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The Lovely Bones | Introduction

When author Alice Sebold was a freshman at Syracuse University, she was brutally raped. She wrote about this harrowing experience in her non-fiction memoir Lucky, and she drew upon this horrific experience again as the starting point for her first novel, The Lovely Bones.

The Lovely Bones is the story of Susie Salmon, who is raped and killed when she is only fourteen. However, rather than write this story as a thriller, which had been done many times before, Sebold tells it from Susie's perspective: the dead victim tells her own story. This shifts the focus from suspense to the emotional impact of such a crime. The Lovely Bones evokes in minute detail just how much was taken from this young girl, and how much she missed out on, but it also traces in exquisite, painful detail how this violent and undeserved crimes distorts her family. Her mother leaves her father for eight years. Her father tries to catch Susie's killer, and is crippled in the process. Susie's sister and brother are driven into emotional retreat, becoming very distant from their previously idyllic family.

Given that Sebold lived through the initial experience that the main character suffers, it isn't really surprising that The Lovely Bones captures her suffering so well. What is impressive is how Sebold combines well-chosen detail and exquisite prose to paint heartrending portraits of an entire suffering community, and how well she humanizes the serial rapist and killer Mr. Harvey, but without ever excusing his terrible crimes.

In 2004, The Lovely Bones won the Richard and Judy Best Read Award (given by the British Book Awards), and a movie version is currently in production (as of January 2005).

The Lovely Bones Summary

Chapters 1-2

Fourteen-year-old Susie tells her story from heaven, where she exists after having been raped, murdered, and dismembered in a frozen cornfield by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. She introduces her family—her father, Jack; mother, Abigail; sister, Lindsey; and brother, Buckley—the boy she likes, Ray Singh; the lead detective on her case, Len Fenerman; and her heavenly intake counselor, Franny. Susie begins to acclimate to her heaven and learns that it reflects her desires and wishes, and that everyone's heaven is slightly different. With Franny's help, she begins to understand what it means to be dead. She still wants to grow up and live, but now, since she cannot experience actual living, she must be content to watch what happens on earth.

Three days after Susie disappears, Detective Fenerman tells Jack the police have found a body part. Susie's parents have difficulty dealing with the horror of their daughter's disappearance—neither wants to believe that Susie is dead. In addition to the body part, the police find various objects belonging to Susie that indicate she was killed in the cornfield: a copy of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, her biology notes, a love letter from Ray Singh, and her winter hat. This last item convinces the Salmons of Susie's death.

Ray Singh becomes the police's first suspect. Susie's family does not believe that Ray killed Susie; nevertheless, the police believe that his absence from school on the day she died, his dark skin, and his rather arrogant attitude make him a viable suspect. Despite his alibi, Ray, already considered an outsider by his classmates because he and his family came from India, becomes more socially isolated at school.

Chapters 3-5

Susie continues watching family and friends, and as they go about the business of living, she narrates both recent and past events. When Susie left earth, her spirit inadvertently brushed against Ruth Connors, a girl from school. This contact initiates a connection between the girls. By following Ruth, Susie remains engaged in the daily routines of adolescence.

Through conversations with Franny, Susie realizes her homesickness for her mother. She recalls the candid picture she once took of her mother that captured Abigail as a woman, rather than as Mrs. Salmon, wife and mother. When the film was developed, she did not share this picture of her mother; instead, she hid it in her room. Susie watches now as Lindsey enters Susie's room and finds that picture of their mother. Like Susie, Lindsey gets a glimpse of Abigail as Abigail.

Up to this point, Susie has only watched the living, but now she materializes, revealing herself to her father. She sees Jack smash his collection of ships in a bottle that he and Susie built together. As her father stands amid the wreckage, evidence of his rage and grief, Susie reveals herself in the myriad shards.

Susie recounts what happened after Harvey killed her. He dismantles the underground hole in the cornfield, carries Susie's body parts to his house in a cloth sack, and showers to remove her blood from his body. Then he places Susie's dismembered body in an old safe and drops it in a nearby sinkhole. Returning from the sinkhole, he finds Susie's silver charm bracelet in his pocket. He drives to an industrial park under construction, removes one charm—the Pennsylvania keystone from her father—and throws the bracelet into the construction site. Susie discovers she was not his first victim.

Weeks later, Jack stops to watch Harvey build a ceremonial tent in his yard. Jack volunteers to help with the project, and the two men—Susie's murderer and her father—work side by side. Susie tries to send her father a message, but fails. However, Jack does feel Susie's presence and begins to wonder about Harvey. He believes this strange man knows something about Susie's murder.

Each of the Salmons develops ways to cope with his or her individual grief and fear. Jack involves himself in finding Susie's killer; Abigail isolates herself from her family and turns to Detective Fenerman for answers; Buckley asks direct questions regarding Susie's absence; and Lindsey struggles with both her desire to claim an identity separate from Susie, the dead daughter and sister, and her tremendous grief at the loss of that sibling.

Detective Fenerman talks with Harvey after Jack suggests he might be involved. Harvey expresses his sympathies regarding Susie's murder and explains to the detective that Jack helped him build a ceremonial bridal tent in honor of his deceased wife. Although Detective Fenerman considers Harvey odd, he seems satisfied with Harvey's explanations. Jack, however, is not.

On Christmas Day, Samuel Heckler stops by the Salmon house with a gift for Lindsey. While Samuel and Lindsey talk in the kitchen and later exchange their first kiss, Buckley plays Monopoly with his father. During the game, Jack explains to his young son that Susie is never coming home.

Chapters 6-10

Susie recalls the first time she and Ray Singh "almost" kissed. Two weeks before she died, Susie got to school late and Ray, who cut his first period class, was sitting atop a scaffold in the auditorium. Susie joined him, and as they talked, she realized that Ray was going to kiss her. However, voices from below interrupted them. Susie and Ray watched as the principal and the art teacher chastised Ruth for her charcoal drawings of "real women." When the adults left, Susie and Ray climbed down, and Susie asked to see Ruth's sketchbook. Impressed by the drawings, Susie changed her perspective of Ruth, seeing her as special rather than strange. The girls do not become friends, but after her murder, Susie grows to love the girl she touched as she left... » Complete The Lovely Bones Summary