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,
is classic Oates—where the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty.