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Sleep Toward Heaven

by Amanda Eyre Ward

November 2007

Synopsis

title "Amanda Eyre Ward's debut novel is an intimate portrait of three women whose lives collide during a brutal Texas summer."

"In Gatestown, Texas, twenty-nine-year-old Karen Lowens awaits her execution with a host of convicted serial killers on death row. In Manhattan, Dr. Franny Wren, also twenty-nine, tends to a young cancer patient, and resists the urge to run from her fiancé and her carefully crafted life. In Austin, Texas, brassy Celia Mills, a once-vibrant librarian, mourns her murdered husband."

"Over the course of the summer, fate pushes these eerily recognizable women together, culminating in a revelation of the possibility of faith, the responsibility of friendship, and the value of life. Sleep Toward Heaven is a luminous story of murder and desire, solitude and grace -- a rare literary page-turner where redemption seems perpetually within arm's reach." (Publisher)

Reviews

"The lives of three women orbit a murder and the pending execution—in a debut effort that straddles literary and crime fiction. Chapters alternate among the three. Karen is the murderer, stuck on death row, 62 days from her date with death, but serving as a kind of counselor to other women who find themselves in Texas’s penal system. When a new inmate, Satan Killer (a.k.a. Sharleen), arrives, "Karen thinks about things to say to Sharleen. She wants to tell her that she is not alone in knowing what it feels like to tear through human life." Franny is a doctor on the spiritual outs, and as soon as she gets out of her engagement, she’ll be headed to new work at the prison, where she’ll encounter Karen. Celia, meanwhile, the wife of the man Karen murdered, is pondering how to deal with her loss ("Although my mother disagrees, I have moved forward with my life. For example, I’ve bought a new bikini"), and her grief takes the form of promiscuity. Winding up in a brief fling with a twentysomething wannabe novelist, she imagines she will make a great short story someday. Newcomer Ward hasn’t yet quite figured out how to blend the faceless prose of crime writing with the more literary impulse that she seems capable of. But the three women feel too much alike: Celia not quite sad enough, Franny remarkably composed as she realigns her life, and Karen, who will die either of HIV or a lethal injection—whichever comes first—is so normal it’s hard to imagine her shooting cashiers in the back and watching them die. Ward wants to write about lives changing but is stuck in a plot that must buckle when Celia finally, days before the execution, goes to see Karen and ask how her husband died.How could the peace they achieve not feel contrived? A worthy first effort from a writer still developing." (Kirkus Reviews)
"How do we forgive the unforgivable? First-time novelist Ward explores this question with a delicate blend of compassion, humor and realism. Three women whose lives converge during a stifling Texas summer have followed completely different paths in their 29 years. The horrendous childhood of death row inmate Karen Lowens led her to prostitution, drug abuse and finally murder. She now longs to find peace before her scheduled execution in the Gatestown, Tex., prison. She resists friendship, as "any connection, any tiny strand, will bind her to this world" from which she so wants to be freed. Franny Wren, Karen's prison doctor, is just as afraid to befriend Karen, knowing that she can't save her. She is fragile, having recently run out on her fiance and her life in New York City after the death of one of her cancer patients, a young girl, left her guilt-ridden and emotionally drained. Franny has returned to her childhood home in Gatestown, where she was raised by an uncle after her parents were killed by a drunk driver. Meanwhile, in Austin, Celia Mills, the only first-person narrator of the three, is the widow of Karen's final victim. She has been sleepwalking through life since the murder, and her stabs at joining the living are touching and funny ("Although my mother disagrees, I have moved forward with my life. For example, I've bought a new bikini"). Ward's celebration of human resilience never becomes preachy, sentimental or politically heavy-handed. Her spare but psychologically rich portraits are utterly convincing. (Mar. 19) Forecast: Ward's portrait of life on death row and the questions she raises about the death penalty are especially timely; expect healthy sales. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information." (Publisher's Weekly)

Book Club Rating and Comments

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Other Books by Amanda Eyre Ward

'Forgive Me'
'How to Be Lost'