Lullaby
"Carl Streator is a solitary widower and fortyish newspaper reporter who is assigned to do a series of articles on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In the course of this investigation, he discovers an ominous thread: the presence on the scenes of these deaths of the anthology Poems and Rhymes Around the World, opened to the page where there appears an African chant or "culling song." This song turns out to be lethal when spoken or even thought in anyone's direction - and once it lodges in Streator's brain, he finds himself becoming an involuntary serial killer. So he teams up with a real estate broker, one Helen Hoover Boyle, who specializes in selling haunted (or "distressed") houses (wonderfully high turnover), and who lost a child to the culling song years before. Together they set out on a cross-country odyssey. Their goal is to remove all copies of the book from libraries, lest this deadly verbal virus spread and wipe out human life. Accompanying them on their road trip are Helen's assistant, Mona Sabbat, an exquisitely earnest Wiccan, and her sardonic ecoterrorist boyfriend, Oyster, who is running a scam involving fake liability claims and business blackmail. Welcome to the new nuclear family."--BOOK JACKET.
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What Hacker News says
- I read The Great Gatsby outside of formal education, for my own benefit, during my college years, in a non-U.S. country. I thought it was the opposite of "actually really good", I found it to be a resolutely mediocre experience. At no stage did I get any inkling as to why it might be considered "a great book".
Another that baffles me is The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
People can read it if they want, but if they find it dull four chapters in, just walk away, sometimes "the greats" are just culturally significant, or not your style, or whatever.
There are lots of good books out there though, and I'm glad you discovered something above the airport bestsellers. May I suggest to absolutely anyone
Hunger, by Knut Hamson
Ask The Dust, by John Fante
American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis
Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk
Porno, by Irvine Welsh
- > Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed.
> He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled.
> And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.
-- Chuck Palahniuk, "Lullaby"
