The Lovely Bones: Appreciation

     Yesterday, I finished The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold.  The book is about how George Harvey rapes and murders Susie Salmon.  He has been murdering and raping girls ranging from ages eight to about fifty throughout his life.  He has never been caught, and when he does this to Susie Salmon, she is just another girl on his list.  Sadly, he still never gets caught, partially because after years of outsmarting the police about his various murders, he is a master.  He pretends to be a sad man whose wife died many years ago (he killed her,) who is all alone, and when they search his house, they repeatedly find nothing due to his expertise at hiding the evidence.  The whole town mostly thinks that although he is a little weird, he's far from being a murderer.  For the majority of the first half of the book, Susie's father, Jack Salmon knows that it was Mr. Harvey.  He has since the first time he saw Mr. Harvey after the murder.  Sadly no one believes Jack until Mr. Harvey is long gone, and unfortunately, Mr. Harvey never is caught.

     When I first read the blurb of this book, I expected it to not be that great, and to be incredibly sad.  Once I started reading though, I realized that the book is incredibly well written, and the author makes what could have been a very boring story, into a great one.  I loved the book.  After reading the book, I looked through the "special features" type things it contained, and when I read the about the author and other stuff I realized that Alice Sebold, the author, had actually had an experience similar to her character Susie's, at around the same time, except for the fact that it occurred while the author was attending college.  Her first book was a memoir about the horrific experience, and what happened was she was raped, and they caught the guy afterwards.  The man, like George Harvey, had killed and raped many girls before.  The author was told that she was lucky she had not been killed as some of the other victims of this man had been.  I think think that is very sad, and that she definitely got the idea for The Lovely Bones from her own experience.  Maybe it was even meant to represent what she thinks could have happened to her if she had been killed.

    I think that the book is actually more about what happens on earth after Susie is gone.  In the end of the book, she mentions the lovely bones that grew after her death.  The connections and relationships that were formed and changed by her death, and what grew around her death.  Obviously, things change in a huge way for everyone who knew her.  The whole time, Susie is up in Heaven, and she has the ability to watch and listen to everything that goes on on earth.  She sees the different affects her death had.  Obviously, her family is affected.  Her mother goes and tries to find comfort in secretly being with Len Fenerman, the policeman appointed to solve Susie's murder.  Eventually, her mother just leaves for California because she can't endure what is happening at home after Susie dies.  This really hurts everyone else in the family, especially Susie's father.  After Susie's mom left, Jack really tried to talk to his kids about it (Buckley, the youngest, and Lindsey, slightly younger than Susie,) but unlike him, they were slightly more closed off about the issue at first.  Jack also carries the burden, for a while, of being 100 percent sure that George Harvey is guilty, when the police don't even suspect him.  Few people believe Jack.  Jack is most hurt in my opinion by Susie's mother leaving.  I thought it was interesting that Susie's mom thought herself the stronger one on their relationship for her ability to leave their house, but later she realizes what I think is definitely the truth, that Jack is the stronger one for having the ability to stay.  At the time of Lindsey's death, Buckley is too young to even get the concept of murder.  But when he's older, he has a great relationship with his dad, but he hasn't seen his mother is many, many years and he is rightfully mad at her when she returns at the end of the book.  From heaven, Susie describes Buckley's heart as freezing up, and melting again and I think this is a very accurate comparison.  His mother leaving has seriously hurt him.  Lindsey, on the other hand, is definitely old enough to fully realize Susie's death right from the start.  She hates always being indentified as the dead girl's sister, and is even afraid to look in the mirror at herself because she knows that in her eyes, she like everyone else sees Susie's eyes.  Lindsey has great support from two other characters.  One of them is Samuel, who she starts dating at age thirteen or fourteen and eventually marries.  He's a great person and I think that to some extent, he actually understands Susie's death and how it affected Lindsey.  He had known her pretty much during it.  Another character, who I really liked, was Susie's grandmother; her mom's mom.  She acts as a mother for Lindsey in a way that Lindsey's real mother was not able to after Susie's death at home, or in California.  She teaches Lindsey how to put on make-up, and is the first to realize that Lindsey has a boyfriend.  Their grandmother seems to realize far before the rest of them that they can't dwell on Susie's death forever and she really helps the whole family a lot with just that.  (She moves in right after Susie's death.) 

     There are also two character's greatly affected by Susie's death that are not in her family, and don't really even know them well.  Ray Singh loved Susie and was her first kiss.  Without her death, they probably would have gotten married.  The other character is Ruth.  Ruth also loved Susie, and always felt connected to her in some way.  They never really knew each other, but both realized afterwards their connection.  When Susie dies, Ray and Ruth really find comfort in each other.  They were the two people who loved Susie, but were not family members.  They eventually become great friends.  Their friendship develops from being only about Susie, to being a real friendship where they discuss and think about many things besides Susie; although they both always are aware of how much they miss her.  I think that this is one of the relationships that grew from Susie's death, from the lovely bones.  They would have both known Susie, but maybe not each other quite as well.  Another one of these relationships is the one that forms between Susie's whole family and Susie's grandmother.  I don't think they would have gotten to know each other as well as they do if Susie had not died.  Susie's grandmother has the ability (maybe because she is new to living with the family and not completely familiar with their ways of coping with their issues,) to see all of the problems, and have a greater understanding of their family.  She really connects with Jack, Susie's mom, Lindsey, and Buckley each and forms a special relationship with each individual. 

     In conclusion, I thought The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, was a fantastic book that includes many interesting relationships.  I also think that's it's an interesting idea to write about how the death of someone affects others long-term, but from the dead person's point of view.  What also makes it interesting is how since Susie can see everything from her heaven, her point of view also includes all kinds of opinions and thoughts of others.