New York, NY: Ecco (2009)

First Edition. Advanced Reader. Signed.

Fine in decorated wrappers with a little edge wear.

Set in the fallow Great Lakes region of upstate New York, in the mythical community of Sparta, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late 20th-century America returns to the emotional and geographical terrain Joyce Carol Oates has staked as her own in the remarkable 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 suspect 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.

Ultimately, these 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.