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Lullaby (novel)
Encyclopedia
Lullaby is a horror
-satire
novel
by American
author Chuck Palahniuk
, published in 2002. It won the 2003 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
, and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award
for Best Novel
in 2002.
, and Shackleford had vowed to kill Fontaine as soon as he was released from prison. After his release, Shackleford followed Fred Palahniuk and Fontaine home from a date to her apartment in Kendrick, Idaho
. After shooting Fred Palahniuk in the abdomen and Fontaine in the back of the neck, Shackleford left them to die, though he allegedly returned to the scene multiple times to attempt to start a fire large enough to destroy the evidence.
After Shackleford's arrest, Chuck Palahniuk was asked to be part of the decision as to whether Shackleford would receive the death sentence
. Palahniuk has worked in a hospital and as a crime reporter, but nevertheless struggled with where he stood on capital punishment
. Over the next few months, he began working on Lullaby. According to him, it was a way to cope with the decision he had to make regarding Shackleford's death. In the spring of 2001, Shackleford was found guilty for two counts of murder in the first degree. A month after Palahniuk finished Lullaby, Shackleford was sentenced to death.
, alternating between the normal, linear narrative and the temporal end after every few chapters. Palahniuk often uses this format alongside a major plot twist
near the end of the book which relates in some way to this temporal end (what Palahniuk refers to as "the hidden gun").
Lullaby starts with Mr. Streator talking to the reader, narrating where he is today and why he is going to tell us the backstory that will give us perspective on his current situation. "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" [pg. 9].
This present tense information that makes this book a frame story is incorporated every few chapters as its own chapter, entirely italicized. Palahniuk uses these segments as a way to set up his "hidden gun" and as a means to foreshadow where the story is going. His present seems disconnected from the past that he narrates throughout the rest of the novel. The final chapter concludes in the present, providing the puzzle-piece that strings together all the events and makes sense out of the backstory and their current workings searching for "phenomenons."
, from which his own child had died. Streator discovers that his wife and child had died immediately after he read them a "culling song", or African chant, from a book entitled Poems and Rhymes Around the World. As Streator learns, the culling song has the power to kill anyone it is spoken to. Because of the stress of his life, it became unusually powerful, allowing him to kill by only thinking the poem. During his investigations into other SIDS cases for his article, he finds that a copy of the book was at the scene of each death. In every case, the book was open to a page that contained the "culling song". Streator unintentionally memorizes the deadly poem and he semi-voluntarily becomes a serial killer
(killing, for example, annoying radio hosts and people who elbow into an elevator when he is late for work). He then turns to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent
who has also found the culling song in the same book and knows of its destructive power. While she is unable to help him stop using the culling song, she is willing to help him stop anyone else from being able to use it again. The two of them decide to go on a road trip
across the country to find all remaining copies of the book and remove and destroy the page containing the song. They are joined by Helen's assistant, Mona Sabbat, and Mona's boyfriend, an eco-terrorist named Oyster. Streator now must not only deal with the dangers of the culling song, but with the risk of it falling into the hands of Oyster, who may want to use it for sinister purposes.
In addition to tracking down and destroying any copy of Poems and Rhymes Around the World, the foursome hope to find a "grimoire
", a hypothesized spellbook that is the source of the culling spell. Streator wants to destroy it while the others in his group want to learn what other spells it contains—partly in the hope that there is a spell to resurrect the dead. Mona eventually figures out that the datebook Helen had been carrying throughout the trip is the grimoire they had been looking for, written in invisible ink
. Helen had acquired it years earlier in the estate of the publisher of Poems and Rhymes Around the World whom she had killed with the culling spell. In the end, the grimoire is used and misused until Helen's body ends up dead with her mind in a police sergeant's body. This connection is made in the final chapters and concludes with the present; Streator and Helen (in the police sergeant's body) are together, searching for Mona and Oyster who have the entirety of the grimoire with the exception of the "culling song".
, he becomes a more reliable narrator.
His past, which we know little about until the end, explains a good portion of his character. He begins to notice the book Poems and Rhymes From Around the World at each scene of infant death where he has been assigned to report. Streator soon makes the connection and begins a quest to rid every library and home of the culling song, which at first seems to be a philosophical journey to do what is ultimately right. But, we soon learn that Streator is motivated by a dark past that has changed him into the cynical, dark reporter he is today. The death of his wife and child, a direct result of the reading of the culling song, had distanced him from reality for nearly twenty years. He makes no direct comment about this history until Chapter 29, wherein he talks about his unknowing postmortem sexual intercourse with his wife Gina and the perfect quiet of his baby Katrin,
In the end, he seems content in his mission alongside the police sergeant (aka Helen) to chase after the story.
The setting of Lullaby is constantly changing. In both the present tense narration and the story he is reflecting on, Streator is constantly moving in pursuit of something. He works in a big city atmosphere and lives in an apartment surrounded by other tenants who become symbolic of everything Streator hates. Soon after he meets Helen, they start their cross-country mission. Most of the towns they end up in are small, nowhere places that seem to represent the emptiness that the culling song creates in people lives. Similarly, the trucker stops that Streator and Helen drive through in their present day adventure are representative of how the stories that they are chasing are temporary. The idea that a story is always told ‘after the fact’ seems to hint at a bigger picture: humans are a victim of their past.
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
-satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...
, published in 2002. It won the 2003 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
Since 1965, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, or PNBA, has presented annual awards to recognize excellence in writing from the American Pacific Northwest...
, and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award
Bram Stoker Award
The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
for Best Novel
Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
The Bram Stoker Award for Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing for novels.-Winners and nominees:The following are the nominees and winners.* 1987: Misery by Stephen King...
in 2002.
Background
In 1999, Fred Palahniuk, Chuck's father, began dating an Idaho woman named Donna Fontaine. Fontaine had recently put her ex-husband, Dale Shackleford, in prison for sexual abuseSexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
, and Shackleford had vowed to kill Fontaine as soon as he was released from prison. After his release, Shackleford followed Fred Palahniuk and Fontaine home from a date to her apartment in Kendrick, Idaho
Kendrick, Idaho
Kendrick is a city in Latah County, Idaho, United States. The population was 369 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Kendrick is located at , near the Potlatch River....
. After shooting Fred Palahniuk in the abdomen and Fontaine in the back of the neck, Shackleford left them to die, though he allegedly returned to the scene multiple times to attempt to start a fire large enough to destroy the evidence.
After Shackleford's arrest, Chuck Palahniuk was asked to be part of the decision as to whether Shackleford would receive the death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
. Palahniuk has worked in a hospital and as a crime reporter, but nevertheless struggled with where he stood on capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
. Over the next few months, he began working on Lullaby. According to him, it was a way to cope with the decision he had to make regarding Shackleford's death. In the spring of 2001, Shackleford was found guilty for two counts of murder in the first degree. A month after Palahniuk finished Lullaby, Shackleford was sentenced to death.
Structure
Lullaby uses a framing deviceFraming device
The term framing device refers to the usage of the same single action, scene, event, setting, or any element of significance at both the beginning and end of an artistic, musical, or literary work. The repeated element thus creates a ‘frame’ within which the main body of work can develop.The...
, alternating between the normal, linear narrative and the temporal end after every few chapters. Palahniuk often uses this format alongside a major plot twist
Plot twist
A plot twist is a change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot of a film, television series, video game, novel, comic or other fictional work. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation...
near the end of the book which relates in some way to this temporal end (what Palahniuk refers to as "the hidden gun").
Lullaby starts with Mr. Streator talking to the reader, narrating where he is today and why he is going to tell us the backstory that will give us perspective on his current situation. "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" [pg. 9].
This present tense information that makes this book a frame story is incorporated every few chapters as its own chapter, entirely italicized. Palahniuk uses these segments as a way to set up his "hidden gun" and as a means to foreshadow where the story is going. His present seems disconnected from the past that he narrates throughout the rest of the novel. The final chapter concludes in the present, providing the puzzle-piece that strings together all the events and makes sense out of the backstory and their current workings searching for "phenomenons."
Plot summary
Lullaby is the story of Carl Streator, a newspaper reporter who has been assigned to write articles on a series of cases of sudden infant death syndromeSudden infant death syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome is marked by the sudden death of an infant that is unexpected by medical history, and remains unexplained after a thorough forensic autopsy and a detailed death scene investigation. An infant is at the highest risk for SIDS during sleep, which is why it is sometimes...
, from which his own child had died. Streator discovers that his wife and child had died immediately after he read them a "culling song", or African chant, from a book entitled Poems and Rhymes Around the World. As Streator learns, the culling song has the power to kill anyone it is spoken to. Because of the stress of his life, it became unusually powerful, allowing him to kill by only thinking the poem. During his investigations into other SIDS cases for his article, he finds that a copy of the book was at the scene of each death. In every case, the book was open to a page that contained the "culling song". Streator unintentionally memorizes the deadly poem and he semi-voluntarily becomes a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
(killing, for example, annoying radio hosts and people who elbow into an elevator when he is late for work). He then turns to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent
Real estate broker
A real estate broker, real estate agent or realtor is a party who acts as an intermediary between sellers and buyers of real estate/real property and attempts to find sellers who wish to sell and buyers who wish to buy...
who has also found the culling song in the same book and knows of its destructive power. While she is unable to help him stop using the culling song, she is willing to help him stop anyone else from being able to use it again. The two of them decide to go on a road trip
Road trip
A road trip is any journey taken on roads, regardless of stops en route. Typically, road trips are long distances traveled by automobile.-Pre-automobile road trips:...
across the country to find all remaining copies of the book and remove and destroy the page containing the song. They are joined by Helen's assistant, Mona Sabbat, and Mona's boyfriend, an eco-terrorist named Oyster. Streator now must not only deal with the dangers of the culling song, but with the risk of it falling into the hands of Oyster, who may want to use it for sinister purposes.
In addition to tracking down and destroying any copy of Poems and Rhymes Around the World, the foursome hope to find a "grimoire
Grimoire
A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...
", a hypothesized spellbook that is the source of the culling spell. Streator wants to destroy it while the others in his group want to learn what other spells it contains—partly in the hope that there is a spell to resurrect the dead. Mona eventually figures out that the datebook Helen had been carrying throughout the trip is the grimoire they had been looking for, written in invisible ink
Invisible ink
Invisible ink, also known as security ink, is a substance used for writing, which is invisible either on application or soon thereafter, and which later on can be made visible by some means. Invisible ink is one form of steganography, and it has been used in espionage...
. Helen had acquired it years earlier in the estate of the publisher of Poems and Rhymes Around the World whom she had killed with the culling spell. In the end, the grimoire is used and misused until Helen's body ends up dead with her mind in a police sergeant's body. This connection is made in the final chapters and concludes with the present; Streator and Helen (in the police sergeant's body) are together, searching for Mona and Oyster who have the entirety of the grimoire with the exception of the "culling song".
Point of view
Throughout Lullaby, Streator is the reader's only narrator. True to his journalist occupation, he is detailed in many of his descriptions of the events going on around him. At the same time, Streator tends to be philosophical and cynical about the world around him and the people he meets, probably because of the tragedies that have haunted him for many years. In regards to the actual sequence and happenings of events, he seems to be a reliable narrator. But often his philosophical asides seem to overshadow his duty as a balanced narrator. At times, it is frustrating not knowing the true motives of Helen, Mona, or Oyster and, by the end, it is apparent that Streator could not always be trusted. But the nature of the story insists that we only get one perspective; one man retelling the past that has resulted in the present. Streator himself knows the issues with how he is telling the story, but in his recognition of the potential problems of a first person perspectivePoint of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
, he becomes a more reliable narrator.
Another problem is the teller. The who, what, where, when, and why of the reporter. The media biasMedia biasMedia bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the...
. How the messenger shapes the facts. What journalists call The Gatekeeper. How the presentation is everything.
The story behind the story.
Where I'm telling this is from one cafe after another. Where I'm writing this book, chapter by chapter, is never the same small town or city or truck stopTruck stopA truck stop is a commercial facility predicated on providing fuel, parking, and often food and other services to motorists and truck drivers...
in the middle of nowhere. [pg. 7]
Character and setting
Carl Streator is the protagonist of Lullaby. Over the course of the novel, a few important aspects of his character are revealed that play a part in his narration style and his character. Firstly, he imparts to us at the beginning of Chapter 2 that he is a journalist. Because the novel is set up as a frame story, the majority of Lullaby is written as a retelling by Streator himself. This is apparent throughout the novel as he describes the people and events around him. He will often recount a person’s appearance in terms of 'the details': "The details of Nash are, he’s a big guy in a white uniform. He wears high-top white track shoes and gathers his hair into a little palm tree at the crown of his head" (p. 25).His past, which we know little about until the end, explains a good portion of his character. He begins to notice the book Poems and Rhymes From Around the World at each scene of infant death where he has been assigned to report. Streator soon makes the connection and begins a quest to rid every library and home of the culling song, which at first seems to be a philosophical journey to do what is ultimately right. But, we soon learn that Streator is motivated by a dark past that has changed him into the cynical, dark reporter he is today. The death of his wife and child, a direct result of the reading of the culling song, had distanced him from reality for nearly twenty years. He makes no direct comment about this history until Chapter 29, wherein he talks about his unknowing postmortem sexual intercourse with his wife Gina and the perfect quiet of his baby Katrin,
That was my last really good day. It wasn’t until I came home from work that I knew the truth… Gina was still lying in the same position… Katrin was still quiet. [p. 179]
I tell him where I’m living. I tell him the name I use now. I tell him where I work. I tell him I know how it looks, with Gina and Katrin dead, but I didn’t do it. I just ran…I say, I don’t know what to do. I say, but it’s all going to be okay. [p. 218]
In the end, he seems content in his mission alongside the police sergeant (aka Helen) to chase after the story.
The setting of Lullaby is constantly changing. In both the present tense narration and the story he is reflecting on, Streator is constantly moving in pursuit of something. He works in a big city atmosphere and lives in an apartment surrounded by other tenants who become symbolic of everything Streator hates. Soon after he meets Helen, they start their cross-country mission. Most of the towns they end up in are small, nowhere places that seem to represent the emptiness that the culling song creates in people lives. Similarly, the trucker stops that Streator and Helen drive through in their present day adventure are representative of how the stories that they are chasing are temporary. The idea that a story is always told ‘after the fact’ seems to hint at a bigger picture: humans are a victim of their past.
Editions
- ISBN 0-385-50447-0 (hardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
, 2002) - ISBN 0-7862-5098-4 (hardcover, 2003)
- ISBN 0-385-72219-2 (paperbackPaperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
, 2003)
See also
- 2002 in literature2002 in literatureThe year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...
- Fictional bookFictional bookA fictional book is a book that sometimes provides the basis of the plot of a story, a common thread in a series of books, or the works of a particular writer or canon of work. A fictional book may also be used as a mode of conceit to illustrate a story within a story.-Prominent fictional...
- Necrophilia in popular cultureNecrophilia in popular cultureNecrophilia has been a frequent topic in popular culture.-Necrophilia in fiction:Romantic connections between love and death are a frequent theme in Western artistic expression....