Lullabye

Imagine a plague you catch through your ears.

Carl Streator didn't know that when he read the simple, eight line poem to his wife and child that they would die, quietly, peacefully, as easy as drifting off to sleep. Neither did Helen Hoover Boyle, who also read this poem, an African culling spell bound in a simple anthology of world poetry to her baby son. All around the world people are picking up the lullaby and reading it to their babies. A few moments later, maybe even the next morning the baby is discovered, and labeled a crib death.

Carl is assigned to do a newspaper piece on infant deaths, and everywhere he goes, the book, Poems and Rhymes from around the World sits on shelves and tables, an unlikely time bomb. And every chance he gets he diffuses it, rips out page 27 and destroys it. Unfortunately by now, Carl doesn't need to read it to recite the eight simple lines. He's accidentally memorized it, and the temptation to use it is becoming too much. His anger, built up at himself, built up at the world makes him a powerful conduit for the poem. Sometimes he doesn't have to even say the words aloud, just direct them at a person, even as far away as a particularly nasty radio personality and then...silence. He discovers that Helen Hoover Boyle herself knows the poem, and decides that, since she is the only other person who knows the secret power of the words, that she can become his ally. He wants to track down every volume of the poem and destroy it; she wants to find the originating volume...the grimoire from which the editor of the anthology foolishly pulled the poem. She is not alone. Mona, her secretary and Mona's boyfriend Oyster believe that the power of the grimoire can help them change the world and better it. Helen wants to undo the poem's power and see her son alive once more.

A plague you can catch through your ears...the idea sends shivers down my spine. Turning on the radio, answering the door...a million everyday things suddenly becomes as dangerous as crossing a minefield. It would change the world, and in that Carl Streator is right. His problems with controlling his need to use the poem, his tiredness with living in a world filled with noise make some very pointed comments about our own lives. The refrain used throughout the book, of "noise-oholics" and "quiet-ophobics," and his points about both how neighbors seem to duel with the noise of their TV and music, how the self inflicted noise lobotomizes people, keeping them from thinking too deeply make you understand all too keenly the temptation to use the poem. Even I, myself can imagine the temptation of it. At first, I wouldn't say it, I would try and forget it, telling myself that I don't have the right to choose whether someone lives or dies. I would try and be worthy of the secret. Then it would grow in my thoughts...perhaps I would convince myself that to use the poem for "good" would be O.K. I would visit inmates on death row, risk my life to whisper the poem in the ears of rapists and terrorists. But how long would I hold out, being "good," being, "worthy?" How long before I leaned forward and said the poem harshly under my breath to the man who just dumped me? How long until I scream it aloud in a bank, then pick my fill of the drawers?

These are not the only points he makes. He also says some very interesting things about activism, and about our reasons for wanting to "change the world."

What sets the feel of this book out of the ordinary is the people in it. They are incredibly flawed. We've already mentioned Carl's problems, and he is the book's everyman, the point between the extremes of his fellow travelers. Helen specializes in distressed houses. This means she'll sell a house, knowing that it's haunted. When the new owners can't stand the blood running down the walls, the phantom face in the bathtub water and are eager to sell, she agrees to a secret deal with them, thereby making herself a pretty penny. Mona is a Pagan who believes that she can save the world...she is gentle in some ways, wanting to fly and end cruelty to animals. Oyster fills the air with his contempt; constantly preaching about the vile ways man produces food. Unlike Mona, he doesn't really care about the environment. His hatred for mankind and his desire for power are what fuel him.

I found the book uncomfortable at times, but a constantly fascinating read. The things he says about us and about our culture rang very true to me. In many ways, it is a road trip of the strange, but the oddest things we discover are inside our own hearts.