Synopses & Reviews
A searing exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late-twentieth-century America,
Little Bird of Heaven returns to the emotional and geographical terrain of acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates's previous bestsellers
We Were the Mulvaneys and
The Gravedigger's Daughter.
When young wife and mother Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the police target two suspects: her estranged husband, Delray Kruller, and her longtime lover, Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers' son, Aaron, and Diehl's daughter, Krista, become obsessed with each other, each believing the other's father guilty. By novel's end, the fated lovers are at last ready to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms with their legacy of guilt, misplaced love, and redemptive yearning.
Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is classic Oates—where the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty.
Review
“Oates 57th novel is a doozie....Its vintage Oates: tragic violence, outsize ambitions, dashed hopes, strained family bonds, manly-men roughing up sassy-yet-submissive women, and, of course, sex-crazed teenagers.” Elle
Review
“[This novel] is classic Oates. Its depiction of violence, families falling from grace and social class disparities, as well as its location, recall her 1996 bestseller, WE WERE THE MULVANEYS. Fans of Oates will delight in this offering and newcomers to her work will receive a first-class introduction.” BookPage
Review
“Neither crime, nor punishment, the ultimate coupling in the novel serves as a triumph and a release on a scale and with the intensity weve come to expect from one of our countrys premier writers.” NPR's All Things Considered
Review
“In this narcotic, unnerving, brilliantly composed tale of the struggle for control over the bodys archaic urges, and the quest for morality in a catastrophically corrupted world, Oates creates magnetic characters of heightened awareness and staggering valor.” Booklist
Review
“Well-told and ultimately powerful.” The Onion
Review
“[This is] the novelist at her brooding best . . . a seamless, satisfying tale of small-town life where...the long-smoldering relationships among the residents can often be like ‘tangled roots, beneath the surface of the earth.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Review
“Little Bird of Heaven starts with the urgency of thriller, then turns into something more existential as the years (and pages) go by...This is a tragedy on a classical scale...Oates has written a feminist novel with empathy for men, especially men without power, with no voice besides violence.” New York Times Book Review
Review
“An absorbing study of lust, trust, and an unsolved murder, Oatess gritty new mystery explores the attraction between the son of the victim and daughter of the accused.” Good Housekeeping
Review
“Readers are breathlessly along for the ride, never sure if Oates will let [her characters] reach redemption or have them fall prey to the hands of their violent, unforgiving upbringings.” New York Post
Review
“Quintessential Joyce Carol Oates: an expertly crafted, lovingly detailed character-driven novel of loss and longing. ” Associated Press
Review
“A powerful novel...In Sparta she has created a fictional universe to stand beside Faulkners Yoknapatawpha County or Cheevers Shady Hill....Oates [is] our closest contemporary analogue to Hawthorne: lyrical, moral, unforgiving.” Washington Post
Review
“[This novel]...has an unnerving clarity about the power of sexual desire...it cleaves to the mind like a strong memory, and after youve read it, you may find yourself dreaming about the imaginary town of Sparta, and wondering what the people are doing now.” Chicago Sun-Times
About the Author
Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Accursed. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.