is also given to the idea of simply using the lullaby to put modern society out of its misery.

The key to reading Chuck P is to accept that his books are wildly implausible and over-the-top, both in terms of how his characters act and his own reduction of the world. What Palahniuk does do, though, is shove the reader off balance, bombarding them with betcha-didn???t-know-this factoids and a bleakly humorous treatment of dark subject matter. These quotable little nuggets of twisted insight and wit are really what you get for the price of admittance, even more so than the story itself.

Compared to Fight Club, I did find this book a bit chaotic. What plot there is is thin and makes a lot of swift turns, which had me checking my audiobook a few times to see if I???d accidentally missed some piece of information (nope). It may test the patience of non-devotees. But, on the other hand, the chaos are part of the experience and it???s not a long read. All in all, I enjoyed it. Palahniuk is his own institution (in both senses of the word) and a good break from tamer, blander novels.

Lullaby... And You Die...

Well no surprises here - this is classic Chuck Palahniuk so it is a combination of fun, weird, disgusting, and just plain crazy. Parts of this made me think that Chuck is a genius and parts made me think this guy is totally insane, but I loved it all the same.

Our narrator is a reporter and learns early on to notice every small detail when reporting on something. He is running a five-part series on SIDS and in his investigations he notices one common denominator - a book of poems. We learn that within this book is a poem that is actually a culling song, which was used in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. Upon making this discovery, the narrator quickly becomes a serial killer using the culling song to kill those who annoy him. He eventually attempts to control his impulses (counting 1, counting 2...) and he sets off with a group of misfits to find all of the copies of this book and destroy page 27.

Yuck!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Only if I was mad at them.
Extremely well written, poetic even; but requires a strong stomach. Perverted and perverse. Read at your own risk...

What could Chuck Palahniuk have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Nothing. He is just not my type.

Have you listened to any of Richard Poe’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, nor will I, now that I know what kinda of writer he is. If he eve changes geners, maybe.

Could you see Lullaby being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Shudder. Only at Halloween.

Any additional comments?

I stumbled into this book through careless reviewing on my part. I kept reading because he is so good; hoping for a return to rationality and a thoughtful resolution. But, of course that was not what he had in mind. Well, fool me once. . .

Odd but interestingly unique

Any additional comments?

Okay, so I'd have to say I wasn't crazy about this book when I first listened to it, but strangely it has stuck with me. The premiss of the story is unique - its not everyday that you read about a nursery rhyme that kills people. The characters are not your usual bunch of folks. It's not a typical story, its not very predictable, and it has some pretty weird visuals. I probably wouldn't listen to it again. However that being said I think it would be a fun book for book club.

don't bother

Slow start. thought it would get better, but it just got worse. i finished it, but that was hard.

Not for the faint of heart

The novel was wonderfully performed and insanely written. Classic Palahniuk. For readers who enjoyed Damned.