Lullaby (2002) by Chuck Palahniuk is a darkly satirical horror novel that follows Carl Streator, a journalist investigating a series of sudden infant deaths linked to an African “culling song”—a lethal lullaby that kills anyone who hears it. After realizing he unknowingly used the song to euthanize his own family, Carl teams up with a real estate witch, her Wiccan assistant, and a hippy anarchist to destroy all copies of the deadly poem.
Palahniuk’s signature transgressive style—acerbic, visceral, and pitch-black funny—explores themes of media manipulation, grief, and the dangers of unchecked power. The novel’s grotesque set pieces (a haunted house of corpses, a memorized song as a weapon) amplify its critique of consumer culture and misinformation.
A nihilistic fairy tale for the information age, Lullaby is Palahniuk at his most provocatively entertaining.
