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A review by meghan111
Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet
3.0
Sweet Lamb of Heaven is both a psychological suspense story with an unreliable narrator, and an exploration of the nature of language and communication and the world, and the way language steps in and replaces the world and reality with a representation, and separates people? I'm not sure I get it, but when I was reading it I felt like I got it.
The story follows a woman and her young daughter, who are in hiding from the woman's husband. They have left Alaska and made it to a small rundown motel in Maine. The woman experienced a weird period of auditory hallucinations several years ago, starting when her daughter was born. The voice she heard stopped when her daughter started to speak. What was it? Psychological, medical, or something else? It's the off season and the motel is mostly deserted.
The woman's husband is described in sociopathic terms - he was content to just cohabitate with his wife indifferently, and to let her leave him without following, but now he's decided to run for state office, and he's taken up with a bunch of conservative politicians and adopted their beliefs. Since he's charismatic and handsome, there are thoughts of a national political career, and now he wants to present an image of the perfect family man, and is willing to go to any lengths to get his wife and daughter back so everything will look perfect to voters.
I think this has low ratings on Goodreads because the description of a psychological thriller doesn't encompass the weirdness of it. I liked it.
The story follows a woman and her young daughter, who are in hiding from the woman's husband. They have left Alaska and made it to a small rundown motel in Maine. The woman experienced a weird period of auditory hallucinations several years ago, starting when her daughter was born. The voice she heard stopped when her daughter started to speak. What was it? Psychological, medical, or something else? It's the off season and the motel is mostly deserted.
The woman's husband is described in sociopathic terms - he was content to just cohabitate with his wife indifferently, and to let her leave him without following, but now he's decided to run for state office, and he's taken up with a bunch of conservative politicians and adopted their beliefs. Since he's charismatic and handsome, there are thoughts of a national political career, and now he wants to present an image of the perfect family man, and is willing to go to any lengths to get his wife and daughter back so everything will look perfect to voters.
I think this has low ratings on Goodreads because the description of a psychological thriller doesn't encompass the weirdness of it. I liked it.