Contours of a Wound: A LaCapraean Reading of Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby

Abstract: Although Dominick LaCapra’s recent work has been influential in psychoanalysis and history, his reformulation of two Freudian terms, “acting out” and “working through,” has not received due attention in literary and cultural trauma studies. With the intention of uncovering the traumatic impact of 9/11 on Chuck Palahniuk’s popular fiction, this article highlights the two levels on which the contours of the tragedy may be observed: in Lullaby ’s treatment of post-traumatic processes, and in its exhaustive critique of the American mass media. Taking as a departure point E. Ann Kaplan’s proclamation that the attacks gave rise to a “new subjectivity,” this study ventures to trace the silhouette of this new subjectivity onto the words of one of America’s best-selling authors.