The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure.
The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished.
Sebold creates a heaven that's calm and comforting, a place whose residents can have whatever they enjoyed when they were alive -- and then some. But Susie isn't ready to release her hold on life just yet, and she intensely watches her family and friends as they struggle to cope with a reality in which she is no longer a part. To her great credit, Sebold has shaped one of the most loving and sympathetic fathers in contemporary literature. (less)
Mass Market Paperback, 328 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 2002)
Original TitleThe Lovely Bones
ISBN 0316166685 (ISBN13: 9780316166683)
Edition LanguageEnglish
CharactersSusie Salmon, Clarissa, Holly, Jack Salmon, Abigail Salmon...more settingUnited States
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (United States)
Pennsylvania (United States)
Literary AwardsBram Stoker Award for Best First Novel (2002), British Book Award for Best Read of the Year (2004), Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction (2003), South Carolina Book Award for Young Adult Book Award (2005), Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction (2002)
Iowa High School Book Award (2005), California Book Award Silver Medal for First Fiction (2002), Puddly Award for Fiction (2003), Lincoln Award Nominee (2005), Missouri Gateway Readers Award (2005)