This ‘Lullaby’ won’t put you to sleep

Lullaby

Chuck Palahniuk

Doubleday

Chuck Palahniuk has…

Lullaby

Chuck Palahniuk

Doubleday

Chuck Palahniuk has written a love story. It may disturb you. The romance is heartfelt, but it’s surrounded by the grossest of violence, the blackest of comedy and the dreariest of nihilism. “Lullaby” is vintage Chuck.

Meet Carl. He’s a widowed journalist researching a story on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when he notices a startling pattern. At every afflicted home he visits, there’s always the same book, always read to the same page. The page contains an African “culling song” that indeed kills anyone it’s read to – Carl tests it on his editor.

Actually, it’s worse than that. The song doesn’t even have to be spoken out loud to kill; it just has to be thought. And Carl can’t stop thinking it. He’s accidentally killing one person after another, leaving a trail of dead bodies as he walks down the street.

Carl meets Helen, the only other person who knows about the song. Helen is a real estate agent. The houses she sells are haunted. Every time she makes a sale, it’s only a matter of days before the unwitting buyers have had it with the blood that runs down the kitchen walls or the phantom baby that cries inside the bedroom wall and want to resell. Hence, Helen is successful.

Carl and Helen hit the road together, storming libraries and bookstores across the country in an attempt to disarm every copy of the book. If the world learns that not only sticks and stones, but words too can hurt you, it will be panicked into another dark age. Carl admits, though, he would enjoy the quiet.

All this is barely the start. The plot moves at a frantic pace, twisting and writhing and surprising up until the last word, making for one of the fastest reads you’ll ever come across.

The author isn’t branching out at all, but Lullaby’s not to be missed. Palahniuk owns this style and even when he’s doing his standard thing, he’s still a hoot.

In case you’re not familiar, Palahniuk has been telling us we’re headed toward disaster for several books now. It’s all in good fun, though. He never fails to take readers on an irresistibly wicked ride.

His first novel, “Fight Club,” was made into the film starring Brad Pitt. If you dug that movie, you need to get your hands on Palahniuk’s books right now. “Lullaby” is as good a place as any to start.