Sweet Lamb of Heaven

December 14, 2015
Pulitzer Prize–finalist Millet’s latest novel (following Mermaids in Paradise) begins with Anna and her six-year-old daughter, Lena, leaving Alaska while on the run from her husband, Ned. The bad news is that sociopathic Ned doesn’t give up so easily: despite years of neglecting Lena and cheating on Anna, he’s got his eyes set on an Alaska state senator seat, and he needs Anna and Lena to fill the roles of loving wife and daughter. Anna and Lena hole up at a shoddy Maine motel, which soon fills up with other seemingly normal folks. But Anna is always on guard, a quality amplified ever since Lena was born and Anna began hearing a voice (which recites Woody Guthrie lyrics, as well as poems, dictionaries, and textbooks). When Ned shows up and threatens Anna, she must figure out a way protect Lena and herself. Anna’s touching relationship with Lena strongly contrasts her dislike of Ned, and Millet weaves a satisfying cat and mouse game between the estranged couple. Her novel reads like top-notch psychological suspense, with an emphasis on the psychological: Anna’s paranoia is smartly given an additional, possibly supernatural dimension with the unknown voice, which becomes an inextricable part of her flight. This is a page-turner from a very talented writer, and the result is a crowd-pleaser.

Starred review from March 1, 2016
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.

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Starred review from April 1, 2016
In her suspenseful eleventh work of fiction, Millet (Mermaids in Paradise, 2014) walks a thin line between story and vision, the ordinary and the mysterious, the human and the planetary. Anna, her mesmerizing narrator, adores her baby daughter, but as soon as Lena is born, Anna is afflicted with an inexplicable and exhausting disorder: she hears a relentless stream of chatter emanating from no discernible source. Add to that her philandering, coldly ambitious husband Ned's refusal to be a father. Although Anna discovers that there are other nonpsychotic chronic voice hearers, she keeps her struggle to herself and it does abate. But life with Ned becomes intolerable, and she flees their Alaskan home with sweetly ebullient and sensitive Lena, now six. They end up in a dumpy little motel on the coast of Maine, a humble sanctuary until Ned decides to run for political office and tracks them down, insisting that they stand by his side. As the full force of his malevolent powers is revealed, Anna learns about the deep language she once channeled and the terrifying nature of what is actually at stake. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 1, 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

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016

Millet, who goes both deep and quirky with books like Magnificence, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, here goes deep and suspense-chilly. Increasingly distraught by her faithless and controlling husband, Ned, Anna goes on the run with her young daughter, ending up at a ratty hotel on the remote Maine coast. As he pursues Anna, Ned gets ever more criminal in intent.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.