Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Sebold, Alice - Doris L. Eder (essay date 2004)

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Doris L. Eder (essay date 2004)

SOURCE: Eder, Doris L. “The Saving Powers of Memory and Imagination in Alice Sebold's Lucky and The Lovely Bones.” In Contemporary Literary Criticism 193, edited by Tom Burns and Jeffrey W. Hunter, Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2004.

[In the following essay, specially commissioned for Contemporary Literary Criticism, Eder offers a comparison of The Lovely Bones with Sebold's memoir, Lucky, discussing the novel's characterization, structure, and imaginative perspective.]

Alice Sebold's two works published to date resemble each other in significant ways but also differ in important respects. The sardonically titled Lucky (1999),¹ a memoir about the author's rape at the age of eighteen, how the rapist was brought to trial and sentenced, and how she and her family survived the experience, was written before her best-selling debut novel, The...

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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