Lullabies for Little Criminals
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | Heather O'neill |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | A novel |
| Publisher | Harper Perennial |
| Honors | |
| At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby’s gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls—a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby’s spirit, she will ultimately realize the power of salvation rests in her hands alone. | |
Lullabies for Little Criminals is the heartbreaking and wholly original debut novel by This American Life contributor Heather O’Neill, about a young girl fighting to preserve her bruised innocence on the feral streets of a big city.
Baby, all of thirteen years old, is lost in the gangly, coltish moment between childhood and the strange pulls and temptations of the adult world. Her mother is dead; her father, Jules, is scarcely more than a child himself, and always on the lookout for his next score. Baby knows that ‘chocolate milk’ is Jules’ slang for heroin, and sees a lot more of that in her house than the real article. But she takes vivid delight in the scrappy bits of happiness and beauty that find their way to her, and moves through the threat of the streets as if she’s been choreographed in a dance.
Soon, though, a hazard emerges that is bigger than even her hard–won survival skills can handle. Alphonse, the local pimp, has his eye on her for his new girl; and he wants her body and soul –– what the johns don’t take he covets for himself. At the same time, a tender and naively passionate friendship unfolds with a boy from her class at school, who has no notion of the dark claims on her –– which even her father, lost on the nod, cannot totally ignore. Jules consigns her to a stint in juvie hall, and for the moment this perceived betrayal preserves Baby from terrible harm –– but after that, her salvation has to be her own invention.
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
A down-and-dirty debut novel, a harrowing recital of a young life, a funny, innocent, streetwise telling of life on the street—all of the above describe Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals. In an autobiographical essay included in the book, O’Neill, whose own childhood parallels rather closely the life of Baby, her book’s heroine, says, “In Lullabies, I wanted to capture what I remembered of the drunken babbling of unfortunate twelve-year-olds: their illusions; their ludicrously bad choices, their lack of morality and utter disbelief in cause and effect.” She accomplishes all of the above and more.
Baby is born to two 15-year-olds, and her mother dies a year later. Her father, Jules, is not a bad man, but he is a perpetual kid, without money, education, purpose, moral compass, or any idea of what being a parent is about or how ordinary people live. When the novel begins, Baby is almost 12, and her 12th year turns out to be a very big one indeed. She smokes pot, shoots heroin, loses her virginity, and lives in foster homes, a state detention home, and one seedy, squalid apartment after another. She comes under the spell of Alphonse, a neighborhood pimp, and is so hungry for male affection that she mistakes what he offers for love and care.
Baby and her equally neglected and abused friends long for adulthood, whatever that means. They look up to sophisticated druggies and efficient thieves. Baby says, “I don’t know why I was upset about not being an adult. It was right around the corner. Becoming a child again is what is impossible. That’s what you have a legitimate reason to be upset over.” Baby is matter-of-fact about her predicament. She knows that other kids have lives very different from hers but says, “It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer to you.” This poignant story is beautifully written, sprinkled throughout with humor, pathos, unbelievable privation, and, in the end, the hope of redemption. At least we know that Heather O’Neill grew up to be a writer of no mean accomplishment. —Valerie Ryan
Barnes and Noble
Baby and Jules. Jules and Baby. They’re a father and his 12-year-old daughter whose unconventional lifestyle is rarely more than two steps ahead of Social Services. Left motherless at birth, Baby takes better care of Jules than he does of her, preoccupied as he is with an escalating drug habit. But getting by is all Baby has ever known, moving from apartment to apartment, living in foster homes while Jules does time in rehab, nicking candy bars from the grocery and spinning tales to impress her classmates. Tempted too soon by the privileges and freedom of an adult world, Baby trades in her childish ways, and learns to rely on her genius for survival and her growing beauty. But when she captures the attention of the charismatic Alphonse, his sweet words and string of sad, lost little girls introduce Baby to a life that Jules is powerless to save her from and that test her mettle to survive.
A harrowing tale without a trace of melodrama or self-pity, Lullabies for Little Criminals is filled with the tenderness and pain of adolescence. Baby may remind some readers of Kaye Gibbons’s 11-year-old Ellen Foster, and her young voice—heartbreaking, raw, and direct—is uniquely resonant and a triumph. O’Neill, a contributor to NPR’s This American Life, firmly establishes herself on the page with this debut novel. (Holiday 2006 Selection)
