Lullaby

More about the book

From the author of Choke and Fight Club comes a cunningly plotted novel that reinvents the apocalyptic thriller. Carl Streator, a solitary widower and newspaper reporter, investigates Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and uncovers a disturbing link: the anthology Poems and Rhymes Around the World, found at death scenes, opened to a lethal African chant known as the “culling song.” Once this song lodges in Streator's mind, he becomes an involuntary serial killer. To stop the spread of this deadly verbal virus, he teams up with Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate broker who specializes in haunted houses and lost a child to the song years earlier. Their cross-country journey to eliminate all copies of the book involves Helen’s assistant, Mona Sabbat, a devoted Wiccan, and her sardonic ecoterrorist boyfriend, Oyster, who is entangled in a scam involving fake liability claims. This chilling narrative serves as a parable about the dangers of psychic infection in an era of overwhelming information, presenting a plague that can be caught through sound. It is also a tightly wound thriller with unexpected twists and a blackly comic tone, reinforcing the author's reputation as a contemporary seer and our funniest nihilist.