Literature / Heaven (1985)

Deep in Her Heart, Heaven Dreamed.... ^note Cover of the first US edition, by Milton Charles and Lisa Falkenstern

My own name was both a blessing and a curse. I tried to make myself believe such a “spiritual” name had to be a blessing—why, who else in the whole wide world had a name like Heaven Leigh? No one, no one, whispered the little bluebird of happiness who lived now and then in my brain, singing me to sleep and telling me that everything, in the long run, would work out just fine … just fine. Trouble was, I had an old black crow roosting in my brain as well, telling me such a name tempted fate to do its worst.

— Heaven Leigh Casteel, Heaven

Heaven is a novel by V. C. Andrews first published in 1985. The first in the Casteel Series.

The Casteel family—Heaven, her half-siblings Tom, Fanny, little Keith and Our Jane, her stepmother Sarah, her pa Luke Casteel, and his parents Annie and Toby—are known as "the scum of the hills," the poorest of the poor even among the poverty-stricken West Virginia village of Winnerrow. Heaven and Tom dream of making a better life for themselves and their family by completing school and getting a college education. Heaven's fortune seems to change for the better with the arrival of newly arrived City Slicker Logan Stonewall, who becomes Heaven's first love. But when the heart of the family, Granny Casteel, dies, Luke Casteel—never the greatest provider to begin with—completely abandons the family, while stepmother Sarah, fed up with his philandering, leaves the children to fend for themselves in the depths of a harsh mountain winter. Desperate for money, Luke returns with a plan to sell his children. Heaven finds herself sold to a dangerously abusive woman named Kitty and her weak-willed husband Cal, who emotionally manipulates Heaven and ultimately takes her virginity. Heaven, bruised but undaunted, becomes even more determined to find her lost siblings, claim her Boston heritage, and make something of herself.

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Tropes

• Affectionate Nickname: When his wife dies, one of the tiny, crushing details is that there's no one else in his life who calls him Toby.
• Barefoot Poverty: The Casteel kids are perpetually on the edge of absolutely decrepit poverty. At one point, Heaven mentions she cut the toes off her shoes so she could keep wearing them after her feet grew bigger.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Granny dies on the same day Sarah's fifth baby is born... except the baby is stillborn, making it less a juxtaposition and more of a doubly-whammy crushing tragedy for the family
• Chick Magnet: Luke is widely lusted after — Leigh, Sarah, Miss Deale, and Kitty. He's handsome and he has a certain charisma, but he's very much not husband material in any more substantial sense.
  Kitty: An there I was with t'hots fer yer big, handsome pa. Oh, every girl in town wantin an waitin fer him t'get inta her pants.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: What goes down with Cal and Heaven is in some ways a lot like what happened with Paul and Cathy in Petals on the Wind. After parental abandonment, heroine finds herself in a new adoptive home in her mid teens. Her new adoptive father is into her. He grooms her after some fashion. She feels like she owes him. It gets sexual. But it's also different on several counts: Paul's in his 40s, where Cal's in his 20s. Where Paul really does materially help the Dollanganger kids in a huge way, Cal does the bare minimum to look good in contrast with Kitty. While Paul arguably grooms Cathy — namely sending her siblings away to boarding school to get her alone — Cal unambiguously grooms Heaven. While there's some stuff in Thorns that suggests her viewpoint may shift with age, Cathy mostly views her experience with Paul as a love story. Heaven is fairly clear that hers is unwanted.
• Daddy's Girl: Luke is much more affectionate towards Fanny than Heaven, the fact which Fanny revels in.
• Death by Childbirth: Leigh died giving birth to Heaven.
• Delicate and Sickly: Our Jane is weak, sickly, and frail from birth. She suffers intense pain if her stomach is empty (a problem since the kids are constantly on the brink of starvation), but the same pain also makes her vomit if she eats too much.
• Dirty Old Man: Cal Dennison takes advantage of his adopted daughter Heaven's loneliness in order to rape her. Poor Heaven is so confused by her affection for him that she briefly convinces herself that their relationship is consensual and feels guilty over it.
• Disappeared Dad: Luke (who isn't the best father when he is around) disappears for a time, rarely returning home.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Heaven describes Sarah lusting after Luke in Hot Men at Work moments.
  Why, you could watch him in the yard swinging an ax, chopping wood, and see the most complicated display of muscles all big and strong, so that Sarah, bending over a washtub, would look up and stare at him with such love and yearning in her eyes it would almost break my heart to know he never seemed to care whether or not she admired and loved him...
• Emergency Food Supply Animal: The children are left alone and starving during a blizzard and Heaven finds herself forced to consider killing one of the family's dogs. She gets as far as picking up the ax and heading out the door before she loses her nerve.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Luke is a real piece of work, but his parents love him. Part of it is that because he's their youngest, and the only child left to them. They have 5 sons incarcerated, and one son who died young due to health issues.
  Annie: [about Luke] An, chile, he really is a lovin man. A good man underneath it all.
• Evil Matriarch: Kitty is younger than most examples (being in her 30s at most) but is no less cruel to Heaven.
• Evil Redhead: Kitty is a liar, an abuser and an animal killer. She also happens to be a redhead.
• Expy: Heaven and Fanny's relationship is at times that of Sense and Sensibility's Elinor and Marianne Dashwood — the whole Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling trope, not to mention that like Marianne, Fanny is the favorite whereas Heaven isn't. Given that one of the authors Heaven is fond of is Jane Austen, it probably wasn't that unintentional.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Granny drags Heaven out of bed in the middle of the night, plays Ms. Exposition about her father's late first wife, and then is rather annoyed when Heaven doesn't get it.
  Annie: What's wrong with ya, girl, what's wrong? Ain't ya done guessed? That girl that yer pa called his angel, she was yer ma!
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Heaven often takes care of the family and the house while Fanny slacks off and runs off with boys.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Heaven and Fanny. It starts with Heaven's resentment of Fanny's loving relationship with their father, while he ignores and outright abuses Heaven. It continues as Fanny's reputation at school tars Heaven with the same brush, leaving Heaven to fight off accusations that she's as easy as her sister. Meanwhile, Fanny envies Heaven's ability to win genuine love and tries to seduce Heaven's high school sweetheart away from her.
• Good Stepmother: Sarah isn't always a perfect mother, but the fact that Heaven isn't her own daughter is a non-issue. Unlike Luke and Kitty, Sarah does not see Heaven as a nagging reminder of Leigh and the long-ago love triangle. The only times Sarah takes issue with Heaven, it's when she's mad at life and Heaven just happens to be nearby to absorb her anger. When Sarah's at the end of he rope and Abusive Parent tenancies come out, they land on all the kids equally.
  Annie: An she tried, give Sarah credit fer that. She made ya a good motha, treated ya like ya were her own. Nursed ya, loved ya.
• Grammar Nazi: Heaven nags Tom about speaking in Funetik Aksent. She wants to rise above their circumstances, but she's a broke kid so speaking like city people is the only thing she can do.
• Half-Sibling Angst: When Heaven first finds out she's not Sarah's daughter, she decides not to tell her brother Tom for fear that it would cause distance between them.
• Happily Married: Amidst a sea of dysfunctional and abusive relationships, Annie and Toby have a sweet, loving relationship. Annie urges Heaven to "make sure t'marry t'right one, like I did." Toby is absolutely gutted by his wife's death and is never the same after.
• Healthcare Motivation: Our Jane is Delicate and Sickly and the family has no money for a doctor. Even if they did, Grandpa warns against it. He and Annie once blew all their saving on healthcare for their sickly little son, who died anyways. When Our Jane is sold, the fact that she needs medical care that the Casteels can't afford is used as a reason to justify it.
  Luke: That's one of the reasons I'm doing what I am. Our Jane needs medical attention, and perhaps Keith does as well.
• Henpecked Husband: Cal barely gets better treatment than Heaven from Kitty, though he proves himself to be far less sympathetic than most examples, and even emotionally manipulates Kitty to an extent.
• Horrible Housing: The Casteels' pitiful mountain shack is described in painful detail: a one-room building made of thin wooden planks with gaps between the floorboards, there is no electricity, no running water, and no indoor toilet. Though the house is only a little bigger than a standard suburban living room, nine people share the space, with the adults sharing the only bed while the children and two elderly grandparents sleep on the floor.
• Hypocrite: Luke calling Sarah "heartless" for abandoning her children is a little much coming from someone who deserts his family for long periods of time, only occasionally stopping by to leave them some basic necessities and later even sells his children to fund treatment for his syphilis (which he got because of all the unprotected and adulterous sex he was having with prostitutes)! That's not even going into the fact that Sarah might not have run away if he'd ever supported her or helped her with the kids and the house and his parents once in a blue moon!
• Incest Subtext:
  • Heaven feels unloved by Luke, and desperately craves to be loved by him. At one point she fantasizes about reaching out and touching his cheek.
  • In contrast, Luke's favorite is Fanny, who he dotes on. Fanny's oversexed ways when she's all of 11 is Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, suggesting the possibility she was sexually abused. And Fanny does explicitly draw a connection between Pa and her boyfriends:
    Fanny: [to Heaven] Pa treats ya like yer invisible, so naturally ya kin't know how good it feels t'like boys and men.
  • Siblings Tom and Heaven both gush about how attractive the other is. Tom states that if Heaven weren't his sister, he'd marry her.
    Tom: [about Heaven's first love interest] Made me feel funny t'way he looked at ya. Sure will hate t'day when ya marry up an we're not close anymore.

It's also a Subverted Trope — when both Sarah and Luke are gone and they're alone, Promoted to Parents for their younger siblings under disastrous circumstances, worried about survival, leaning heavily on each other and on the brink of emotionally imploding, it's heavily reminiscent of Flowers in the Attic and it seems like it might go the same way that series did. Then it doesn't.

• I Was Quite the Looker: By the time of the story Annie is in her mid-50s, and prematurely aged by a hard life. But reportedly she was a real beauty in her youth.
  Once, so I had been told by those old enough to remember, Annie Brandywine had been the beauty queen of the hills.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For as self-centered and spiteful as she can be, Fanny has her moments. Notably after initially seething with envy when her two younger siblings are sold to strangers, she eventually breaks down crying on Heaven's shoulder and begs for reassurance that the little ones will be alright: "People love all little children, even ones not their own, don't they?"
• Like Father, Like Son: Sarah describes her younger self as as boy-crazy as Fanny. It didn't pan out well for her. Sarah thinks its inevitable Fanny will be the same, but urges Heaven to be different.
  Sarah: Went t'school only three years, hardly ever learned anythin. Didn't like spellin, readin, writin, didn't like nothin but t'boys. Fanny an me, no different. Couldn't keep my eyes offen boys.
• The Lost Lenore: Leigh to Luke.
  Annie: Why, he had a first wife he loved so much he near died when she did.

[[indented:18:However, the actual details of their relationship undercut this on multiple points:]]

• She was his 14-year-old child bride.
• Leigh and Luke were together for less than a full year — she was 14 and 3 days when they met, and she was still 14 when she died.
• Luke was cheating on her with Sarah. Tom is 4 months younger than Heaven, meaning that Sarah was 5 months pregnant when Leigh died.
• He always called her "Angel" rather than her name, implying he was Loving a Shadow even when she was alive.

• Madonna-Whore Complex: Subverted Trope. On two separate occasions, Fanny aggressively hits on Heaven's boyfriend Logan, and then Heaven — clearly insecure and seeking reassurance — asks Logan what he thinks of Fanny. Madonna-Whore is the obvious contrast to draw between the Casteel sisters, especially in this situation where Heaven pushing him to say that she's preferable to Fanny. But Logan refuses to criticize Fanny. Both times he simply says that Fanny is great, and Heaven is also great and she is who he wants.
  Logan: [blushes, looks uncomfortable, and speaks slowly and cautiously] I think she's going to grow up to be an exotic beauty. [...] I think of all the girls I've ever seen, and all the girls I hope to see, the one I see named Heaven Leigh is the one with the potential to be more beautiful than any other. I think this Heaven is exceptionally honest and forthright... so if you don't mind, and I hope you don't, I'd like to walk you home every day from now on.
  [later]
  Logan: Fanny's pretty and bold... but I like my girls shy, beautiful, and sweet, and if I don't manage somehow to marry Heaven, I don't want to go there, not ever.
• Major Character, Mainstream Accent: Most of the characters speak with a Funetik Aksent, except Heaven. The Watsonian reason is that she intentionally speaks as "proper" as she can because she wants to separate herself from her situation and origins.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Luke treats Heaven like crap because he blames her for Leigh's death.
• Morality Chain: Granny says Leigh made Luke want to be a better man. Although even at his "best", he was still cheating on her with Sarah.
  Annie: He was betta then, chile Heaven—even if ya don't believe it. Why, in t'days when yer angel ma were alive he'd set out fer work early each mornin, drivin his old pickup truck down t'Winnerrow where he was learnin all about carpentry an how t'build houses an such. He used t'come home full of nice talk about buildin us all a new house down in t'valley, an when he had that house, he were gonna work t'land, raise cows, pigs, an horses...
• Ms. Exposition: The opening scene of the book is Granny dragging Heaven out of bed at midnight to go to the graveyard and monologue about backstory.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon: Luke preferred his waifish first wife Leigh to his Amazonian, 6-foot-tall second wife Sarah. Yet while he's less attracted to Sarah, he still reaps the material benefits of her physical strength.
  Yeah, thought I, her robust good health must be her main attraction for Pa. He didn't seem to admire Sarah's type of beauty much, but at least she wasn't likely to die in childbirth and leave him in a pit of black despair.
• Oblivious Adoption: Heaven didn't know Sarah wasn't her biological mother until Granny told her — but she apparently was aware that she and Tom were four months apart in age.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Jane is always called Our Jane. Heaven cuddled her so much as a baby that none of the other children got a chance to hold her, causing Fanny to proclaim that the new baby belonged to all of them, not just to Heaven: "She's our Jane, not yours!"
  From then on Jane became Our Jane, and was called that until eventually all of us forgot that once upon a time our youngest, sweetest, frailest, had only one name.
• Parental Abandonment: Towards the end of the first part, the Casteel children are abandoned by both Luke and Sarah after they run off (separately) and Granny dies, with the only adult being their senile and weak grandfather.
• Parental Incest: After he's sold all the other children, Luke comes to Heaven's bed one night. He starts stroking her hair and it looks like he's about to molest her. She's a Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest for her mother, his Lost Lenore. Heaven is afraid, frozen, and pretending to be asleep. But then — because this is a tiny cabin without privacy — Grandpa speaks up, lets Luke know he's awake, and stops him. In the conversation that follows, Luke confirms that was what he was about to do.
  Luke: She's mine! And I'm well now! Born of my seed... and I'll do what I damn well like with her. She's old enough, plenty old enough. Why, her ma wasn't but a little older when she married up with me.
  Toby: I remember a night when all the world went dark fer ya, an it'll go even darker if ya touch that girl. Get her away from here, out of temptation's reach. She's no more fer ya than the other one was.
• Promotion to Parent: Heaven and Tom are the eldest of 5. Between their mostly absentee dad and overworked mom, they're often drafted as secondary parents for the little ones, Keith and Our Jane. Middle child Fanny alternates back and forth between helper and burden. When Sarah leaves, Heaven remarks, "How oddly Our Jane and Keith took the absence of Sarah, as if they'd always lived on unstable ground."
  Heaven: Together you and I will see this family through, and find ways to stay healthy.
• Rash Promise: Implied Trope. We never find out what happened with Miss Deale; she leaves town for a family emergency and never comes back. While Heaven perceives Miss Deale as comparatively well off, she's a young single woman working as a public school teacher in Appalachia — her financial means are almost certainly limited. She basically offered to be one-woman social services for an incredibly desperate family. It sure looks like after Miss Deale talked to her family about the situation, she realized she'd gotten in over her head and guilty bailed and ran.
• Really Gets Around: Fanny is routinely getting fingered in the cloakroom at 11. Her family has already written her off as a lost cause.
  Sarah: [dully] Yer sister Fanny is gonna be a whore. Ya kin't do nothin bout Fanny, Heaven. Ya jus look out fer yerself.
• Riddle for the Ages: What became of Sarah? Did she kill her self? Did Luke kill her? After finding out that she’s left Luke quite bluntly tells the kids that if he saw her again he'd shoot her. Heaven also mentions that people in the Willies have been known to just "disappear" as far removed from society as they are no one’s going to come looking for them. Did she simply succumb to the elements and pass away from natural causes? Did she make a make a new life for herself somewhere? All that’s ever told is that she left a note for Luke reading: Loved ya then, hate ya now and that’s she’s "looking for something betta". That’s about it! It’s possible that V.C had intended to address the topic but died before being able to do so.
• Sex in a Shared Room: In the hills, due to poverty, there is no privacy and virtually all sex is semi-public.
  Valley boys thought all hill girls were easy for any boy hoping to experiment with sex. As young as she was, Fanny had caught the hill spirit and its easy sexuality that came much earlier than it did in low places. Perhaps it was due to all the copulating we saw going on in our yards and in our one- or two-room shacks. There was no need for sex education in our hills; sex hit you in the face the moment you knew a man from a woman.
• Sibling Yin-Yang:
  • Heaven & Fanny: Heaven is modest, prideful, and self-sacrificing; Fanny is wanton, attention-seeking, and selfish, and irresponsible. They invariably clash.
  • Keith & Our Jane: Keith is the gentle, shy, tender-hearted little brother while Our Jane is brash, affectionate, and a little bit of a show-off. Unlike Fanny and Heaven, however, Keith and Our Jane's relationship is particularly harmonious, to the point that they're described as "heart-felt twins."
• Tragic Keepsake: Leigh's identical "portrait doll", which Heaven's grandmother gives to her at the beginning of the series. Kitty destroys it.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Sarah's fifth baby is stillborn and deformed. The pregnancy already was pushing Sarah to her breaking point, and the loss of the baby pushes her even further. Afterwards, Luke goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with syphilis. He got it at the brothel and passed it to Sarah.
• Teacher/Parent Romance: Miss Deale has a crush on her best students' father, Luke — like many women do. Once Heaven tells her that he's really not husband material and requests prostitutes, she drops it — until she speaks to Luke and he charms her again.
• Teen Pregnancy: Completely ubiquitous in the hills. Leigh and Sarah both married Luke at 14, and Annie and Toby apparently met at that age too. 16 is considered an Old Maid.
  Annie: Ya jus make sure t'marry t'right one, like I did, that's all. An wait till yer old enough t'have good sense. Say fifteen.
• Unbalanced By Rival's Kid: Kitty buys/adopts Heaven, the daughter of her once-romantic-rival Leigh. Kitty abuses Heaven, but in the mix are moments of (weirdly) treating her like a daughter, the daughter she might have had if life had gone differently.
• Uptown Girl: Leigh grew up a rich girl in Boston and she married Luke, a dirt-poor hillbilly.
  Annie: Knew she wouldn't last, right from t'first, knew that. Tor good fer t'likes of us, an t'hills, an t'hardships.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Sarah recounts one time Luke called her "Angel" during sex — while Leigh was still alive and he was cheating on her!
  Sarah: He didn't love me, I knew that. Maybe he didn't even like me. He seemed bothered every time he were with me, an even called me angel once when he was ridin me.
• Younger Than They Look: A regular theme as Heaven notes how the hills turn people old before their time, both physically and mentally. A prime example is Heaven's grandmother Annie, who is only in her 50s but looks far, far older.

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