Lullaby [Paperback]

"A story so eccentric and complex that you begin to understand why Palahniuk's literature is a breed all its own." --"USA Today
"Mr. Palahniuk further refines his ability to create parables that are as substantial as they are off-the-wall." --"The New York Times
"That most rambunctious of American novelists, Chuck Palahniuk, is at it again. . . . There's so much comic energy, so much manic imagination, so much satirical fire on display." --"Newsday
"Dark riffing on modernity is the reason people read Palahniuk. His books are not so much novels as jagged fables, cautionary tales about the creeping peril represented by almost everything." --"Time
"Genius-on-sixteen-different-levels . . . constantly surprising, disturbingly funny . . . Genuinely subversive." --"BookForum
"Among sick puppies, Palahniuk is the top dog. . . . A unique talent." --"People
"More twisted than a sack of pretzels and edgier than an octagon, Chuck Palahniuk has pumped out another memorable read. . . This is his best yet." --"Playboy
"Few writers this side of Kurt Vonnegut can summon up the intensity and precision to control such a blackly humorous situation. . . . Palahniuk is proving to be an accessible and ambitious writer of fables from the culture wars." --"St. Petersburg Times
"Palahniuk conjures grief, confusion, mystery and fear from the unlikeliest sources . . . [and] teases amusement form the darkest corners of our culture." --"The Sunday Oregonian
"By turns disturbing, creepy, sweet, sad, horrible and exquisite. . . . A harrowing and hilarious glimpse into the future of civilization." --"Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"[Palahniuk] knows how to spin whacked-out storiesparticular to our times. . . . Employs a playfully perverse wit and a good eye for repellent details." --"The Seattle Times
"Twisted and nihilistic . . . The novel packs a dark comic wallop." --"Daily News
"A darkly twisted yarn. . . Palahniuk has succeeded in crafting a story that is taut and compelling, insightful and scathing, deeply disturbing and deeply disturbed." --"CNN.com
"Deliriously rich in ideas and entertaining in its stream-of-consciousness riffing." --"Book
"Outrageous, darkly comic fun."--"Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"This is vintage Palahniuk: weird, creepy, twisted, upsetting, and ultimately a great read."--"Library Journal

‘There are more plot ideas in Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby than some writers manage in a whole book’

‘Palahniuk starts with a throwaway thought – "what if words could hurt?" – and stretches it until it snaps’

‘A black comic cauldron bubbling with contagious ideas’

'Probably the most entertaining-funny-fascinating book of the year' The FaceBy the Author of Fight Club

Carl Streator is a reporter investigating Sudden Infant Death Syndrome for a soft-news feature. After responding to several calls with paramedics, he notices that all the dead children were read the same poem from the same library book the night before they died. It's a 'culling song' - an ancient African spell for euthanizing sick or old people. Researching it, he meets a woman who killed her own child with it accidentally. He himself accidentally killed his own wife and child with the same poem twenty years earlier. Together, the man and the woman must find and destroy all copies of this book, and try not to kill every rude sonofabitch that gets in their way. Lullaby is a comedy/drama/tragedy. In that order. It may also be Chuck Palahniuk's best book yet. (20021018)

Chuck Palahniuk's four novels are the best-selling Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher, Survivor, Invisible Monsters and Choke. He lives in Portland, Oregon. (20021018)

The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact.

Even play-by-play description on the radio, the home runs and strikeouts, even that's delayed a few minutes. Even live television is postponed a couple seconds.

Even sound and light can only go so fast. Another problem is the teller. The who, what, where, when, and why of the reporter. The media bias. How the messenger shapes the facts. What journalists call The Gatekeeper. How the presentationis everything.

The story behind the story.Where I'm telling this from is one café after another. Where I'm writing this book, chapter by chapter, is never the same small town or city or truck stop in the middle of nowhere.

What these places all have in common are miracles. You read about this stuff in the pulp tabloids, the kind of healings and sightings, the miracles, that never get reported in the mainstream press.

This week, it's the Holy Virgin of Welburn, New Mexico. She came flying down Main Street last week. Her long red and black dreadlocks whipping behind her, her bare feet dirty, she wore an Indian cotton skirt printed in two shades of brown and a denim haltertop. It's all in this week's World Miracles Report, next to the cashier in every supermarket in America.

And here I am, a week late. Always one step behind. After the fact.

The Flying Virgin had fingernails painted bright pink with white tips. A French manicure, some witnesses call it. The Flying Virgin used a can of Bug-Off brand insect fogger, and across the blue New Mexican sky, she wrote:

STOP HAVING BABYS

(Sic)

The can of Bug-Off, she dropped. It's right now headed for the Vatican. For analysis. Right now, you can buy postcards of the event.Videos even.

Almost everything you can buy is after the fact. Caught. Dead.Cooked.

In the souvenir videos, the Flying Virgin shakes the can of fogger. Floating above one end of Main Street, she waves at the crowd. And there's a bush of brown hair under her arm. The moment before she starts writing, a gust of wind lifts her skirt, and the Flying Virgin's not wearing any panties. Between her legs, she's shaved.

This is where I'm writing this story from today. Here in a road-side diner, talking to witnesses in Welburn, New Mexico. Here with me is Sarge, a baked potato of an old Irish cop. On the table between us is the local newspaper, folded to show a three-column ad that says:

Attention Patrons of All Plush Interiors
Furniture Stores

The ad says, "If poisonous spiders have hatched from your new upholstered furniture, you may be eligible to take part in a class-action lawsuit." And the ad gives a phone number you could call, but it's no use.

The Sarge has the kind of loose neck skin that if you pinch it, when you let go the skin stays pinched. He has to go find a mirror and rub the skin to make it go flat.

Outside the diner, people are still driving into town. People kneel and pray for another visitation. The Sarge puts his big mitts together and pretends to pray, his eyes rolled sideways to look out the window, his holster unsnapped, his pistol loaded and ready for skeet shooting.

After she was done skywriting, the Flying Virgin blew kisses to people. She flashed a two-finger peace sign. She hovered just above the trees, clutching her skirt closed with one fist, and she shook herred and black dreadlocks back and waved, and Amen. She was gone, behind the mountains, over the horizon. Gone.

Still, you can't trust everything you read in the newspaper.

The Flying Madonna, it wasn't a miracle.

It was magic.

These aren't saints. They're spells.

The Sarge and me, we're not here to witness anything. We're witch-hunters.

Still, this isn't a story about here and now. Me, the Sarge, the Flying Virgin. Helen Hoover Boyle. What I'm writing is the story of how we met. How we got here. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.