Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk Review

The story itself is a bit odd, the focus of it is based around journalist Carl Streator who is trying to understand the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He soon finds out it is more than he had actually hoped for. Sooner or later he realizes that he himself has a great power and is not quite sure if he is the only one. A single song that puts people to death after they hear it in the most relaxing way is what he has uncover. It can be said anywhere and affect anyone in the world if they are thought of when the poem is said. As the book starts to unravel more and more people die and he learns that there are others who also know the poem. These others, most of them parents of dead babies, have no clue that they have the power of life and death with in their household. The story starts to get pretty good when he meets up with someone else with the same power, and knows they have it, they start to travel across America eliminating each book they come across.

Throughout the novel there are two people young adults, hippies, who constantly remind Carl of how power is abused and when certain species are introduced to a new area they destroy it and repopulate it benefiting it themselves but harming the environment. This means that we as humans have taking complete control of our surroundings for our own benefit, but have destroyed it for the use of other species around us. This message is flashed on again and again. Then there is the other message of Big Brother throughout the book. If this poem gets into the hands of the wrong people or even the government it would destroy free thought, and everything would have to be handled in a different way with the government filtering out almost everything and controlling our thoughts.

During his journey across America he falls in love with Helen. Helen is in the same shoes as Carl and knows of the power, but craves for more. Her secretary who brought along her boyfriend on the trip, believe in supernatural powers, and are looking for a book that contains spells for almost everything.

Here and there you will encounter a chapter with italics in the book, weird mysteries or sitings of people doing abnormal stuff. They are using the power of this book to alter the thoughts of mankind for the better of the world, so at least they think. The book isn't a bad read, it's just a little to much. From the beginning to the end the thought of a poem that could destroy the life of another is kind of ridiculous, but Chuck as always puts on a great show with facts and history lessons from the past to back up the credibility of some characters throughout the book. The endings is the best part, it's a shame he didn't continue on for another 50-100 pages or so to conclude the books and get the bad guys. It would've made the book a perfect read, instead this fictitious book does get the idea across about Big Brother and how silly things like this could destroy a perfectly modeled society like ours. I give this a 3.7 out of 5. Probably my least favorite Palahniuk book. Although the facts and ideas raised from this book are just as good as any I have read. My favorite part is when Carl thinks that maybe you don't go to hell for what you do, but you go to hell for what you don't do in life.