There's a deep loneliness at the center of Lydia Millet's tenth novel, Sweet Lamb of Heaven -- and not just because its narrator, a mother named Anna, is on the run. No, this is existential, even cosmic loneliness. Anna, after all, hears voices, or she used to, until her daughter Lena began to speak. Here is how Anna describes the experience: "Later I would hear volumes and forget almost all of it, but the first phrase I picked out stayed with me despite my exhaustion. It started out as a string of foreign words, only one of which resolved, to my ear, onto anything recognizable -- something like "power," powa or poa. And then it was English: The living spring from the dead."
That last sentence might be read as a descriptor for much of Millet's fiction, which has long concerned itself with questions of mortality and extinction, and our relationship to not only the natural but also (let's call it) the elemental world. Elemental? Yes, although this comes with its own odd sort of metaphysical bent. It's no coincidence that powa, that initial word Anna recalls hearing, turns out to be "Phowa, or poa, meaning 'mindstream' in Sanskrit -- the transference of consciousness at the moment of death." And yet, to call this metaphysical in the most common sense is to underestimate what Millet has in mind. In Sweet Lamb of Heaven -- as in the stunning trilogy of novels (How the Dead Dream, Ghost Lights, Magnificence) she published between 2008 and 2012 -- her metaphysics are hard-edged, rooted in the physical, the practical: a way to investigate our connections to one another and to the generations that precede us, as well as to the natural world. That such connections are frayed is the whole point; this is the source of our existential risk. "[W]e were a blur of sympathy," Millet tells us, "the air between us pockets of space in one great body, one saltwater being, unplumbed depths where the ancestors came from, primeval well of genes . . . the feeling stretched like a generosity, the gift of oneness. Who cared about those differences we had, those minor distinctions that kept us apart?" Of course we do care quite a lot, which is the source of our dissatisfaction, our inability to see beyond ourselves, to understand that we are all together, one.
Such a conundrum is profound, and it animates Sweet Lamb of Heaven, as it has Millet's other work. To highlight this, perhaps, the novel develops in two threads: one about the voice and the other having to do with Anna's ex-husband, Ned, who is running for state senate in Alaska while stalking her and Lena, with the intention of using them as props in his campaign. "Ned's God," Millet explains, "was a life coach -- the kind for whom you have to be at least a mid-six-figure earner. Ned's God was a superstar, a braggart, and a motivational speaker, presiding from an office whose walls were lined with awards, diplomas, and framed pictures taken with celebrities. Ned's God would have to take an interest in the workings of his personal ego." Ned's God, in other words, is as empty as Ned himself, with his shiny teeth and right- wing platitudes: the emblem of a corrupted politics built on image and flash.
But something far more sinister than piety and politics are at work, as Anna recognizes. Ned, in some strange way, is attuned to his ex- wife, able to feel her, to sense her emotions, able to work his way inside her head. As Sweet Lamb of Heaven progresses, his manipulations grow increasingly outrageous, until Anna is left to question her sanity. "Maybe this is a ghost story after all," she wonders, and if she is thinking here about the voice and the transmigration of souls, the observation applies equally to her ex- husband, who will not leave her alone. Ghosts, Millet wants us to remember, can hurt us, and things beyond our conscious reckoning have the power to assert themselves.
For Anna (and, I think, for Millet too), this provokes a double vision, in which she longs for the connections she has lost while also fearing those she cannot shed. What is the source, or substance, of our truest selves: our ambition, as embodied by Ned, who grows increasingly controlling, or what Millet calls the "whole of being"? How do we truly know ourselves and one another in a world where "deep language" -- that is to say, the language of the spirit -- is being silenced by extinction and technology? "These years are our last chance," a friend tells Anna, referring to "the spirit and expression of all creatures and all people, their cultures and tongues and arts and musics, from the vaunted to the unknown." What Millet's describing is "ancient knowledge," language as identity and memory.
Anna's experience suggests that such a language has deserted us, that it is one we no longer hear. "Say God is a complex grammar," she conjectures, "that doesn't coexist with our own language, its ego-driven structures . . . Say we're left on our own . . . when we pronounce our first words and God deserts us, and it's in that respect that we're different from the other beasts and different from the aspen trees. Then it has to be said also that instead of being raised above the other kinds of life -- instead of being special as we have always claimed -- we're only more alone." More alone, yes, and also conscious of it, which is the source of Millet's troubling urgency.
David L. Ulin is the author, most recently, of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he spent ten years as book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times.
Reviewer: David L. Ulin
The New York Times Book Review - Laura Lippman
…Few novels surprise me…But Lydia Millet's Sweet Lamb of Heaven confounded me, delightfully so…I have little patience with literary novels that claim to have the propulsive momentum of a thriller, yet Millet pulls it off…The source of the mysterious voice is not the true mystery at the heart of Sweet Lamb of Heaven. Instead, it is the eternal human dilemma of what to do with knowledge once we have it. Will it lead to enlightenment or insanity? Will we be better people for it, or worse? It is Anna's voice—cool, intelligent, passionate, contradictory—that makes this novel so affecting. I resisted it initially because I was overwhelmed by my sense of dislocation, my uncertainty about where we were headed. But how I missed it when it was gone, how I yearned for it to speak to me again.
Entertainment Weekly - Isabella Biedenharn
"Millet's prose is stunning…you'll have a hard time putting this down."
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Mark Athitakis
"We didn't know we needed a metaphysical thriller, but here Millet is with a fine one… A feat of genre-breaking."
O Magazine
"[A] hypnotic novel of psychological and philosophical suspense."
Where Is the Voice Coming From? - Slate - Laura Miller
"[A]n extraordinary metaphysical thriller from one of America’s most inventive novelists."
Los Angeles Times - Laird Hunt
"[W]e have a real thriller on our hands…part of a higher-stakes game being played by Millet, one that will ultimately, unabashedly touch on time, beauty, horror, God, demons and the very nature of being. By novel's end…the stakes have been raised through the roof."
Laura Lippman
"Sweet Lamb of Heaven confounded me, delightfully so…I have little patience with literary novels that claim to have the propulsive momentum of a thriller, yet Millet pulls it off…It is Anna's voice—cool, intelligent, passionate, contradictory—that makes this novel so affecting…[H]ow I missed it when it was gone, how I yearned for it to speak to me again."
Lisa Zeidner
"Lydia Millet is not as popular as she should be. This novel will change that…Her ambitious new novel, Sweet Lamb of Heaven, is part fast-paced thriller, part quiet meditation on the nature of God."
7 Books You Need to Read this May - Vulture - Boris Katchka
"[P]repare to be surprised by more than plot twists. . . . the Pulitzer finalist’s philosophical fireworks add layers of energy and mystery."
Chicago Tribune - John Warner
"[O]nce it gets its hooks into you, it doesn't let go."
People
"[A]ddictive, unsettling… sneaks in some high-minded themes (the nature of reality, the fragility of human connection) without distracting one iota from the suspense. A winner."
New Yorker
"Millet’s sense of pacing is acute and her prose is glittering and exact."
The Seattle Times - David Wright
"Millet evinces a rare capacity to surprise and fascinate readers… Unpredictable in the best sense, Millet’s eye-opening stories and conceptions are irresistibly interesting. This may be her most beguiling and accessible creation yet."
San Francisco Chronicle - Caroline Leavitt
"[A] novel so eerie, so chilling and provocative, that you might find yourself rethinking everything you thought you knew about language, belief, and where our human race might be going."
The Boston Globe - Matthew Gilbert
"A rare pleasure to read… Millet’s fine prose [is] as rich with fresh imagery as it is open-minded to life’s hidden possibilities."
Booklist - Donna Seaman
"Operating, as always, on multiple levels with artistic panache, emotional precision, and profound intent, Millet transforms a violent family conflict into a war of cosmic proportions over nothing less than life itself."
Washington Post
Lydia Millet is not as popular as she should be. This novel will change that… That Millet can smuggle her original insights into a structure featuring a rollicking kidnapping plot and deliciously well-drawn characters makes her achievement even more remarkable.
From the Publisher
Millet weaves a satisfying cat and mouse game… Her novel reads like top-notch psychological suspense…This is a page-turner from a very talented writer, and the result is a crowd-pleaser.
Laura Lipman for The New York Times
But Lydia Millet’s “Sweet Lamb of Heaven” confounded me, delightfully so. …I have little patience with literary novels that claim to have the propulsive momentum of a thriller, yet Millet pulls it off.
Washington Post
Lydia Millet is not as popular as she should be. This novel will change that… That Millet can smuggle her original insights into a structure featuring a rollicking kidnapping plot and deliciously well-drawn characters makes her achievement even more remarkable.
Library Journal
04/01/2016
This new work from Pulitzer Prize finalist Millet (Magnificence) offers essentially two stories in one, and they don't sit comfortably together. Married to faithless and manipulative Ned, who virtually ignores her and their only child, Lena, Anna walks away from their Alaska home, ending up at a remote but somehow charmed hotel in Maine. Ned is not about to let her go, however, particularly as he is planning a run for state senate and needs the pretense of a supportive family for the campaign. He is downright creepy in his insistence and ability to track and harass "his girls," reminding us of the lengths some people will go to craft their own stories and control others. Folded into this plot is the mystical tale of Anna hearing voices upon Lena's birth, which leads her to others like her and the understanding that deep language belongs to all sentient creatures yet generally gets lost to humans. Dominant Ned, the enemy of such communication, can enter Anna's mind and bend it in ways that would be persuasive in an sf novel but don't work here. VERDICT Compelling in parts, but with Anna's very real battles with Ned deflected by fuzzy meditation, not successful as a whole. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/15.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
A mother flees with her child from a loveless and ultimately abusive marriage to an aspiring politician. Author Lydia Millet does a credible job narrating her own story, yet several instances of missed drama, limited character definition (possible and necessary even in a first-person work such as this), and a constricted emotional range all confirm that knowing the words and even crafting them well on the page are not the same as performing them. Millet’s story hovers between psychological and supernatural suspense, with allusions to current political and social anxieties. A stronger performance would have assisted in the suspension of disbelief such a story requires. Hers is a serviceable narration—just not as good as her own work deserves. K.W. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2016-02-17
A mother tries to reconcile the voices in her head and an extortionist estranged husband in a peculiar, stirring thriller. Anna, the narrator of Millet's 10th novel (Mermaids in Paradise, 2014, etc.), began hearing an inexplicable "stream of chatter" after her daughter, Lena, was born. The voices diminished after a year, and a split from her husband, Ned, prompted her to move from her native Alaska to a coastal Maine motel with a decidedly eerie cast; in time she'll learn it's an unwitting magnet for others with similar conditions. But Anna has more pressing problems: Ned is running for the Alaska state Senate and wants Anna and Lena to head back to Anchorage to serve as photo-op props. When Anna demurs, Ned turns threatening; when she tries to hasten a divorce, Lena is kidnapped. Millet has a knack for planting plainspoken, world-weary narrators in otherworldly circumstances, and Anna is one of her sharpest, most intriguingly philosophical creations. Though she considers medical and scientific reasons for the chatter ("filtered particles from the immense cloud of content carried by those millions of waves that pass through us all the time"), her head is also aswim with stories of mysterious symbiotic tree colonies and a "deeper language, an urge that underlies our patterns of survival." Rather than feeling like two novels on separate tracks—New Age ramble and evil-ex drama—those threads braid effectively, especially when it comes to politics. If Ned's campaign can stage-manage Anna's life so effectively, how much of a force is it in everything else? Millet is content to leave the woollier questions unanswered, but the thriller writer in her brings the book to a satisfying climax. A top-notch tale of domestic paranoia that owes a debt to spooky psychological page-turners like Rosemary's Baby yet is driven by Millet's particular offbeat thinking.
