Little Bird of Heaven

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:51:00 +0000

Oates' thirty-sixth novel grapples with familiar themes: the rocky underside of marriage, racial injustice, childhood trauma, sexual obsession, and the ways gender plays out among various subsets of the U.S. working classes.

The story is set in fictitious Sparta, New York, a once thriving town seven-to-eight hours north of Manhattan. A former center of industry, the area was left high-and-dry when the factories that employed almost everyone relocated in the 1970s. Within a decade, those left in Sparta were scraping by any way they could, with a sizable cohort involved in the sale and production of crystal meth. Yes, the Sparta of Little Bird of Heaven is hoping for a comeback, but until then, most of the locals seem resigned to quelling their boredom and their nerves with drugs and drinks.

It’s a bleak landscape, made worse when thirty-four-year-old Zoe Kruller, a popular—and beautiful—Caucasian lounge singer, is found dead in her bedroom, her throat slashed and her head bashed in. Immediately after the body is found, tongues wag and there is rampant speculation: Did her long-time lover, the married Eddy Diehl, kill her? Or might her ex-husband, the part-Indian Delroy Kruller, be responsible? Some suggested that Zoe turned tricks to support a heroin habit, their gossip implying that any number of men might have done the deed.

There’s fodder for a solid who-done-it here, but Oates goes further, zooming in on the psychological conundrum facing several of Zoe’s survivors. Krista Diehl, Eddy’s adolescent daughter, is introduced first. From her perch, Eddy is an adoring, if substance abusing, parent. While her child-like disregard for her mother is maddening, her need to be daddy’s little girl is heartbreaking. What’s more, since Krista refuses to entertain the possibility of her father’s guilt, she fiercely defends against all suggestions of his complicity in Zoe’s demise.

Aaron Kruller, Zoe and Delroy’s son, also enters the mix. Aaron is one hundred percent certain that Eddy killed his mom. Sure, his folks had a combative relationship, and sure, his dad drinks too much, but Aaron can’t wrap his mind around Delroy being Zoe’s killer. As far as Aaron is concerned, Eddy is guilty and he is filled with rage that Eddy was investigated but never charged.

Not surprisingly, when Krista and Aaron—both teenagers—find themselves in the same place shortly after the murder, things go awry. But not in the way you’d expect. Suffice it to say that there’s sexual tension between them—perhaps it’s the fine line between love and hate. Their encounter is brief, but the possibility of a violent outcome hovers menacingly throughout.

In fact, it’s such an ugly moment, that neither Krista nor Aaron can forget it. Seventeen years later, when the two meet again for the first time since the incident, sparks fly and it is here that Oates’ writing is at its best. Emotionally gripping and creepily unsettling, the scene questions the power we give the past and peers into the long-term effects of unprocessed childhood trauma. That Krista is eventually able to take control of her life comes almost as an epiphany. And Aaron? The book offers no clues. Whether he will ever move past his mom’s death, his dad’s negligence, and his own worst impulses remains an open question.

One of Zoe’s signature songs spoke of the “little bird of heaven right here in my hand.” As Krista moves forward, she reminds us of our power to overcome the damage of a traumatic childhood. Maybe that’s one form of heaven: Forgiving, if not forgetting, so that we can be fully present in the here-and-now.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, October 7th 2009

My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:10:00 +0000

By Joyce Carol Oates

Harper Collins

My Sister, My Love is Joyce Carol Oates’ thirty-fifth novel in forty-five years. Ambitious and sweeping, the nearly 600-page tome explores a plethora of themes: the tabloid press’ obsession with celebrity; marital discord and fidelity; the pressure placed on children by achievement-worshipping parents; forgiving transgressions; the medicalization of normal human development; and the hypocrisy underlying Christian-inspired capitalism, among them.

The story is narrated by Skylar Rampike, a depressed nineteen-year-old whose six-year-old sister, Bliss, was brutally murdered ten years earlier. Bliss, a child-prodigy figure skater, was found in the family’s Fair Lawn, New Jersey home, hanging in the basement boiler room during the Christmas season of 1994. If it sounds familiar, it should. Like a Law and Order episode spun from a lurid news story, My Sister, My Love is a send up of JonBenet Ramsey and her family.

And what a family it is. Betsey is a hover mother of the highest order, hell-bent on making little Bliss a star. It starts serendipitously, when Bliss exhibits an uncanny dexterity that sends her mom into a what-if frenzy. First comes the name change; Bliss’ original name was Edna Louise, after her paternal grandmother, but she was re-christened "Bliss" after Betsey envisioned god instructing her to make the switch. This is followed by hormone injections into Bliss’ child-sized body, regular beauty makeovers to enhance the child’s appearance, and forced practice sessions, even when Bliss is in obvious pain from one or another injury.

While Betsey is over-involved and continually scheming for a place in the spotlight, the family patriarch is the opposite. Named Bix, he is an anti-Semitic womanizer, a politically conservative glad-hander who reveres money and status and is more than happy to keep his family at arm’s length. For his part, Skylar is everything his parents despise, a bookish, non-athletic kid with few friends.

It’s a recipe for trouble and the novel delivers it, in spades. Unfortunately, while there are moments in which the book is affecting, most of the time it falls flat. Among the problems is tone. At times, Skylar is extremely sympathetic—clearly grieving for his sister, tormented by survivor guilt, and filled with fury toward parents who push him out of sight because they are embarrassed by his anti-social mien. At other times, however, the narrator’s snarky voice is distracting. Oates may be trying to replicate the moods of a sullen teen, but like time in the company of a snotty boy-child, one wants to escape him rather than stay in his orbit. What’s more, the many tangents—including hundreds of footnotes meant to elucidate Skylar’s thought processes and intellectual pursuits for the reader—are annoying digressions that make the book longer and more detailed than it needs to be.

Oates is clearly making fun of upper class pretensions and the faux Christian piety and family values endemic to suburban Republicans. It’s a rich playing field, but sadly, My Sister, My Love_ reads like a bloated lecture delivered by a pompous windbag. It’s too bad because real life dramas can be wonderful jumping off points for imagined scenarios. What we get instead is as nauseating as the incessant coverage of celebrity shenanigans we’re continually fed, and we close My Sister, My Love_ feeling no more insight than we had when we picked up the novel for the very first time. It’s a huge disappointment from so gifted a scribe.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, July 26th 2009