Book Review: Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

                        Carl Streator, the protagonist, is a newspaper journalist writing a series on sudden infant death syndrome. Because of his background in journalism he is wired to notice, and often drowns in every little detail during his work. While doing his research, Carl Streator realizes the book Poems and Rhymes from Around the World at every home of where a child has died. Helen Hoover Boyle is a greedy real estate agent who sells houses that are haunted over and over again to gain commission. Carl Streator and Helen only have one thing in common; they both have had a child that has died without cause and are both grieved because of page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World. Carl realizes that these deaths are not crib death but are caused by the same reason why he woke after cuddling with his dead, but still warm wife and young daughter. Eventually you will learn what has the courage to kill innocent infants and all people for that matter, a tool for post-mortem sex with models, and what can make a man an accidental serial killer. Want a hint? "Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can hurt like hell."

          

  The use of incredible detail in this book leads to the development of the main theme: the significance of sound (well at least this is what I think). Chuck Palahniuk creates a character, Carl Streator, who believes: "The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details.” After spitting out every detail of a room the book focuses on what Carl says is the people’s addiction to sound.

"No one wants to admit we're addicted to music. That's just not possible. No one's addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can't bear to be without it, but no, nobody's addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted."

 Through this character, the author brings in the modern-day problem of media, how dependant we are on both true and false media. The loudest, not the truest, holds the most power and who holds the most power is the most influential.

          

  I thought this book was fairly entertaining and it held my attention until the end. The beginning takes its time to layout the story, the middle is wild, and the end dies off and drags on. The book is certainly easy to follow but hard to explain and has a lot of characters that you can relate to, or see in real life. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading, I don’t but it wasn’t too arduous. 

sorry, the paragraphs got all screwed up when i moved it over from word