The Lovely Bones

A Novel by Alice Sebold

Publisher: Little, Brown
Pub Date: 2002
Pages: 3e?
ISBN: 9780316666343

Awards American Booksellers Association Book of the Year

Award for Adult Fiction in 2003 and Bram Stoker Award for
First Novel in 2002. Number 1 on NY Times Bestseller list
This book has so/d over a million copies.

Summary
Susie Salmon, from her vantage point in heaven, watches her family down on earth
and relates both the story of her murder and of her family's response to catastrophe.
The murder is grisly enough - lured into a hiding spot below ground by a neighbor
named Mr. Harvey, Susie is molested and then killed, the parts of her body hidden.
Watching her family cope with this most powerful of tragedies, Susie sees them
dissolve before her eyes, her father and mother growing quiet and noncommunicative, her sister Lindsey and brother Buckley both trying to understand what
has happened. Lindsey comes to find some solace in new relationship with Samuel
Heckler, and Susie watches her younger sister experience her first kiss. Susie's
mother, Abigail, growing dissatisfied with life, turns to a passionless affair with Len
Fenerman, the lead detective on Susie's case.
As Susie watches her family suffer, she also sees two of her friends, Ray and Ruth,
come together through her death and forge a strong friendship of their own. Ray was
the source of Susie's only kiss while she was alive, and she watches him with interest,
always wondering what it might have been like to go further.
The years pass, driving the Salmon family further apart, to the point that Abigail moves
out and heads to California to work for a vineyard. In the midst of this pain she is
witnessing, Susie is granted the chance to return to earth for an afternoon,
mysteriously exchanging bodies with Ruth, and she spends the time in bed with Ray,
gaining at last some sexual experience.
Susie's fractured family slowly grows back together, tentatively at first, but making real
progress. As Susie begins to pull her attention away from the family she has left
behind and focus it on higher realms of her heaven, she has hope that the wounds
caused by her death will bring her family at last closer to one another. She grows
convinced that the price of the healing she witnesses on Earth was her own life.

Editorial Reviews
Booklist
Few novels, debut or othenryise, are as masterful or as compelling as Sebold's. Her
heroine, 14-year-old Suzy Salmon, is murdered in the first chapter, on her way home
from school. Suzy narrates the story from heaven, viewing the devastating effects of
her murder on her family. Each member reacts differently: her gentle father grieves
quietly, intent on finding her killer; her aloof mother retreats from the family; her tough
younger sister, Lindsey, keeps everything inside, except for the occasional moment
when she tentatively opens up to her boyfriend; and her four-year-old brother, Bucky,
longs for his older sister and can't comprehend her absence. Suzy also watches Ray
Singh, the boy who kissed her for the first time, who represents all of her lost hopes,
and Ruth Connors, who became obsessed with death and murder after Suzy's
passing. Sebold's beautiful novel shows how a tragedy can tear a family apart, and
bring them back together again. She challenges us to re-imagine happy endings, as
she brings the novel to a conclusion that is unfalteringly magnificent.

Publishers Weekly
Sebold has taken a grim, media-exploited subject and fashioned from it a story that is
both tragic and full of light and grace. The novel begins swiftly. The description of the
crime is chilling, but never vulgar, and Sebold maintains this delicate balance between
homely and horrid as she depicts the progress of grief for Susie's family and friends. At
the same time, Sebold brings to life an entire suburban community, from the
mortician's son to the handsome biker dropout who quietly helps investigate Susie's
murder. Sebold's most dazzling stroke is to narrate the story from Susie's heaven (a
place where wishing is having), providing the warmth of a first-person narration and
the freedom of an omniscient one.

Library Journal
Sebold, whose previous book, Lucky, told of her own rape and the subsequent trial of
her attacker, here offers a powerful first novel, narrated by Susie Salmon, in heaven.
Brutally raped and murdered by a deceptively mild-mannered neighbor, Susie begins
with a compelling description of her death. During the next ten years, she watches
over her family and friends as they struggle to cope with her murder. She observes
their disintegrating lives with compassion and occasionally attempts, sometimes
successfully, to communicate her love to them. Although the lives of all who knew her
well are shaped by her tragic death, eventually her family and friends survive their pain
and grief. In Sebold's heaven, Susie continues to grow emotionally.

Kirkus
An extraordinary, almost-successful debut that treats sensational material with literary
grace, narrated from heaven by the victim of a serial killer and pedophile.
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was
murdered on December 6, 1973." These opening lines in Susie's thoroughly engaging
voice show the same unblinking and straightfonruard charm that characterized Sebold's
acclaimed memoir, Lucky (2002)-the true story of the author's surviving a brutal rape
when she was a college freshman. Now, the fictional Susie recounts her own rape
and-less lucky than the author-murder in a Pennsylvania suburb at the hands of a
neighbor. Susie's voice is in exquisite control when describing the intensity and

complexity of her family's grief, her longing for Ray Singh-the first and only boy to
kiss her-and the effect her death has on Ruth, the lonely outsider whose body her
soul happened to brush while rising up to a personal, whimsical, yet utterly convincing
heaven. Rapt delight in the story begins to fade, though, as the narrative moves farther
away in time from Susie's death and grows occasionally forced or superficial as Susie
watches what happens over the next decade to everyone she knew on earth, including
her killer. By the time Susie's soul enters Ruth's body long enough to make love to
Ray, the author's ability to convince the reader has flagged. The closing third forces its
way toward affirmative closure, and even the language changes tone: "The events that
my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some
unpredictable time in the future."
Works beautifully for so long as Susie simply tells the truth, then falters when the
author goes for bigger truths about Love and Life. Still, mostly mesmerizing and
deserving of the attention it's sure to receive.

A Movie Version of The Lovely Bones is in production

(October 2009 release date)

Tagline-Ihe regrets and unstilled hopes of one girl and one family.
Peter Jackson director and screenwriter
Mark Wahlberg ... Jack Salmon
RachelWeisz ... Abigail Salmon
Susan Sarandon ,.. Grandma Lynn
Stanley Tucci as George Harvey and Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmons

Biography

of Alice Sebold

Alice Sebold, born September 6, 1963 in Madison,

Wisconsin, came late to a successfulwriting career. lt
wasn't until her late thirties that Sebold finally saw her
lifelong dreams of authorship pay off in a big way through
the publication of her memoir Lucky (1999) and then the
appearance of The Lovely Bones (2002) three years later.
Both projects stem from the most traumatic incident in
Sebold's life -- her violent rape when a freshman at
Syracuse University in 1981. When she reported the attack to police, they informed
her that another rape had recently occurred in the same spot, and that the victim had
been killed and then dismembered. Sebold was "lucky" -- which provided the title for
her first book.

After graduating from Syracuse in 1984, Sebold ended up in New York, pursuing a
career in writing that seemed to be always eluding her. She taught, worked as a
waitress -- and developed an alcohol and heroin habit. The hoped-for writing success
never materialized and after ten years in New York, Sebold headed out to California,
where she worked as the caretaker of an artist's colony and continued to work on her

own writing. She has been chosen by the Village Voice as a Writer on the Verge and
has written for the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. She lives in California
with her husband, Glen David Gold.

Bibliography
Lucky (memoir, 2002; originally published in 1999)
The Lovely Bones (novel, 2002)
The Almost Moon (novel, 2007)

Interview with Powells.com (2003)

Dave: You had started to write The Lovely Bones when you stopped entirely to write
Lucky instead, right?

Alice Sebold: Right. Though I did take notes for Lovely Bones - infrequently at best,

would say - while I was working on Lucky.

As weird as this sounds, I think that after writing the first chapter of Lovely Bones, in
which Susie is raped and killed, there was some urging on Susie's part that I get my
own business out of the way before writing further into her story. When I say "on
Susie's part" I mean: the demands of her wanting to tell her story and using me to do
so meant that I had to unload my story someplace else. lt wasn't going to fit into the
book I wanted to write for her.

So I went ahead and wrote Lucky. But whereas in Loyely Bones the rape and murder
scene was the first thing I wrote, in Lucky it was the last; the first chapter in Lucky is
the last part I wrote.
I definitely feel that Lucky was part of the process of writing Lovely Bones.I think it
exists on its own, but I don't think I'd have written it if not for the demands of writing the
novel.

Dave: lt's interesting to hear that because Lucky reads as if it's compulsively told. lt
doesn't feel like a book that inadvertently came into being. How long had it been
between the rape and the time you began to write the book?

Sebold: I think fifteen years by the time I started drafting Lucky.

Dave: How did you begin to understand that The Lovely Bones would tell the story of
Susie's family after the murder?

Sebold: I think I knew it was going to be about her family, and it was going to be about
Ruth, within the first chapter. When Susie presented the first fifteen pages, she let on
not only that she was speaking from heaven and that she had been killed by Mr.
4

Harvey, but also her father, mother, and little sister were all in that first chapter. Even if
it just contained a line, not a full character, the chapter evoked enough of a start to
those characters.

But I also wrote a lot that isn't in the book and isn't even referenced in the book. That's
the way I write: I discover where I'm going just by writing, which means that I end up
writing way more than ever ends up in the final book.
Dave: Looking at the book now, what surprises you?

Sebold: There are a couple lines that I can't remember having written. Or I remember
having written a much-elongated version and now it's been cut to three words and two
dashes, something like that. But I'm one of those people that would change a
thousand things now.
Dave: What I still can't get over is that Susie somehow becomes a completely real
character within a wholly unreal, or at least unprecedented, context. She's dead, and
yet she's still a young girl dealing with very real young girl problems. You talk about a
lot of thrown-out pages....l would assume there were a lot of missteps along the way to
creating her world.

Sebold: Everything from horrible versions of heaven that didn't make the grade to long
segments about some of the minor characters that ended up being too long for the
narrative to bear.
Whether anybody likes the book is one thing, and whether I like the book is another,
but I like Susie. I felt compelled enough by her character to draft and draft until I found
her story.

Sebold: When people say, "l enjoyed Lucky," and hesitate, my response is, "Yes,
thank you." lt's a book. lt's meant to be read. Even if it's about something horrible,
should be written in such a way that you enjoy it as a reading experience.

it

Dave: In the book, you're a young woman who's trying to deal with her rape, and
repeatedly you encounter people who don't know how to approach you. lt's really
honest and straightforward about those interactions. There are parts when I was
reading and thinking, She really needs to get a hold of herself. But of course the other
side of my brain was telling me, There's a reason why she can't.
It's carried off very well; you come across as an entirely sane person who has
experienced rage and any number of emotions that aren't necessarily considered
healthy things a person normally wants to admit to.

Sebold: Well, I wrote the book for people who were not familiar with rape and have
had no experience of it. lt's funny because Barnes & Noble shelved it under Addiction
and Recovery, and I heard from some rape victims that they were mad about the book
because it really doesn't tell you how to recover. The thing that I find interesting about
that is the assumption that because I wrote a book about my rape I should nurture and
help you recover from yours.

Discussion Questions
1) Susie is killed just as she was beginning to grow up. ("1 desired to know what I had
not known on Earth. lwanted to be allowed to grow up" (p. 19). How does she
continue to connect to life on earth? To her family, friends and Mr. Harvey?

2) Susie's heaven does not have a moral or religious prescription. How does the
author conceive of heaven in this book? What role does it play in illuminating themes
ofthe book?
3) Why does Mr. Harvey pull the Pennsylvania keystone charm off of Susie's bracelet
and put it in his pocket? What is the significance of the charm in the story and as a
literary symbol?

4) Discuss how each member of the Salmon family deals with his or her grief. Why is it
so difficult for the family to grieve together? How does each member experience
loneliness and solitude after Susie's death?
5) Discuss whether Abigail's need to leave home is really related to Susie's death or if
it reflects other issues in her life. ls Abigail's choice to leave her family justified?
6) Susie's heaven seems to have different stages, and climbing to the next stage of
heaven requires her to remove herself from what happens on Earth. What is this
process like for Susie?
7) Alice Sebold seems to be saying that out of tragedy comes healing. Susie's family
fractures and comes back together. Do you agree that good can come of great
traumb?
B) Explain the title of the novel. Discuss the effectiveness of waiting until the end of the
novel to reveal the meaning of the title.

9) In Susie's Heaven, she is surrounded by things that bring her peace. What would
your Heaven be like? ls it surprising that in Susie's inward, personal version of the
hereafter there is no God or larger being that presides?
10) Why does Ruth become Susie's main connection to Earth? Was it accidental that
Susie touched Ruth on her way up to Heaven, or was Ruth actually chosen to be
Susie's emotional conduit?
1) Rape is one of the most alienating experiences imaginable. Susie's rape ends in
murder and changes her family and friends forever. Alienation is transferred, in a
sense, to Susie's parents and siblings. How do they each experience loneliness and
solitude after Susie's death?
1

12) Why does the author include details about Mr. Harvey's childhood and his
memories of his mother? By giving him a human side, does Sebold get us closer to
understanding his motivation? Sebold explained in an interview about the novel that

murderers "are not animals but men," and that is what makes them so frightening. Do
you agree?
13. Discuss the way in which guilt manifests itself in the various characters - Jack,
Abigail, Lindsay, Mr. Harvey, Len Fenerman.
14. "Pushing on the inbetween" is how Susie describes her efforts to connect with
those she has left behind on Earth. Have you ever felt as though someone was trying
to communicate with you from "the inbetween"?

15. Does Buckley really see Susie, or does he make up a version of his sister as a
way of understanding, and not being too emotionally damaged by, her death? How do
you explain tragedy to a child? Do you think Susie's parents do a good job of helping
Buckley comprehend the loss of his sister?
16. Susie is killed just as she was beginning to see her mother and father as real
people, not just as parents. Watching her parents' relationship change in the wake of
her death, she begins to understand how they react to the world and to each other.
How does this newfound understanding affect Susie?
17. Can Abigail's choice to leave her family be justified?
18. Why does Abigail leave her dead daughter's photo outside the Chicago Airport on
her way back to her family?

19. Susie observes that "The living deserve attention, too." She watches her sister,
Lindsay, being neglected as those around her focus all their attention on grieving for
Susie. Jack refuses to allow Buckley to use Susie's clothes in his garden. When is it
time to let go?

20. Susie's Heaven seems to have different stages, and climbing to the next stage of
Heaven requires her to remove herself from what happens on Earth. What is this
process like for Susie?

21.ln The Lovely Bones, adult relationships (Abigail and Jack, Ray's parents) are
dysfunctional and troubled, whereas the young relationships (Lindsay and Samuel,
Ray and Susie, Ray and Ruth) all seem to have depth, maturity, and potential. What is
the author saying about young love? About the trials and tribulations of married life?

22.ls Jack Salmon allowing himself to be swallowed up by his grief? ls there a point
where he should have let go? How does his grief process affect his family? ls there
something admirable about holding on so tightly to Susie's memory and not denying
his profound sadness?
23. Ray and Susie's final physical experience (via Ruth's body) seems to act almost as
an exorcism that sweeps away, if only temporarily, Susie's memory of her rape. What
is the significance of this act for Susie, and does it serve to counterbalance the violent
act that ended Susie's life?

online library database

Discussion Questions and Gomments from Novelist

Whydoesastorysetinheavenhaveso|itt|ere|igiouscontent?
susie manages to avoid
one of the striking aspects of the book is the way that
all the while narrating the
anything remotely tfreotogifat or religious, while
discussing
"her healven'" The lack of any coherent or
story from -- not "hEaven" actually, b"ut
has happened to Susie is
defining religious system that might explain what-exactly
ifre story. God or gods are rarely' if ever'
conspicuous by itr'u"ty
particurar interest in what happens
"Or"n."irot
mentioned and no on" in the book evinces any
watching the earth)'
after death (even-susie, who spends all her time

is.made clear through several brief

That the salmon family is not religiously inclined
W.hat.is more surprising' though' are the
comments, and is not particutarty suiprising.
to do with religion' There are no
fairly common hints that heaven-itseli has nothing
"intuk" counselor'" And as Susie
angels, for instance -- insteao tnere is Frrnny, "'i
Day, my family would have been
says on her first Christmas in heaven, "On Christmas
ignored in my. heaven' some
more comfortable in heaven. christmas was largely

peopledressedallinwhiteandpretendedtheyweresnowflakes'butotherthanthat'
nothing" (P 66)
a mysterious place, even to those
This fits with the book,s conception of heaven as
the dead. susie constantly attempts
who inhabit it. certain answers are Jenied even to
hgw everything works' she asks
to make sense of her surroundings,-to understand
dead?" I asked' "where do we go?"
Franny some of her questions. "what about the
She wouldn't answer me. (P' 145)'

that exist in pranes above her

Graduaily it becomes crear to her that there are heavens
the events of life and death and
own, that some higher intelligence is orchestrating
choreographed from
earth. "We came t-o reatize h-ow these deaths seemed
we began to suspect that there was a
somewhere far away. Not our heaven. And so
p6." more all-encompassing than where we were" (p' 154

What does Susie learn in her heaven?

of where she is or what she
When Susie arrives in her heaven, she has little idea
of heaven is supposed to be' "l did
ought to do. sne is not sure yet what the business
she says' "l thought' if this were
begin to wonder what the word heaven meant,"
grandparents lived' where my father's
heaven, truly heaven, it would be where my
with me. I would feel only joy
father, my favorite of them all, would lift me uip and dance
(p. 120)'
and have no memory, no cornfield and no grave"

tells her' but that

And susie can have that, as her intake counselor Franny
instead of
at a'price. "lf t;; stop asking *hy you were killed
forgetfutner,
wondering what
"o*",
stop invesiigating tire vacuum tefiby your loss' stop
someone etse,
tan be free' simply put, you have
everyone left on ilrl1 is te6tingl' Frunny says, "you
to give uP on Earth" (P. 120)'
the earthly life she has left
The basic lesson that Susie learns is how to give up on
she is hurting her family and
behind, and to understand that this does not mean

friends. Instead, she is freeing them to go on with their own lives. Her observation of
them in some way keeps them focused on the tragedies of the past and not on the
future. As Franny tells her, "When the dead are done with the living, the living can go
on to other things" (p. 145).
Susie has trouble accepting these words; she spends most of the book watching her
family fall apart and then slowly knit itself back together. Only at the end of the novel
can she even begin to pose the right question: "When was it all right to let go not only
of the dead but of the living -- to learn to accept?" (p. 318). She comes finallyto that
acceptance, but it proves as difficult for her to look away from the past as it does for
family -- but in the end, the Salmons all begin to move on, with halting steps, away
from the horror of Susie's murder and into a new future.

What happens to Susie's parents to drive them so far apart?

From her vantage point in her heaven, Susie chronicles for us the steady detachment
and division that forms between her mother and father, but traces its ultimate causes
to problems that were present before her death.
It looks at first as though each is retreating into separate worlds in the aftermath of
their daughter's murder. As Susie puts it, "ln those first two months my mother and
father moved in opposite directions from each other. One stayed in, the other went out.
My father fell asleep in his den in the green chair, and when he woke he crept carefully
into the bedroom and slid into bed. lf my mother had most of the sheets he would lie
without them, his body curled up tight, ready to spring at a moment's notice, ready for
anything" (p. 87).
But the distance between her parents is only exacerbated, not caused, by the pain of
Susie's murder. Susie mentions several times a photograph she once took of her
mother, early in the morning, before anyone else was around, in which her mother
looks dreamy-eyed out the door at the world beyond, and how that expression fell
away from her face when she sensed another person's presence in the room. lt is that
memory that ultimately leads Susie to understand her mother's dreams for a wider life
in a bigger world, and why the presence of the detective Len proves so exciting.
"When she realized she was pregnant the third time, she sealed the more mysterious
mother off. Bottled up for years behind that wall, that needy part of her had grown, not
shrunk, and in Len, the greed to get out, to smash, destroy, rescind, overtook her. Her
body led, and in its wake would be the pieces left to her" (p. 152).

Abigail's role as mother had taken over everything else she once used to be and to do,
and this has left her feeling vaguely disappointed with her husband, their marriage,
and her life. Susie, as the first of the children, initially blames herself. "As her firstborn,
I thought it was me who took away all those dreams of what she had wanted to be" (p.
14e).

But instead, Susie gradually sees in her mother the basic conflict of aging: how to
move on gracefully to a new phase in life. Abigail still harbors fantasies of traveling, of
being young and carefree, of doing what she wishes, and cannot understand how she
has ended up with a husband, a family, a suburban lifestyle. Her affair with Len and
her decision to leave the family for California and a new, bohemian lifestyle are her

attempts to recapture a piece of her life that seems to be fading for good. In her return
home to the family at the book's end, she has already begun to come to terms with her
progression through life, and can realize that a life with her family is surely not the
worst fate that could have befallen her.

Why does Ruth acquire such a prominence in the story?

Ruth comes to play a major role in the story even though she and Susie barely know
each other in life. lt is only through Susie's death -- when her spirit brushes Ruth -- that
Ruth develops her fascination with Susie and with other murdered women. Susie
describes it this way. "On my way out of Earth, I touched a girl named Ruth. She went
to my school but we'd never been close. She was standing in my path that night when
my soul shrieked out of Earth. I could not help but graze her" (p. 36).
A connection develops between them, one that will ultimately prove essential to the
end of the novel. As Susie watched her and Ray become friends, "l grew to love Ruth
on those mornings, feeling in some way we could never explain on our opposite sides
of the Inbetween, we were born to keep each other company. Odd girls who had found
each other in the strangest way -- in the shiver she had felt when I passed." (p. 79).
This fleeting connection between them alters Ruth's life, sets her on a path that will
ultimately cause her to wander New York City, pausing at each alleyway to wonder if a
woman has ever been murdered there and to record her ghostly impressions in her
journal. Her fascination with murdered women, with their fates, and with Susie all lead
to her passionate desire to know something of the life beyond life, to taste heaven.
This contact between Susie and Ruth also leads Ruth to Ray. lt is through their
friendship that Susie ultimately finds her chance to return to earth for a few hours.
Switching bodies with Ruth is not a thing that Susie is able to control, nor does she
fully understand how or why it happens. But Ruth is the only logical choice, for in their
switch each girl gets to experience - if only for a moment -- what she most desires,
and it for this reason that Ruth becomes so important to the overall narrative. She
affords Susie another chance with Ray Singh, a chance that ultimately enables Susie
to begin removing her gaze from her earthly family and to focus it on the heaven
around and above her.

Why is sexuality so important to Susie, even after death?

Susie returns repeatedly to images of sexuality that she remembers or witnesses: her
one kiss with Ray Singh, Lindsey's first kiss with Samuel Heckler, her molestation by
her killer. That final image seems incongruous with the first two, which it is, but it does
help us to understand Susie's focus on sexuality, a focus so strong that she ultimately
inhabits Ruth's body in order to have time with Ray for her first consensual sexual
encounter.
The images of Susie being molested and then killed underground are the images that
open the book. She spends most of her time in heaven observing her family back on
earth, attempting to make sense of their lives being lived without her as well as the
meaning of her own life and death. In attempting to understand and overcome what
happened to her back on earth, Susie's focus on romance (both the fading one in her
10

parents' relationship and the budding one between Lindsey and Samuel) can be seen
as her way of dealing with the powerful negative consequences of her molestation.
She wants, sometimes desperately, to find positive examples of sexuality that are
unlike her own brief and violent experience.
Her focus most naturally returns to Ray, with whom she shared her only kiss on earth.
She remembers it once this way: "That week Ray would kiss me by my locker. lt didn't
happen up on the scaffold when he'd wanted it to. Our only kiss was like an accident -a beautiful gasoline rainbow" (p. 76). She dwells on this memory and what it might
have led up to for so long and with such power that it finally leads her to "fall to earth."

The only time she returns to earth, she inhabits Ruth's body and has her first positive
experience of sex with Ray Singh. Through that encounter, she can in part redeem her
own molestation by Mr. Harvey; she has something positive and gentle with which to
oppose that earlier, uglier memory. Her observation of Lindsey and Samuel gives her
another set of positive associations for romance and sexuality, exemplifying a
relationship based on tenderness and mutual affection.

Although her return to earth may seem strange, within the logic of the story it makes
some sense, as it helps Susie experience the two things Mr. Harvey so violently ripped
away from her: life and a positive experience of sex.
What are the "Lovely Bones" of the novel's title?
The story opens with Susie's murder and Mr. Harvey's attempts to hide her remains -she is cut up, her bones hidden in a safe, and thrown into a tremendous sinkhole.
Throughout the story, occasional clues appear, often arriving from other states,
leading us as readers to believe that the "lovely bones" that the title promises will
eventually be Susie's, brought to light once more. And when Ray and Ruth, driven by a
mysterious impulse, both journey out to see the sinkhole, we are led to expect that
somehow they will come upon the safe that houses Susie's remains.
But her bones are never discovered -- the "lovely bones" of the title are instead the
web of connections that have grown up around Susie's absence. The horror of her
death has led to the creation of some beautiful relationships -- such as those between
Ruth and Ray, Lindsey and Samuel -- and the ultimate mending of her family. As
Susie watches lives unfold back on earth, she learns to see "how one thing -- my
death -- connected these images to a single source. No once could have predicted
how my loss would change small moments on Earth. But I held onto those moments,
hoarded them. None of them were lost as long as I was there watching" (p. 231).
The connections that grow up among the lives she has left behind -- these are her
"lovely bones." Susie only uses the phrase once, near the very end of the book, where
she summarize the lessons she has learned from all of her watching.
The vital change in her family's life occurs near the end of the book, when her father
returns home from the hospital and the entire family is present. "When my father's car
pulled into the drive, I was beginning to wonder if this had been what I'd been waiting
for, for my family to come home, not to me anymore but to one another with me gone"
(p. 316). The growing bonds among her family members give Susie enough strength
11

to quit watching them, to let them go and realize that they will be all right without her,
and so she can turn her attention to her new life in heaven.

Why is it not important that Mr. Harvey be caught?

The Salmon family -- especially Susie's sister and father -- spend much of their time in
the months after her murder searching for the killer. In Lindsey's case, this even
involves breaking into his house one afternoon to search for incriminating evidence.
Along with the personal investigation, we also have the police investigation, which
makes occasional headway in the book, discovering items such as Susie's keystone
charm and returning them to her family.
But for all the searching that occurs, most of it even focused on the right person, Mr.
Harvey is never apprehended. Susie's family never receives the justice that they hope
for and the police investigation is never completed. When considering why Sebold
gives us all of this material relating to the search for Susie's killer -- including short
scenes that follow Mr. Harvey after he has fled town -- but then refuses to let him be
caught, the book's theme needs to be kept in mind. The point of Susie's tragedy is not
that terrible things happen and then they are made right (Susie's remains found, Mr.
Harvey convicted), but rather that horrible things happen without good explanations
and without justice. But even out of these terrible things there can come a beauty and
a grace that is more powerful than sorrow and hate.

To have Mr. Harvey caught would be to make Susie's story -- in some way -- turn out
the "right way." Justice would be served. But this happier outcome would not
necessarily be true to life, and is anyway only tangential to the points that Sebold is
making in the book. Even without the sense of closure that Mr. Harvey's arrest would
provide, the Salmon family can still grow through tragedy.
Of course, in the end Mr. Harvey does die, an ignominious death behind a rest stop,
so in this sense Sebold has it both ways. The family never learns of his death and so
must learn their lessons without that knowledge, but we as readers get to watch the
bad guy receive his comeuppance.

Further Reading:
Banks, Russell
Berg, Elizabeth
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Enger, Leif
Konecky, Edith
McEwan, lan
McGhee, Alison
Oates, Joyce Carol
Russo, Richard
Sebold. Alice

The Sweet Hereafter

Durable Goods
Crime and Punishment
Peace Like a River
Allegra Maud Goldman
Atonement
Shadow Baby
We Were the Mulvaneys
Empire Falls

Lucky

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