Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven

by McElmurray, Karen Salyer

• ISBN13: 9781892514240
• ISBN10: 1892514249
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Hill Street Pr

Summary

Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven is a book about desire: desire for God, desire for love, desire for the past, and desire for redemption. Ultimately, the choice life or death. Karen McElmurray's brilliant debut novel, set in Mining Hollow in eastern Kentucky, we meet Ruth Blue Wallen; her husband, Earl Wallen; and their son, Andrew. Ruth longs to know God, the only escape she knows in a world that has shown her spiritual, emotional, and sensual defeat. Earl Warren yearns for the music-making of his past, now forgone in order to make a living as a coal miner. Andrew wants the love of his boyhood friend, Henry, and their mutual passion is ultimately fulfilled, an expression of love considered sinful in eastern Kentucky. And, with the divinely inspired yet tormenting help of his mother, in a world of deeply and tragically conflicting desires, Andrew must choose to live or die -- he must choose an uncertain love or nothing at all.

Table of Contents

PART I
Andrew: August 16, 1983	3	(23)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	26	(2)
Ruth: 1926--1936	28	(32)
Earl: Before the Fact	60	(4)
Ruth: 1941	64	(20)
Earl: 1941	84	(8)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	92	(1)
Ruth: 1948	93	(5)
Earl: 1946--1948	98	(29)
Ruth: 1948	127	(3)
Earl: 1948	130	(14)
Ruth: Summer, 1948	144	(3)
Earl: Summer, 1948	147	(6)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	153	(2)
Ruth: 1948--1953	155	(12)
Earl: Spring, 1949	167	(3)
Ruth: Autumn, 1952--1953	170	(13)
PART II
Ruth: August 16, 1983	183	(2)
Andrew: 1962	185	(13)
Earl: 1962	198	(12)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	210	(2)
Ruth: 1963--1966	212	(11)
Earl: Summer, 1969	223	(6)
Andrew: Summer, 1969	229	(5)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	234	(3)
Ruth: 1969--1976	237	(8)
Earl: 1969--1976	245	(6)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	251	(2)
Andrew: Summer, 1980	253	(8)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	261	(7)
Andrew: August 16, 1983	268	(3)
Ruth: August 16, 1983	271	(7)
Andrew: August 16, 1983	278	(2)
Earl: August 16, 1983	280	(5)
Ruth	285	(2)
Andrew	287