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We don't have tragedy in our life because we won't really swing out and risk anything so we have to watch other people's tragedy on the news. It's a patch on the lack of actual experience in our lives.

People have to take hold of our culture; they have to express themselves and entertain themselves. They can no longer pay other people to hold conversations like this for them. They need to be holding these conversations themselves. They need to be creating their own culture, in addition to raising their kids, in addition to paying their bills. They can't defer self-expression.

When you look back now at Fight Club, what was it that people connected to?

It was people acknowledging the fact that people don't feel grown up. Men especially don't have something that makes them automatically adults. In a way we're sort of scrambling for some sort of rite of passage that will acknowledge and make us feel like we're adults.

How would you summarize Lullaby?

It is about a newspaper reporter who is asked to do a five-part series on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and he finds out that each of these children was read the same nursery rhyme from a very cheap anthology of nursery rhymes and lullabies the night before it died. Whoever published this book, had accidentally picked up an ancient African curse for euthanizing people in their sleep.

How in the world did that idea occur to you?

I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and I started seeing all of the sort of beautiful religious symbols of every other culture suddenly being used on bath mats and toilet seat covers and wallpaper borders. We've trivialized these things that had sacred power in the same way that we've trivialized language so language has no power either.

The book expresses anarchistic ideas similar to the theme of Fight Club. What does it represent?

It's the death and the resurrection. Things have to come to that point of the death, whether it's Christ's death or the satori that Buddha achieved. They have to come to that point of ultimate destruction before they can really be redeemed.

There's a lot of theology in Lullaby. There's a lot of references to biblical stories, Adam and Eve, and God.

They're stories that stay with you, and they're stories that connect you to everyone else. And I love finding things that are archetypal in everyday life that, when you tell your story, everyone has a similar version of that. It allows them to tell their story. Suddenly you realize in a way you are each other's family.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit DickStaub.com for audio and video of his radio program (4-7 p.m. PST), media reviews, and news on "where belief meets real life." The full text of this interview will be for sale on the website soon.

Earlier Dick Staub Interviews include:

Frederica Mathewes-Green | The author of Facing East and The Illumined Heart talks about her spiritual journey and transformation. (Oct. 1, 2002)

Chris Seay | The author of The Gospel According to Tony Soprano talks about men who want to be in the "Christian mafia." (Sept. 24, 2002)

John Sloan | The author of The Barnabas Way says Christians need to kiss more frogs and reconsider their prayers for blessings. (Sept. 17, 2002)

Nancy Guthrie | Two years after sharing her story of Hope with Christianity Today, the modern Job tells of losing another child to Zellweger Syndrome (Sept. 10, 2002)

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October (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46