Lullaby

Ever heard of a culling song? It's a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers. Repo...

Ever heard of a culling song? It's a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers. Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song's lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he's reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant's truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest. Written with a style and imagination that could only come from Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby is the latest outrage from one of our most exciting writers at work today.

恰克•帕拉尼克（Chuck Palahniuk），1962年生，美国小说作家和自由撰稿人，1996年出版的首部长篇小说《搏击俱乐部》即引起轰动，在被大卫··芬奇于1999年改编成电影之后，爱德华·诺顿与布拉德·皮特扮演的角色更加深入全球青年的内心。帕拉尼克对消费主义时代青年空虚、惘然、通过暴力来寻求人生出口的细致刻画，加上他极简主义的叙述风格，使他成为全球注目的作者。之后，帕拉尼克在题材的探索上趋于大胆和丰富，2001年出版的小说《窒息》进入了纽约时报的畅销书榜（虚构类）的前十位。

到目前为止，帕拉尼克创作的12部小说在美国已经售出了500万册。他即将出版的小说《BEAUTIFUL YOU》内容涉及了女性性高潮体验的电子产品