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

The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys Into The Far Realms Of Lust And Longing

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:43:00 +0000

By Daniel Bergner

ECCO Books

Daniel Bergner’s new work on sexuality, The Other Side of Desire, garnered a considerable amount of press before it was released thanks to an adapted excerpt from the book published in the New York Times under the title, “What Do Women Want?” Many feminists were disgruntled by the piece, which included University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) professor Marta Meana’s insistence of narcissism in the role of female arousal. (“Being desired is the orgasm.”) As one NYT letter writer pointed out, “For many women, it’s occasionally hard to know the difference between sexual agency and male-driven definitions of sexiness[...] we are not ‘post feminist’ yet.”

In the book itself, Bergner examines four distinct case studies of individuals with non-normative sexual proclivities, including a foot fetishist struggling with debilitating shame, a man who propositioned his adolescent stepdaughter, and an unrepentant female sadist who openly rejects the “safe, sane, consensual” mantra of the Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism (BDSM) community. Bergner alternates within each section between intimate portraits of his subjects’ lives and feedback from psychologists and psychiatrists who provide their professional take on the situation.

The female sadist is by far the most articulate subject and her chapter is subsequently the most memorable. Her practices are intense, and, to his credit, Bergner presents her actions to us without apparent judgment. The book’s greatest strength is the author’s willingness to admit moments when his own sensibilities are challenged and then do his best to set those reactions aside and continue reporting. What his interviewees confess is often stunningly honest, and the best way to respect their candidness is to simply share it.

The book ends on a weak note with “The Devotee,” a section focused on an amputee fetishist, Ron, and his amputee wife Laura. While Bergner touches on the ways disabled individuals’ sexuality is neglected (the doctors never address what sex might be like after Laura’s accident nor do they inform of the existence of a devotee community), he doesn’t linger on the subject for long. He also abandons his strategy of providing medical insight as a counterpoint to the personal experience and instead becomes strangely caught up in describing the artwork of Hans Bellmer, a man who photographed damaged-looking dolls, and Ron’s own photographs of amputees.

While Bergner does an admirable job of conveying the eroticism some men experience in sex with a disabled woman, his writing at this stage is often overly dramatic: “The body parts were letters, and their violent reordering would reinvent the body’s language and unmask its messages and lead to shaman’s wisdom.” Furthermore, there seems to be little room for Laura’s sexual needs in the relationship. She wonders what she can offer a man now after losing her conventional beauty in an accident. Once she begins modeling as an amputee her confidence is somewhat restored, yet she still doubts she could ever attract a “normal” man. It seems that Laura, like many women, grew up substituting being desired by a man in place of any desires of her own. Ron’s tastes are catered to, but Laura’s? As readers, we’re never entirely sure what she wants. Perhaps that New York Times letter writer was on to something.

Written by: Monica Shores, May 4th 2009