Judging by the alluring shades of ocean blue and the delicate charm bracelet on the cover, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold seems like it would be a standard chick-lit murder mystery; entertaining, suspenseful, overly-sentimental, even addicting.
But the identity of the murderer is revealed on page 2 of the novel. This is the first clue that The Lovely Bones has something quite different to offer readers. Another clue is that the story is told in first-person from the perspective of the victim, who watches, from her vantage point in heaven, the murder investigation and the effect it has on her family.
The novel begins: “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” In the same quirky, matter-of-fact, teenaged way she introduces herself, Susie unflinchingly explains to the reader the story of her brutal rape and murder (Alice Sebold herself was raped as a college freshman and wrote about her experience in the memoir, Lucky). It is Susie’s voice that captivates and causes the reader to buy into the basic premise of the novel. She is young, and honest, and good.
Susie’s heaven is the realization of all of her wishes in one place. It is a high school with a swing set and fashion magazines for textbooks. She and her roommate live in a duplex (she disliked her family's split-level house). There is an ice cream shop down the road that carries seasonal flavors, like peppermint, all year long. But it is not enough: “I could not have what I wanted most: Mr. Harvey dead and me living. Heaven wasn’t perfect. But I came to believe that if I watched closely, and desired, I might change the lives of those I loved on Earth.”
So, Susie looks to Earth. She tries to point her family in the direction of her killer and she also tries to experience the life she was deprived of through her family members – to satisfy the desires she feels in Heaven for what can only be experienced on Earth. She leaves clues. She watches as her family copes with the extreme grief and anger. But she also begins to live through her family members – she watches her older sister, Lindsey, and her younger brother, Buckley, grow up. Growing up is the experience Susie longs for most. She experiences what Lindsey feels as she graduates high school, falls in love, has sex for the first time, and gets engaged.
In many ways, The Lovely Bones is also a portrait of a suburban, 1970’s family. Through Susie’s omniscient point of view, the reader witnesses the conflict that develops between Susie’s mother, Abigail, and her father, Jack. Grief, stress, and cultural changes all leave their mark on the Salmon family over the novel’s span.
Near the conclusion of the novel, Susie summarizes: “As I watched my family…I thought about how their lives trailed backward and forward from my death…These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone.”
The film adaptation of The Lovely Bones is set to debut in theaters on December 11, 2009. Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan will be playing the challenging role of Susie Salmon. Based on the trailer, it seems that Director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) has captured the fragile, ethereal quality of the novel which emerges despite its gruesome plot.
Overall, The Lovely Bones is an original, thoughtful narrative which explores the nature of family, grieving, and growing up, all through an imaginative portrayal of heaven.
The Lovely Bones
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The Lovely Bones Movie Official Site
