Little Bird of Heaven
Encyclopedia
Little Bird of Heaven is a 2009
novel by Joyce Carol Oates
. It is her 38th published novel. The novel is the third set in the fictional city of Sparta, NY, which was also a main setting for her two previous best-sellers We Were the Mulvaneys
and The Gravedigger's Daughter
.
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.
2009 in literature
The year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
novel by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
. It is her 38th published novel. The novel is the third set in the fictional city of Sparta, NY, which was also a main setting for her two previous best-sellers We Were the Mulvaneys
We Were the Mulvaneys
We Were the Mulvaneys is a novel written by Joyce Carol Oates and was published in 1996. We Were the Mulvaneys was featured in Oprah's Book Club in 2001.The Mulvaneys, a family living in the small, rural town of Mt...
and The Gravedigger's Daughter
The Gravedigger's Daughter
The Gravedigger's Daughter is a 2007 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It is her 36th published novel. The novel was based on the life of Oates's grandmother, whose father, a gravedigger settled in rural America, injured his wife, threatened his daughter, and then committed suicide...
.
Plot summary
When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller, a part-time Country Singer and semi-prostitute 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, sullen and hurt Aaron, and Eddy Diehl's daughter, naïve and willful 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.