Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Sebold, Alice - Andrea Dworkin (review date 30 June 2003)

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Andrea Dworkin (review date 30 June 2003)

SOURCE: Dworkin, Andrea. “A Good Rape.” New Statesman 132, no. 4644 (30 June 2003): 51-2.

[In the following review, Dworkin presents a detailed synopsis of the memoir Lucky, preferring it to Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones.]

Alice Sebold is the author of the bestselling novel The Lovely Bones, in which a teenager who has been raped, murdered and dismembered narrates the story, from heaven, of those events and the aftermath. The narration is a chilling juxtaposition of innocence against evil. Why do people read it? Can a book be truthful about the rape and murder of girls and still be a popular phenomenon?

The novel is often accused of being sentimental, which some feel accounts for its success. It does have several happy endings: the serial killer falls down a ravine in freezing ice and snow and dies; the adulterous mother who has left the home, unable to bear the burden...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Alice Sebold and Ann Darby (interview date 17 June 2002)
   2. Paula L. Woods (review date 7 July 2002)
   3. Ron Charles (review date 25 July 2002)
   4. Charlotte Abbott (essay date 29 July 2002)
   5. Lisa Allardice (review date 19 August 2002)
   6. Sarah Churchwell (review date 23 August 2002)
   7. Virginia Quarterly Review (review date autumn 2002)
   8. Stephen H. Webb (review date 9-22 October 2002)
   9. Rebecca Mead (review date 17 October 2002)
   10. Gordon Phinn (review date November 2002)
   11. Daniel Mendelsohn (essay date 16 January 2003)
   12. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 20 June 2003)
   13. Claudia FitzHerbert (review date 21 June 2003)
   14. Andrea Dworkin (review date 30 June 2003)
   15. Doris L. Eder (essay date 2004)
   16. Kenneth Womack (essay date 2004)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Alice Sebold