Little Bird of Heaven LP: A Novel [Large Print] [Paperback]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2009

Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, romantic, and captivating tale, set in the Great Lakes region of upstate New York—the territory of her remarkably successful New York Times bestseller The Gravedigger's Daughter.

Set in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late-twentieth-century America 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 a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects, her estranged husband, Delray Kruller, and her longtime lover, Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers' son, Aaron, and Eddy Diehl's daughter, Krista, become obsessed with each other, each believing the other's father is guilty.

Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is a classic Oates novel in which the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty. By the novel's end, the fated lovers, meeting again as adults, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Beneath the Sturm und Drang of Oates's third book of 2009 is the archetypal fairy tale: beauty and the beast. The beauties are the narrator, Krista Diehl, and Zoe Kruller, a waitress and singer who was murdered in Sparta, N.Y., in 1983. The beasts are the men, most notably Krista's father, Eddy, who, as Zoe's lover, is suspected in her murder, and Aaron Kruller, who discovers his mother's body and grows up repressing the thought that his father might have killed her. While the women are torn between attraction to the men and the need to escape them, the men must eventually be blooded, psychically and, in Eddy's case, physically. Eddy starts out a predator, with tufts of animal-hair sticking out of his undershirt, and ends up at the wrong end of a barrage of police bullets. While Zoe's murder and Eddy's suicide-by-cop five years later are the story's anchors, the heart of this novel is how Krista and Aaron are drawn together, however briefly. Oates unfolds the central gothic intuition—that beauty and the beast are complements—in a way that Charlotte Brontë would highly approve. (Sept.)
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Review

“[This novel]...has an unnerving clarity about the power of sexual desire...it cleaves to the mind like a strong memory, and after you’ve read it, you may find yourself dreaming about the imaginary town of Sparta, and wondering what the people are doing now.” (Chicago Sun-Times )

“’Quintessential Joyce Carol Oates: an expertly crafted, lovingly detailed character-driven novel of loss and longing. ” (Associated Press )

“An absorbing study of lust, trust, and an unsolved murder, Oates’s gritty new mystery explores the attraction between the son of the victim and daughter of the accused.” (Good Housekeeping )

“In this narcotic, unnerving, brilliantly composed tale of the struggle for control over the body’s archaic urges, and the quest for morality in a catastrophically corrupted world, Oates creates magnetic characters of heightened awareness and staggering valor.” (Booklist )

“Neither crime, nor punishment, the ultimate coupling in the novel serves as a triumph and a release on a scale and with the intensity we’ve come to expect from one of our country’s premier writers.” (NPR's All Things Considered )

“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 )

“Oates’ 57th novel is a doozie....It’s 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 )

“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 )

“Well-told and ultimately powerful.” (The Onion )

“[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 )

“A powerful novel...In Sparta she has created a fictional universe to stand beside Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County or Cheever’s Shady Hill....Oates [is] our closest contemporary analogue to Hawthorne: lyrical, moral, unforgiving.” (Washington Post )

“[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 )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: HarperLuxe; Lgr edition (September 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061885940
• ISBN-13: 978-0061885945
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,303,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Oate's Returns With Another Provocative Family Drama, September 15, 2009

By 

K. Harris "Film aficionado" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Bird of Heaven: A Novel (Hardcover)

With "We Were the Mulvaneys" and "The Gravedigger's Daughter," Joyce Carol Oates mined the intense emotional battlefields that can arise within families. Similar in theme and seriousness is her latest--"Little Bird of Heaven." In small town Sparta, New York, a young mother is found murdered. The primary suspects are her estranged husband and a married man with whom she was having an affair. But this is not a mystery or a thriller, it is a study of how such a tragedy can affect the families involved. The central characters are the children of the suspects--Krista who had no idea her father was involved with the victim and Aaron who actually finds the body of his mother. Virtual strangers, Aaron and Krista are now eternally linked by the crime and are infatuated with each other even as they struggle with the rage of being on opposing sides.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of "Little Bird of Heaven" is its narrative device. The first half of the novel is told from Krista's point of view. A little girl who idolizes and idealizes her father even as the town, her mother, and her brother turn away--her naiveté and stubbornness keep the harsh realities at bay. The second half of the novel is told from Aaron's perspective. Less vocal and introspective, Aaron struggles with his mother's death and what might be his father's involvement. The underlying themes of prejudice permeate every page as the town of Sparta casts its shadows over all the participants. Both Krista and Aaron must confront silent accusations as the more they support their fathers, the more they distance themselves from their previous lives.

"Little Bird of Heaven" is both intimate, yet surprisingly aloof. By telling most of the story through Krista eyes, the complexities of the situation are filtered through someone who doesn't fully understand what's going on. Aaron's story lacks some insight as well as he remains emotionally distant throughout. It's an intriguing set-up that does work on its own terms. Some may wish this were a slightly different novel, however, I believe this is exactly what Oate's intended. Ultimately, "Little Bird of Heaven" is about a lot of things--almost least of which is the murder itself. When Aaron and Krista meet later in life, it gives them both a chance at closure--but how important is closure when you've already lived your life?

"Little Bird of Heaven" is an adult story about loss, faith, guilt and ultimately need. And it's about growing up when you have no choice but to endure the hardships life sends your way. Oate's latest novel is a challenging and rewarding story that doesn't offer up easy answers for anything. Recommended.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inimitably Oates, September 15, 2009

By 

Bonnie Brody "Book Lover and Knitter" (Port St. Lucie, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Little Bird of Heaven: A Novel (Hardcover)

Little Bird of Heaven is inimitably Oates. It has all her signatures - -the stylization of her writing, the focus on family narrative as destiny, and the mixture of pain and love. The stylized writing in this book is more pronounced than in some of her others. She repeats some things multiple times for emphasis and for varied affect. Initially, this bothered me but as the book progressed, I was so caught up in the narrative that nothing could deter me from wanting to turn to the next page.

As in her other books, love is closely mixed with pain, sexual and emotional longing, cruelty and betrayal. The family narrative is examined as destiny. She explores the theme of wanting to rewrite our narratives with the hope that this time it can turn out differently. The characters are drawn to people and events that remind them of their pasts, painful as they were. However, they hope that by reliving the past, they can change the outcome. Oates asks the reader, `Can we really change our destinies?' She acknowledges the fact that life is ever-changing but people are caught up in the current of family destinies.

This novel is about the murder of a young woman named Zoe Kruller. She is a singer in a local band, mother of Aaron and estranged wife of Delray. There are two persons of interest, suspects in this murder - - Delray Kruller, Zoe's estranged husband, and Eddie Diehl, Zoe's lover. Eddie is the father of Krista and he has been having an affair with Zoe for quite some time. Once the murder occurs he is shunned by his wife and made to leave their home.

The story is told in two parts, from two viewpoints. The first half of the book is told from the vantage point of Krista Diehl, Eddie's daughter. She is close to her father and loves him unconditionally. She believes with all her heart that he could not have murdered Zoe. She believes that Delray Kruller is the murderer. Krista becomes obsessed with Aaron Kruller though at the time of the murder she is in grade school and he is a middle school student, about four years Krista's senior. She believes she loves him and begins to shadow him, appearing at places he is known to go.

Aaron's story is the second half of this novel. He is the one who finds the murdered Zoe and this breaks a part of him. He is aware of Krista but has no idea why she is appearing at places he frequents. He believes that Eddie Diehl, Krista's father, murdered his mother. Aaron and Krista come from different sides of the track. Aaron is part Seneca Indian and there is a lot of prejudice against his people in their small town of Sparta, N.Y. There is one scene where Aaron finds himself Krista's savior and the profundity of love, cruelty and pain is described in a poignant and almost revolting manner.

Oates does a wonderful job of describing the pain that children endure when they grow up in addicted families. Both Eddie Diehl, Zoe and Delray Kruller are alcoholics and drug addicts and their children live with shame, secrecy and silence as they harbor a loyalty to their parents - - no one must know what goes on inside the home. At the same time, they become what is known as `parental children', children who parent the adults. As Aaron says "He'd been an adult for as long as he could remember, before even Zoe had died. Only vaguely could Krull recall a boy - - a little boy named `Aaron' - - on the far side of Zoe's death as in a shadowy corner of the house on Quarry Road". (p.357) . Not only do Aaron and Krista lose their childhoods to the ravages of addiction, Aaron feels that this has become his legacy.

"Headed to hell after her. Drinking beer till his head buzzed and his gut
was bloated like something dead and swollen in the water thinking how
it was so, Zoe had plunged into hell and was pulling them after her like
dirty water swirling down a drain. The kind of family situation, you
could call it an inheritance, you'd naturally need to get high and stay
high as long as you could." (p. 364)

This is a powerful book, not a light read. It is a book about despair, pain, longing, betrayal, addiction and cruelty. It is a book about life on the edges of the precipice where the characters are holding on by the mere strength of their fingertips. It is a book with brilliant insight and a riveting narrative.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, October 2, 2009

By 

Randall Neustaedter (Redwood City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Bird of Heaven: A Novel (Hardcover)

OK I admit it. I read everything by Joyce Carol Oates. That being said this is once again a marvel written by a writer who continues to outdo herself. In terms of nuanced phrasing, intriguing plot, subtlety of language, never revealing too much, and pulling the reader along in a magnetic aura of a dream, Oates is a master. If you have read nothing else of hers, you can start here and learn to love her artistry in a genre she has taken as her own territory. If you have liked or loved or even hated other books of hers (because admit it, she is versatile and varied) read this one. She is the real thing.