Sweet Lamb of Heaven

by Lydia Millet

Blending domestic thriller and psychological horror, this compelling page-turner follows a mother fleeing her estranged husband.

Lydia Millet’s chilling new novel is the first-person account of a young mother, Anna, escaping her cold and unfaithful husband, a businessman who’s just launched his first campaign for political office. When Ned chases Anna and their six-year-old daughter from Alaska to Maine, the two go into hiding in a run-down motel on the coast. But the longer they stay, the less the guests in the dingy motel look like typical tourists—and the less Ned resembles a typical candidate. As his pursuit of Anna and their child moves from threatening to criminal, Ned begins to alter his wife’s world in ways she never could have imagined.

A double-edged and satisfying story with a strong female protagonist, a thrilling plot, and a creeping sense of the apocalyptic, Sweet Lamb of Heaven builds to a shattering ending with profound implications for its characters—and for all of us.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Horror, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2016

About the author

Lydia Millet has written twelve works of fiction. She has won awards from PEN Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her books have been longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and named as New York Times Notable Books. Her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona.

Reviews

[Wendy Darling · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of good thrillers came out in 2015, but it looks like 2016 is the year of the obscure, "literary," incredibly dull thriller. I don't mind introspective or slow-moving stories at all, but the characters need to be interesting, and I shouldn't keep thinking of the word "plodding" as I slog through the plot.

Sometimes whole chapters/several chapters would pass by with little to no dialogue, with painfully uninspired prose. Then something disastrous would happen, but so suddenly and out of the blue (and with so little reaction) that I often had to reread to make sure I understood what had just happened. This is a pretty run-of-the-mill crazy ex psychological thriller hah hah hah, "thriller", except that it's boring and lacking in any kind of suspense, with some vague, might-as-well-be-non-existent supernatural (or is it?) bits thrown in to distract you.

Added to this are what seem to be pretensions of deeper themes and very little characterization to speak of. Frankly, I think the little girl's Hurt Sheep plushie garners the most feeling. Which says a lot, considering the husband seems to be some kind of devil? But trust me, that's not nearly as interesting as it sounds.

1.5 stars

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet from NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to W.W. Norton and Company and to Lydia Millet for the opportunity.

When time and place feel off kilter, they often are. When there is but a vestige of your sanity remaining, you grab onto it with both hands.

Anne feels that imbalance only too well. She and her husband, Ned, have grown apart since the birth of her daughter, Lena. Ned proves to be an absentee husband and father leaving Anne no other recourse but to move out. But Ned is a man prone to anger and prone to a possessive nature. She resigns from her adjunct professorship in Anchorage, Alaska and begins a long journey to Maine to be closer to her family.

But there is a chattering within....a garbled voice that has taken residency within her head. What is the source of these constant murmurings....a benediction of muffled voices?

In their determined flight, Anne and six year old Lena come upon an obscure motel on the coast of Maine inhabited by a peculiar but gentle lot. To what end did these apparently transient individuals find a strange sanctuary in an off-season, dilapitated motel in the thicket of the woods? Although Anne feels this to be a safe haven, she still fears the clutches of her unstable husband.

Like the fierce winds bringing up the tides on this desolate coast, this story erodes the uneven cliffs of the typical "cat and mouse" drama. There is far more at stake here. Lydia Millet delves into the finely tuned areas of the mind. Do we control our thoughts or do they control us? Millet presents a thriller that is fast-paced and demanding. All is not what it appears to be.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 3.5 Shortly after her daughter Lena is born, Anna begins hearing voices. Voices that stop when the baby is asleep and then stop for food when Lena herself begins talking. But what are these voices? Signs of mental illness, paranoia, effects of too little sleep? She leaves her husband, who cares little for his wife or child or so it seems. Actually he is a sociopath, with little feeling which will come into play in a bog way. Or is he something worse? She leaves Alaska and finds herself in a little motel in Coastal Maine. The people in this hotel will also be important.

Slow moving, especially the first half but somehow intriguing. Interspersed with the threads of the plot are Wiki entries about old languages, languages of animals and plants. This is not an easy book, in fact that is an understatement, it is incredibly complicated. Language mixed with religious themes, a manipulating husband who seems to know all and the last part. Well like my good reads friends Chelsea stated, What did I just read? Open ended, up to your interpretation. Was what happens real or not? Have never read anything like this, but will not appeal to all. It takes quite a bit of patience but in the end I found it original, different and fascinating.

ARC from publisher.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think of Sweet Lamb of Heaven like a Rubik’s cube. Turn it one way and it’s an old-fashioned psychological thriller: Anna flees Alaska with her young child to get out of reach of a handsome, cold and manipulative husband who is running for political office. She and her daughter Lena end up in a strange, run-down Maine motel, waiting for the husband’s next move.

But.

Turn it another way and it’s not that at all. After all, Ned is hardly going to win the husband of the year award, but is he really THAT dangerous? Oh, and I should add that Anna is hearing some mighty strange voices. And the inhabitants of the motel are acting mighty strange. Then, is it a ghost story?

And if THAT interpretation doesn’t suit you, is this meant to be a dystopian novel? The voices, after all, mean SOMETHING, and perhaps they signal the end of the world as we know it. There are manipulations of time, space and language that is downright apocalyptic.

Or is Sweet Lamb of Heaven a parable for our times? Could be: as we lose the ability to recognize and use language effectively, and when we misuse language, do we become something less than what we’re capable of being? Are we already speaking in false tongues?

Perhaps it is a theological discourse. Lydia Millet offers up one of the most cogent definitions of God that I have read. She calls it the “language of sentience” focused on an ambient language that underlies life and tied in with photosynthesis or humpback song. It’s intellectual, philosophical and also thrilling.

What’s exciting about Sweet Lamb of Heaven is that Lydia Millet thoroughly understands all these genres and uses and discards them at will. At the end of the day, she creates something totally original. It’s not for everyone but for me, it’s exciting to see an author stretch the envelope and not allow her book to fit comfortably into any niche.

[Taryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I keep reading Lydia Millet, but I don’t get Lydia Millet. Is it bad to admit that I know I’m not picking up everything she’s putting down? Is someone going to take my English degree away?

Last year I read Mermaids in Paradise, a sharp satire with ecological themes. Or at least I think that’s what it was. There was a distinctly unlikable narrator and real, actual mermaids. And a possible murder. And an abrupt twist at the end that turned everything that came before it on its head, though for what purpose, I’m still not entirely sure.

It was super weird, a lot of it went over my head, but still…I kinda liked it, even if I couldn’t explain why. So when I heard Millet had another book coming out this year, this one pitched as a thriller, my curiosity wouldn't allow me to pass it up even though I wasn't sure what to expect.

What I got was, as you might guess, not really a thriller, at least not in any traditional sense. I don't think Millet is capable of writing a traditional anything. I think for most readers, enjoying Sweet Lamb of Heaven will be a matter of adjusting expectations. If you're expecting James Patterson, you will end up scratching your head. This is decidedly not that.

The premise is thriller-y, which is why I think the publisher thought they could get away with mislabeling it. A mom with a young daughter decides to leave her husband, and she and the child go on the lam. But the husband isn't going to let them go easily--he's decided to run for political office, and he needs a smiling daughter and doting wife for the campaign trail. His wife and daughter hide out at a derelict motel filled with odd residents. Over time, the mother's paranoia mounts until it becomes impossible to tell, as the reader, what's really going on. Reality blurs in the distance like a desert mirage.

So even though the two Millet books I've read are vastly different in terms of subject matter, style, and theme, they left me with the same feeling after I turned the last page. They're books that make you go "hmm."

More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 1 out of 5]

How Will She Pull It Together?

I went to bed last night with only the last chapter of Lydia Millet's novel left to read. Waking early this morning, I lay in bed thinking of the book's two threads—themes that you might have thought incompatible rather than intertwined or twinned—and wondering how on earth she was going to resolve even one of them in a mere 30 pages, let alone pull them both together. It occurred to me that beginning my review at this point might be an excellent way of showing both the strengths and weaknesses of the book—though the fact I feel uninvolved enough to postpone finding out how it ends is surely pretty strong evidence of the latter.

This could be a pretty good domestic thriller of the kind that has become quite popular recently. Anna, the first-person narrator, is the mother of a six-year-old daughter Lena. They are in Maine, hiding in an out-of-season motel, in flight from Anna's husband, Ned, an Alaska businessman who originally wanted to abort the child and has little time for either mother or daughter. But now Ned is running for office and needs wife and child for his Family Values campaign. Well funded by a conservative PAC, he will stop at nothing to get Anna and Lena back as immaculate props in the background of his professionally choreographed photo-ops. And as the tension ratchets up slowly but surely, we begin to see that Ned's reach is long, his powers of surveillance uncanny, and his methods potentially lethal.

The opening chapters of the novel, however, develop in a different direction entirely. As soon as Lena is born, Anna begins hearing voices, apparently coming from the child, though not uttered through her lips. The voices speak mainly in foreign languages or are unintelligible, but there are occasional phrases in English. The situation changes as Lena grows older, but Anna never loses the sense of being different from normal people. The Maine motel begins to feel like a Stephen King set, slowly filling with other out-of-season visitors with mysterious reasons for being there; are they a support group for Anna, or something altogether more sinister? As Anna tries to research her situation online, she comes across weird theories about the primal voice that links all things. New Age gobbledygook. What could have been a very unusual element in the right hands instead turns into a thread of lunatic fantasy that increasingly alienated me from the thriller story, and reduced its all-too-real threat.

======

At this point, I was at four stars for the thriller aspect of the novel, pulled down to three by that inane pseudo-philosophy. But then came the final chapter. All I can say is that it works out in the worst possible way for both threads, wafting off into utter cloud-cuckoo-land with the paranormal one and abrupt and implausible for the thriller. Even one star now seems too much.

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

There will be spoilers.

There will be complaints about what is surely the ugliest book design of any book I have ever purchased. Yes, that is HORROR MOVIE lettering superimposed on a lamb skin rug. Yes, the text is presented in the most boring font you have ever seen.

There will be one question: what the f***?

Look, Lydia Millet is a great writer, who has written some of the most ambitious American novels of the last two decades--not ambitious in the million-dollar-advance-900-pages-long-ohmygod way, but ambitious in the far more difficult to pull off "appealing at the level of both plot and brain" way. Her last novel, Mermaids in Paradise was like this; a great plot, wildly entertaining, smart about the relationship between marketing, profit-making, and environmental destruction; and most notably, if not most successfully, smart in having the plot make an intellectual point. At the end of MiP, it turns out that the whole enjoyable plot has been carried out while an asteroid heads towards earth. The planet will be destroyed very soon. Wait, the reader asks, why are these characters bothering to help mermaids, or bothering to profit off them? Exactly, wise Lydia Millet nods. Why are we bothering to do anything when environmental catastrophe looms? But remember, she continues, the environment is not an asteroid. We can do something about the environment...

So, as plot, it was kind of ridiculous, but ambitious and kind of fun. Sweet Lamb of Heaven is like the last two pages of MiP, only stretched out over 250.

The plot is standard issue divorce-stalker silliness. The conceit is fine: woman hears voices, turns out those voices are real, not in her head, she is somehow led to a hotel where other people who've heard that real voice try to make sense of it.

If the entire novel had been them trying to make sense of it during some understated domestic disturbance, the novel would have been great. Instead, divorce stalker arrives and we're in bad hollywood slasher flick territory for rather too long. Where MiP was goofy and funny and knowingly ridiculous, SLH is po-faced and thus painful. Bad slasher flicks at last come with an ironic wink. This one comes instead, with sub-Pynchonian paranoia.

The conclusion to SLH is foregone: the divorced husband is essentially the devil, the voice is some vaguely panpsychical God, humans have been abandoned by God but that's okay because we remember it was there once and we can work to save the planet now, whether we're religious or not.

The sad thing is that the idea for this book is great: the place of religion in American life, how it can help or hinder, all tied up in a fabulous plot? Sounds perfect, and of course it would take about 600 pages. But this book is 250, and because the thoughts are mostly trite, the plot is dull, and none of it fits together, that feels about 230 too many.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that is ripe for discussion, and liberal with its genres. It’s a captive mystery, domestic drama, horror story, and philosophical quest. It’s a book of ideas, speculative fiction, an inquiry on the nature of the divine, a psychological thriller, the sentience of language, and a subversion of literary conventions. It challenges how narrative assumptions filter reality, illustrating that no singular truths or meanings exist. Millet throws all the tropes outside of the box, enticing a reader willing to risk a heady and sometimes disorienting adventure. There are no tidy answers to the questions that it raises. Life is messy and coiled with twists, which Millet artfully spins into a spooky, propulsive tale.

So here is the premise of the plot. Anna naïvely weds handsome, cold, calculating, philandering Ned, who married her for her family’s money. Once they had a baby, Lena, he duly ignores them, chasing his greedy aspirations instead. Moreover, since Lena’s birth, Anna is burdened by hearing voices, a chronic stream of overlapping, foreign sounding chatter, except for the one English phrase, “the living spring from the dead.” The voices finally stop when Lena begins to talk, but the experience and the incomprehensible meaning of it continues to beguile Anna and influence her actions. In the meantime, the very real threat of Ned, which predominates the plot as a thriller, escalates the tension and dread.

Anna moves with Lena to a seaside motel in Maine, where the setting and the eerie resident behaviors trigger a resemblance to a Stephen King novel. At the same time, Ned demands that Anna and Lena return to Alaska to pose for family pictures and join him periodically in his campaign to run for office. He makes it clear that he can find them and sabotage their lives. Ned, the family values man and “good Christian,” is anything but. As a reader, I was caught up in Anna’s anxiety, and a sense of uncertainty crept in as I mulled over her stability.

The spectrum of reviews from one to five stars is unsurprising to me. If you expect a concrete conclusion and definitive closure, then this book may not be your cuppa. Rather, the narrative dwells in the realm of the spiritual and theosophical, the mysteries of the divine, and the enigmatic nature of language and human behavior. A wealth of interpretations are possible, based on our own experiences with the cosmic and unanswerable. I sensed Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious--the innate, transcendental wisdom that guides mankind. And how does that factor into this mixed-genre novel? I won’t pretend to apprehend all the answers. However, I was absorbed by the edgy construction and provocative themes that braided myriad ideas into a scintillating story--the politics of society; the culture of family; the meaning of motherhood; the nature of the divine; lingual mysticism; neural lexicography; the tyranny of fear; and the power of humanity.

[Joachim Stoop · Rating 1 out of 5]

You bad bad book! Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done! Eternally!

[Carole (Carole's Random Life) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review can also be found at https://carolesrandomlife.com/

I had some issues with this book. I did enjoy it enough to stick with it until the end. Of course, this book got weirder as I went along so by the time I was ready to be done with it, I was so close to finishing that I just stuck with it. I feel that many readers will enjoy this one more than I did, but by the time I finished, I was bored, confused, and wondered if I was smart enough for this book.

This book tells Anna’s story. She starts hearing voices after the birth of her daughter, Lena, and those voices disappear once Lena starts talking. Her husband, Ned, is disinterested and Anna eventually leaves him with Lena. Anna and Lena end up in a hotel in Maine with an assortment of people who share a link and do their best to support each other. When Ned decides he wants to run for office, he needs his wife and daughter back. Anna is willing to do whatever Ned wants to keep her daughter safe and there seems to be no limit as to what he can control.

There were times that I felt like this book moved very slowly and there just wasn’t enough happening. Things do pick up in the second half of the book but that is where things got really weird. Anna seemed paranoid at times and I never connected with her or any of the characters. There was a whole theme surrounding language and religion that just didn’t do a lot for me. Obviously, this was not the right book for me.

I decided to listen to the audiobook which was narrated by the author and I am not sure that she was the best choice to read this story. I thought that her narration was rather flat and lacked the emotion that I hope to encounter when picking up an audiobook. I did notice that there are some audible sounds, such as pages turning, at several points in the audiobook which I found distracting. Unfortunately, this is a book that I will not be recommending.

I received a digital review copy of this book from W. W. Norton and Company via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

lan·guage
ˈlaNGɡwij/
noun
1. the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any specific example of such a system. Human language has the properties of productivity and displacement, and relies entirely on social convention and learning. Its complex structure affords a much wider range of expressions than any known system of animal communication. Language is thought to have originated when early hominids started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality.[1][2] This development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood, and children generally speak fluently when they are approximately three years old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture. Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as social grooming and entertainment.
Wikipedia Accessed January 18, 2017

After the birth of her daughter Anna finds herself hearing voices. “The Voice” seems to follow the baby’s attention -- clips of radio broadcasts, hymns, lines from poetry; a static stream of consciousness that only fades when her daughter is asleep. Anna wonders whether she has lost her mind. Are these episodes due to some sort of psychotic break? Does she suffer from a neurological brain disorder? Perhaps this is some type of post-partum depression? The first clue that “The Voice” is not a delusion is when her husband Ned hears it. After all, it can’t be an illusion if others hear it too. At this point of the novel I decided I was on board. I’m taking this train ride baby! Onward Ho! Let’s figure out what this voice is. Then Millet switched gears and Sweet Lamb of Heaven started going down a different track ala Sleeping with the Enemy. Anna and her daughter have taken up residence in an out-of-the-way beat down motor hotel. But to me there seemed no justified reason for her running at this time. Yes, her husband is a narcissist who at best is indifferent to her and her daughter. But no, there is no history of abuse. I felt as if Anna was over emotional and a tad bit paranoid at this point. I found myself annoyed especially when she began suspecting her fellow hotel mates. I figured I had arrived at my stop. It was time to get off this caboose. But then Millet reeled me in again. I got excited and looked forward to what was happening next. Sweet Lamb of Heaven was venturing into unseen territory that was peppered with philosophical questions that challenged our popular views of consciousness and perceptions of God.

“Some people hear more, some less, some nothing at all. What we hear is what we can hear, its content minutely tailored to our character and biases. That means, if I believe her, that even we, who should be outside the range of any dogmatic faith, even we only ever know the God our personality describes.”

I should have been swept away but somehow at the end of Sweet Lamb of Heaven I felt that Millet had run off the rails and left me stranded by the wayside. The dual storylines weren’t effectively reconciled and the plot became too far-fetched and implausible.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got through just over half of this book and was just as uninterested in what was going on at that point as I was at the beginning, maybe more, as I didn't have any interest in the "reasons" starting to be revealed. I think the next time the author should consider letting someone else read the audio, because it just never had a sense of urgency or fear or excitement even though the events being described made it feel there should be. I'm a bit surprised this was selected over some of the others for the Tournament of Books but that's the reason I wanted to give it a try.

[Book Haunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna is mother to 6 year old Lena. They live in a small motel in Maine, in hiding from Anna's husband, Ned. Ned is a handsome and magnetic man. He's also humorless, cold, indifferent and a major philanderer. He didn't want their daughter and he's never shown an iota of interest in the marriage or their daughter, until he decided on a new career in politics. Now he won't stop pursuing them because he wants his picture perfect family in place for his campaign.

Anna, what can I say about Anna. She is a very troubled woman. She stays in an unhappy marriage, bears a child and continues to be ignored for 4 long years before she finally decides to leave. Too weak and docile to just ask her husband for a divorce, she goes into hiding with her daughter. On top of that, the first year of her daughter's life she was hearing a mysterious voice, making her question her sanity.

Spattered throughout the book are entries from Wikipedia and other research that Anna has done in trying to figure out the mysterious voice she used to hear. Her theories have run the gamut from explorations of language, consciousness, perception and psychosis to reincarnation, but she has never come to a solid conclusion.

While the story of Anna and Lena in hiding kept me reading to the end to find out what happened, I didn't find the story very plausible. I kept wondering why Anna didn't take some action against Ned He wasn't physically abusive. Sweet Lamb of Heaven is a mixture of psychological thriller and the divine? I guess...maybe...that seems to be the outcome here. I may have missed some complex meaning here, I'm not sure. All in all, I found the ending to be very anticlimactic.

I want to thank the publisher (W. W. Norton & Company) for providing me with the ARC through Netgalley for an honest review.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhhh....no.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

ARC for review. EPD: May 3, 2016.

Okaaaaaayyyyy, what the hell did I just finish?

Anna is in a horrendous marriage. Anna has a child, Lena. Anna begins to hear voices, constantly, a cacophony, seemingly having something to do with Lena. Once Lena learns to speak the voices go away. Why?

Anna leaves horrible husband. Horrible husband chases her across the country because he's running for seat in the state senate in Alaska. Horrible husband goes to unthinkable lengths to get them back. Then Anna still refuses to believe that he might kill her. Why?

Anna hides in motel. She and Lena become like a family with a group of strangers. The strangers are all there for a reason. Why?

Based on the fact that Lydia Millet apparently was a finalist for the Pulitzer I'm guessing that this entire book is a very high-minded exploration of words, language and the idea of God, but I wasn't buying it And what the heck was Nick?? File this one under "not for me".

[Briana Nieves · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not for me. First of all, I thought this was going to be a psychological thriller, similar to Gone Girl or The Girl On The Train, that's what the description made it sound like. Unfortunately, it was anything but thrilling. The paragraphs were so boring and the main character didn't seem to have a personality of her own. Her husband was unlikable even though she made it sound like he was charming to others, that was never how I felt about him.

What you also have to know is that there are two separate storylines. There's the one about the mother fleeing from her husband, but there's also the one where the mom hears a voice that apparently comes from her daughters mind. I was not impressed by this plot at all. It was supposed to be scary and haunting but it was just really dry. Then, almost half way into the book it disappears.

Granted, I did not read the entirety of the book, I stopped 75% into it before skipping to the end. I hated reading this book, I did not want to pick it up anymore, but I wanted to see if anything astounding or riveting happened at the end. Nothing that would have made the story anything but boring. I can't recommend this to anyone because there are no elements to this story that make other than a retelling of a fictional person's life.

I won this book as part of a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realized @ about 1/2 way that this book is not trying to be realistic fiction & that the "not without my daughter" plot is but a skeleton on which to hang either an exploration of the evolution of consciousness or a theological reflection on how God is present in all creation (panentheism). Choose the former if you're an unbeliever. Anna the narrator reminds me of Oedippa Maas in The Crying of Lot 49, but Pynchon's book is much funnier & mercifully shorter. May write a longer review later & put it up on my blog.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredible, and Lydia Millett is some kind of genius. Only read this book if you want to think deeply about what it means to be alive on this planet. Plus, the story itself is compelling and thrilling. If I say more, I will give away what it's about. Just read it! Then make your best friend read it so you can talk about it with him/ her.

[AmberBug com* · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope, went too weird too quick. I missed ALL the biblical references steering me into that direction and for someone who has an aversion to biblical stories... this was definitely not the one for me.

I can't say much more about this book without giving stuff away but I was pulled in and reading all the way up to the end. Gah, what a disappointment AND Millet can write!

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Review: (originally published at LitBreak)

Earlier this year, as soon as I heard news of Lydia Millet’s newest novel, I diligently set about reading the last two novels of her recent trilogy (How the Dead Dream, Ghostlights, Magnificence). Even when this author writes a trilogy, it is more like three loosely connected novels, the way some novels are a collection of loosely connected stories. I finished the trilogy satisfied that she had given me three distinct examples of her worldview shown through the eyes of three related characters.

As I began to read some of the early publicity for Sweet Lamb of Heaven, I became somewhat alarmed. I got the impression that it was a type of thriller with a runaway mother and child being pursued by a creepy husband. Was she pandering? I mean, anyone who loves Millet will tell you she deserves to be better known. Had she lowered herself to write something possibly more commercially successful?

I will admit, sometimes I am a reader of little faith. I need not have worried. In fact, she has written the anti-Gone Girl. Surely you read that and can admit to doing so. Possibly you saw the movie. I did both and mostly felt annoyed, a bit insulted, though I had to admire the twist at the end.

Anna is an unhappy wife with a young daughter she decided to have even though her husband Ned “threw his hands into the air palms-forward” when she insisted on going through with her pregnancy. “Afterward his schedule got fuller, his long work hours longer, his attention more completely diverted.” Anna admits she began to give up on him from that point.

She has Lena on her own with only hospital staff attending. When she wakes up after the birth she begins to hear voices. It is a cacophony of overlapping voices and continuous whenever she is near Lena. Only when Lena is sleeping or when Anna in desperation gets a sitter and leaves the house, do the voices leave her in peace. Out of the babble she discerns a word (powa or poa) and a phrase (The living spring from the dead.)

A diligent researcher, she moves through possible causes. Delirium, post-partum depression, ear or neurology issues, hallucinations, demons. She calls it “the voice” and keeps a diary. On one of the rare evenings when Ned comes home for dinner, in one of the most eerie moments in the book, he hears the voice too!

The early chapters left me less than hooked though. There are clues that Ned is some sort of psychopath, some background on the marriage, the fact that Anna brought money to the union, and her views on religion. Anna had loved Ned in the beginning but had failed to see the warning signs, though she is clearly not stupid or crazy, just naïve. She soldiers on with the voice and her research, learning that powa or poa means a Buddhist meditation practice described as a “transference of consciousness” or “mind stream.” But once Ned heard it she stopped looking for its origin or cause.

On the day that one-year-old Lena says her first word, the voice falls silent. Anna realizes that the voice passes through those newly born and when they speak, it moves on. She and her daughter live blissfully through the girl’s toddler years with the presence or absence of Ned nothing more than a slight annoyance. Sadly, Anna had fallen once more into naiveté. Even when she knew that she had to leave him, it took her several years to do so.

By that time, Ned had decided to go into politics as an adjunct to his business ventures. He had had many lovers but suddenly became a “family values” man. Though Anna only took a portion of their assets, he began to stalk her. He needed the appearance of a happy family to support his campaign.

She is only mildly careful about keeping her whereabouts concealed and by the time he finds her, Lena is six and they are living in a remote and somewhat rundown seaside motel on the coast of Maine. Lena is a bright and happy child, very outgoing, alert and smart. In fact, she is one of the most endearing children I have met in a novel. She makes friends with everyone who stays at the motel and her most special grownup friend is Kay, a former nurse for newborns in a small hospital.

Ned snatches Lena with ease and there follow many chapters devoted to Anna’s anguish and anxiety. Nothing unusual except that by now you know the mother and the child so intimately, it is as if it has happened to you. So stealthily that I hardly noticed it though, the awareness of something strange going on with the other guests at the motel had been building. All of them have a personal affliction in common and all of them knew the motel manager before they came to stay.

Here, dear reader is where I leave you. The plot that wove back and forth from past to present but seemed to meander a bit too much suddenly becomes electric with the wizardry of Lydia Millet. Her themes of women who get a grip, of more than meets the eye, of how to live in our increasingly strange society, and of what really holds us together, coalesce. I can tell you that there is a happy ending, but the novel turned out to be a parable and I would not dream of spoiling that for you.

Just recently, Sweet Lamb of Heaven was included on the fiction long list for the National Book Award. I sincerely hope Lydia Millet wins the prize she deserves.

(Update: The novel did not make the short list for the NBA. I feel it should have.)

[Bea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought I was a Lydia Millet fangirl. I read and fell in love with A Children's Bible , a novel which I continue to sing the praises of. I researched Millet's bibliography, adding her novels to my tbr accordingly ( Mermaids in Paradise and George Bush, Dark Prince of Love come to mind). I poured over her most recent interviews, taking seriously her insights on the darkly comic eco-apocalyptic novel as a form. I thought Millet could do no wrong.

How wrong I proved to be.

This novel was weird. Don't get me wrong, I am no stranger to the weird novel. In fact, I welcome it. I love an unhinged, unreliable, female-protagonist narrator whose name is either 1) shrouded in mystery and rarely mentioned or 2) never mentioned at all. See: My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Severance . The problem of Sweet Lamb of Heaven was not that the narrator-protagonist was batshit crazy. The problem was that Millet undertook an ambitious form and style to reflect protagonist Anna's neurosis. Millet was unsuccessful. In isolation, nonlinear and non-chronological narratives can be interesting. Epistolary novels are not an uncommon genre. I can enjoy a contradictory first-person narrative. But these elements together, along with lackluster attempts at humor and grossly incompetent tries at profundity, proved unsuccessful at creating a cohesive, worthwhile novel.

Normally at this point of the review, I try to catalogue all of my pressing thoughts on themes, motifs, form, style, character, plot, narrative, setting, and the like. I usually am very opinionated, which is still the case. However, I do not want to sit with this novel for another minute. Getting through Sweet Lamb of Heaven was a slog. Not an intense slog, but a slog nonetheless. It was not enjoyable to read. I would consider myself a careful reader. I like to internalize each sentence and consider their implications. However, by around page 20, I had to force myself to stop thinking critically about what Millet was writing. It was impossible to get through otherwise. The "profundity" of this novel stems primarily from Anna's discussion on the Voice, the stream of consciousness noise that lived inside her head for a period of around 2 years. (Usually I am quite confident in my ability to remember specific details from novels, especially immediately after I finish reading; however, because I had to literally force myself to not think too hard in order to keep reading, who knows how much accurate information I retained. So. Maybe it was 2 years. It does not matter.) The Voice would often quote famous quotations from poets or philosophers, like Emily Dickinson, and comment upon the nature of life or humanity or society. Because the Voice was purposefully vague and pseudo-intellectual, I feel as though Millet took that as a pass to have the novel's narration be vague and pseudo-intellectual. So much of the novel was dedicated to "fake deep" statements that had no real relation to the plot, the setting, or even the narrator's feelings or characterization herself. I would read sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, and be left with nothing. I would be left void. If anything, I would walk away from chapters having felt as though my net-level intelligence had gone down several IQ points. I was so confused all of the time!!!!! Again, I am no stranger to experimental, weird, non-linear novels. I enjoy unhinged, unreliable, psychopathic (female) protagonists. This novel just sucked, OK?

Even the novel's attempted social commentary that was anchored by some relation to plot, setting, or character fell flat. Millet's characterization of equality was ridiculous and embarrassing. For context, the following excerpt comes after Anna discovers that her friend Kay had a greater affinity for the Voice. Though Kay had been afflicted with the Voice for only a mere three months, Kay's level of understanding far exceeding that of Anna's and the other Voice-afflicted residents of the seaside motel. This excerpt is Anna grappling with the "natural" inequality that is an individual's level of affinity with the Voice.

After the meeting I suspected I wasn't equal, and more, that there was no equality. Our idea of equality is a fiction useful mostly for the purpose of fairness, for law and economics. Elsewhere it's an empty husk, a costume we put on when we get up in the morning.
In the length of our legs and arms, the breadth of our shoulders, the tendons that give us strength or weakness, our beauty or lack of it, sharp or dull intelligence—we aren't equal at all, and we never have been" (Millet 153).

I don't even know where to begin with this. Disney's 2004 family film The Incredibles* does a more thorough, interesting (and accurate!) exploration of the idea of natural inequality. Millet's characterization of equality—let's call it American equality, for the sake of continuity as well as to consider the cultural, social, and political context of equality that Millet is referring to—is without any basis in any cultural, social, or political ideas. In a way, I can maybe surmise a concept that Millet might be gesturing towards: the idea of equality as a personal characteristic, a personality trait that citizens within a liberal democracy take on to substitute true individuality. Tocqueville discusses this idea to some length in Democracy in America . But Anna's realization that natural inequality exists is a complete non sequitur to the substitution or conflation of equality for individuality. (I use the term natural inequality, here, in order to describe the perhaps random distribution of affinity or talent or possession of a certain skill or characteristic. Do not confuse my use of the word "natural" to be a pronouncement on whether I believe the Voice to be a natural or unnatural gift.) It is no secret that natural inequality exists. Some people are more beautiful than others. Some people are taller. Some people are faster runners or swimmers. Michael Phelps exists! His body produces less lactic acid than the average human being, which gives him a faster recovery time, which makes him a more efficient swimmer. I am 5'2" and cannot lift a heavy thing to save my life. These are not new realizations.

Both Hobbes and Locke describe natural inequality in Leviathan and Second Treatise of Government , respectively. Hobbes claims that the state of nature (the existence of man before government) was a state of war due to man's natural equality. The natural equality Hobbes describes is man's equal ability to be killed. No man is ever truly invulnerable from death. No matter how much strength you possess, or resources you possess, every man is equally vulnerable to the worst thing, which is death. In Second Treatise of Government , Locke provides many reasons for the natural equality of man. The careless reader will accept Locke's arguments on the equal facilities of man: every man has a heart pumping blood, and two eyes, and two legs, and two arms. The careful reader will notice that this is false. Not every man has two eyes. Some men are blind! Some men have amputated limbs. Some men are naturally weaker than other men. For context, Locke provides the false evidence of the equal facilities of man in order to appeal to his Christian audience, so that they will accept his supposition that all men are inherently created equal. However, Locke implicitly acknowledges in his several weak arguments for natural equality, that he is in agreement with Hobbes' assessment on natural equality. As such, all human characteristics beyond man's equal and natural capacity to be killed, are naturally unequal.

Maybe I'm a snob and maybe I'm a loser but anyone who knows anything about equality (at least the Western philosophical and political conception of equality) would know that Millet's characterization is ridiculous. Equality isn't just a ~vibe~. To posit that equality only matters in relation to law and economics, or to act as though the statement that equality is in service of fairness is profound in any capacity, is ridiculous. To address the later portion of the quotation, where Millet calls equality "an empty husk, a costume we put on when we get up in the morning"—what? I don't think most Americans are aware enough of their political equality as American citizens to take note of it when getting ready in the morning. I understand the characterization that equality is something which most white, middle-class Americans expect from their environment as a result of their privilege and the system being created and catered for them. However, Millet fails to provide enough anecdotal evidence to even come close to proving, or successfully commenting upon, the idea that equality is a core tenant of the American citizen's primary conception of self. (Again, see Tocqueville for an accurate, non-nonsensical take on the adverse effects of equality.)

Later in the novel, Millet comments again on this same relation between equality and the individual, with the same disappointing level of success:

"None of my friends here seem to understand the urgency of my fear. They live in a personal world where rules are followed and fairness reigns; they're mostly white and mostly middle-class, meaning they feel entitled to justice for themselves and expect it for all the other people in their lives. Corruption belongs elsewhere, other countries, Wall Street or Congress, lobbyists" (Millet 158).

I agree! But also: Lydia Millet YOU are white. Anna, the protagonist, is ALSO white and middle-class. Upper middle-class, actually, which is an important part of the plot, the reason Ned wed her in the first place: to take her parents' generous earnings. The lack of self-awareness here is astounding. Also, though I agree with this point, it is by no means a revolutionary or radical comment on the intersection of whiteness and class. White people are entitled...? And expect the American judicial system to work... for them...? So crazy. I, a woman of color, am so surprised and shocked. I have never met an entitled white person in my life and am excited for the day I do. They are like an endangered species! I thought all white Americans were acutely aware of their existence within a fundamentally racist system of governance. Laugh out loud! Sometimes I get so annoyed at white people, white creatives and artists especially, who believe themselves to be better than the racist white majority. Spoiler alert: If you are white, you are racist. Call me radical and crazy, but personally, I believe that all white people are affected by deep, internal implicit biases which result in prejudice towards people of color. I believe that these implicit biases exist within all white individuals. And who can blame them? (me) Existing within a fundamentally, systemically racist society has far-reaching internal implications. When white authors, like Lydia Millet, attempt to signal to their audience a nuanced understanding of race, one which supposedly allows them to socially criticize or even ridicule other white people for their unawareness of race and privilege, all while maintaining that they themselves are on the highest plane of racial understanding... It just makes my blood boil. Like, what do you know about race that I don't? What do you know about race that is worth sharing? This also reminds me of a recent TikTok trend where white men will say misogynistic things about women using the general phrase, "I hate when white women...", using the pretext of race for the aim of misogyny while also separating themselves from an ignorant or undesirable white majority. This, for obvious reasons, is ridiculous. Whiteness is pervasive and also the primary characteristic of any white citizen in American. White American citizens are allowed the privileges that come with citizenship due to their whiteness. It is for this same reason that Black American citizens, and other American citizens of color, are denied the privileges and RIGHTS of their citizenship. In short, any effort of any white individual to separate themselves from the white mass always makes me, at best, cringe and at worst, rage. This shit is ridiculous.

ESPECIALLY because of Millet's earlier comments and characterization of a character of color. There are few nonwhite characters in the novel. None of them possess any real thematic or plot-related significance, and only exist to flesh out the world of the white characters of the novel. (Yes, I know the protagonist is white, and that all supporting characters flesh out her world... but Millet's nonwhite characters were pretty lame and useless, so... I don't care.) You don't need context for the following quotation to know that it's awful:

"He's good-looking; his skin is a coffee shade but the geometry of his face seems less African than Eastern, maybe Malaysian or Indian, I don't know. It's noteworthy mostly because there aren't too many colorful immigrants in this part of Maine—in some parts there are Somalis and Asians but around here most everyone I've seen is plain old white"(Millet 70; emphasis added).

Do you know that TikTok audio where a person of color responds to some weirdly racist comment, a comment made in an awkward attempt at antiracism or inclusivity, by saying "I'd rather you just called me a slur"? Well, I do, and it's what I thought of when I read the phrase "colorful immigrants" in close succession to nonwhite skin being described as "a coffee shade." This shit is ridiculous. Absolutely not. And this novel is not good or smart to have included these racial faux pas for the sake of racial commentary or criticism. This is not a critique of the ignorant white person. Rather, this is a reflection, I would argue, of the ignorance possessed by Millet herself.

I could get into the plot inconsistencies but I don't want to put myself through that strife. And please, let me clarify that the poor plotting structure was not deliberate or in service of any emotional or narrative pay-off. Just because the protagonist is an unreliable narrator does not mean that the entire novel needs to be wholly nonsensical and confusing. Just know that I was confused. The beginning was less confusing, but the middle was more confusing, and the ending was most confusing. I am confused on the thematic implications of literally everything that occurred for the entirety of the novel. I am not sure what themes were introduced or discussed. The motifs were clumsy and inconsistent. All Biblical allusions, if there were any, were shoddy and lacking any real commentary.

And the Voice! I know the Voice isn't technically a magic system since this novel isn't fantasy (I have no idea what genre category this novel falls under; I hesitate to even call it literary fiction because this did not feel literary in the slightest, only clumsy), but wow this magic system was confusing. The rules for the Voice were so grossly inconsistent that every new development, especially the role of the Voice in the ending, screamed DEUS EX MACHINA in big capital letters. (Like in that stupid rom-com novel-to-film adaption of The Sun Is Also a Star , where Yara Shahidi wears an ugly bomber jacket with DEUS EX MACHINA written in big white felt letters on the back.) Disappointed that I never got the resolution of the origin of the Voice, which I suppose is the point. Sure, I can usually accept a novel's vague ending with satisfaction, but not when the beginning, middle, AND end of the novel occurs in vague terms. The introduction of new powers, Ned's specifically in the last quarter of the novel also felt incredibly lazy and unsupported. The foreshadowing for this development—the SINGULAR instance of foreshadowing—was so heavy-handed as well. Perhaps that is the best word to describe this novel. Heavy-handed. Huh.

In conclusion, I did not like this novel. I did enjoy some moments of setting characterization at the beginning of the novel, reminiscent of the beautiful descriptions of setting in A Children's Bible , but not as good overall. Still, I hold out the perhaps naive hope that Lydia Millet is a talent. I LOVE A Children's Bible , and I severely hope that it was not a one-off success or display of talent. Mermaids in Paradise and George Bush, Dark Prince of Love are still at the near-top of my TBR. And Millet's forthcoming novel, Dinosaurs , slated for release in October 2022, has not entirely been scrapped from my radar. But, we’ll see. For now, this novel was disappointing. I don’t think I have much else to say.

*Humor me... Helen: "Everyone's special, Dash." Dash: "Which is another way of saying no one is." And don't forget Syndrome: "Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super, no one can be."

[Jessica Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy. Shit. There is so much I have to say about this incredible book, but on the other hand I don’t want to reveal too much about it because it’s such an utter delight to go into it not knowing what to expect and try to piece it together and figure out what the hell is going on. It’s early, but I think this may end up being one of my favorite books of 2016.

I’ll tell you this much about the actual plot: Anna begins having auditory hallucinations whenever she is in the presence of her infant daughter, Lena. Several years later, she decides to leave her dangerous, sociopathic husband, and she and Lena flee to a motel in Maine inhabited by a curious set of characters.

This book has a fairly low rating on Goodreads and I can’t fathom why. Perhaps readers were expecting a more conventional thriller. This book is anything but conventional. The best way I can describe it is enthralling.

Think Chuck Palahniuk if he were a better writer. This is a story that exists in a somewhat surreal world with a distinctly sinister bent to it. Is Anna crazy and paranoid? Are the voices she’s hearing the byproduct of psychosis, or could they be something outside the realm of current human understanding: a collective unconscious that exists among all living things, where the ego is abandoned in the face of shared sentience?

Unfortunately, Anna’s “gift” makes her susceptible to her husband’s malicious manipulations in such a way that it threatens to destroy her sense of self and everything she is.

This is psychological and existential horror at its absolute best: No monsters, no ghosts, no murderers. In the end, the self is all we have — is there anything more terrifying than the prospect of losing that?

[Kalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

**** 1/2

Whoa.

I didn't like (get) Infant Monkeys in Love so I was a little nervous about trying Millet again. I figured I could always put it down if I didn't connect with it. Wow, am I glad I gave it a try.

If you need your fiction linear this one isn't for you. But if you can strap on your seat belt and go along for the ride, it will be worth it. It is entirely believable and entirely unbelievable all at the same time.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first person narration of this book was just painfully dull. There was a cheesy husband/stalker plot. I hope there was more to the story than this, but I never got to that point of the book because I abandoned it pretty quickly. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, however I wound up listening to the audiobook borrowed from the library. The author should not have elected to narrate the audiobook herself.

[☕Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really devoured this book! I can't say I understand it completely, and I am definitely left feeling somewhat unsettled, but the writing was just amazing and I couldn't pull myself away from the story. I want to go read everything by this author now!

Ratings (1 to 5)
Writing: 5
Plot: 5
Characters: 4
Emotional impact: 5
Overall rating: 4.75

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the focus blurs (not unlike the artful blurring of some letters on the front cover) at times, this was a strange and fascinating read. It's not Hitchcockian like Hannah Pittard's Listen to Me, with the direct constant ratcheting of thriller-tension, but it still has a creeping dread and a spooky strangeness that could, instead of Hitchcockian, perhaps be better called Lynchian or even Kubrickian. Plus, Millet writes not only excellent characters and wonderful plots but equally brilliant theory that gets weaved into the whole, creating a religion-for-readers theology (if it can be called that) that I deeply loved. It's a strange book and perhaps ultimately a light one - but read it on a dark, gray winter's day (perhaps in a town emptied for the season) and you'll be right where it wants you.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2017/01...

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a strange and exhilarating book! Can't quite process it all right now, but I want to read more from this author. Hit me squarely in the wheelhouse. Lots of sharply written sentences in service of a plot that's deliberately hazy and slow to take shape. Foreboding and creepy throughout. Had the feel of an old X-Files episode to me; I found myself wondering at the beginning how, say, Vince Gilligan might have adapted it to the screen back in the day. Interesting that there was an X-Files mention later in the book so maybe that was an influence on some level. Some similarities in style, right down to the open ended, somewhat ambiguous ending. I can see how this book would be frustrating for some, but I can also appreciate when an author leaves room for readers to decide what it all means for them.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...if you're the kind of person who wants to know what's at the end of the universe, what's at the edge of being...and comprehension settles on you that you'll never know, despair can well up."

Don't let your quest for answers drive you through this book. Instead, enjoy the views provided in these pages, the thoughts the words provoke, and revel in the wonder explored by this captivating story. Any requirement for explanation will diminish your experience and undermine the message of the novel. I might say the same about life, but I'm no philosopher and not one to give advice on how to live.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

My lord this became so strange. I didn't understand where it was headed, even to near the end - and that was one reason I liked it. I also have come to trust Lydia Millet, who is wildly talented and clearly nuts (!). The characters of this novel were wonderfully drawn, albeit stereotyped and veering on the cartoonish, but I could see them: Don the hotel host, the two Lindas, Kay, Navid, Will, Lena, Ned, etc. I actually thought "Anna" was an unreliable narrator for most of the novel, but I was cheering for her, and we don't usually do that for an unreliable narrator. (And maybe she remained that. I don't claim to understand this thing.)

I was reminded of the end of Magnificence, and really the entire How the Dead Dream cycle, in Millet's way of combining the quotidian and the off-the-wall, the transcendent; demotic language and big ideas. Or maybe they're not combined, but just intermixed - because to combine would be smooth and seamless and too easy to swallow, where she wants to leave the juxtapositions rough and unsettling. Magnificence built toward a conclusion of a grandiose and profound (if not clearly explained) vision of human evolution, animals, and a "great chain of being." And this novel shares the theme of non-human animals and humans' place in the order of things. (Did anyone else think of Magnificence when they read the scene in SLoH with the polar bear skin mounted on the wall?) But reading the end of that cycle I felt caught up in that grand vision, given a glimpse of something very meaningful, mystical, and necessarily inexplicable. Reading the end of this I felt ....?

Sweet Lamb of Heaven went pretty far out there, maybe too far. I mean, what the hell? By midway I was swiping pages rapidly: I always feared for the protagonist and her daughter, and I was sure by then that this wasn't a clear-cut domestic violence story, and the surveillance story-line was scary. But the Book of Revelation material, that was a head-scratcher, and I had trouble with the explanations of God and "deep language." I hope Millet doesn't think climate change and a coming Armageddon are linked. That's all metaphorical, right?

-- It's just occurred to me that this could be the start of another series/cycle of linked novels. I haven't read a single review or interview yet, so maybe everyone else already knows this. But Millet has created these colorful characters about whom I want to know more - and she ends with the beginning of a battle between the forces for good and the forces of darkness. Don asks Anna "Are you ready?" Of course! And while this time Millet focused on Anna and Lena, the next book could be about one of the other characters. This could get really interesting (and weird-good).

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay I'm totally blown away by this story. My mind is going a million miles an hour. This is definitely one of those books that need a second or third reading because there is just too much to break down, chew up, inhale and absorb - like a great classic it's the questions it asks - the ideas it generates and inspires. Loved it! Intrigued by it. Read it!