Lullaby

The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk’s darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells «distressed» (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to «crib death,» and she confirms Streator’s suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or «culling song» that is lethal if spoken — or even thought — in a victim’s direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song’s devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road…