Recently Read! The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

"I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it." -Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones

I recently finished reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, an incredibly unique book in which the teenage narrator, who describes somewhat graphically her brutal murder in the first pages, tells the story of the aftermath of her death, her personal struggle to accept her new existence, her family and friends' attempts to cope with the tragedy, and her killer's efforts to evade the community's suspicion.  Published in 2002 by Back Bay Books, The Lovely Bones is at different turns heartfelt, humorous, and rather creepy, and is sure to appeal to anyone interested in horror or suspense.

Walking home from school on a cold afternoon, Susie Salmon is approached in a barren cornfield near her home by her family's neighbor, a man she doesn't know well but whom she's seen often enough.  Comfortable in her small town and unsuspecting of the man, Susie follows him into an underground he's constructed and which he seems excited to show someone.  Her untimely end sends her spirit shooting off toward a heaven that is unlike what anyone had described--a place comfortable enough, where simply wanting something makes it appear, but without the resolution and happiness Susie would have imagined heaven bringing.  Able to look down upon, but not--at least yet--interact with the world below her, she watches her sister grow into the woman Susie should have been, her mother and father grow distant, and the boy she liked grow closer to the girl she may have touched as her soul screamed out of the world.

As a soul freed from her body, however, she is also able to see human lives as wholes, from their beginnings to their current place in time, and she learns the horrors her killer had inflicted on other victims.  Unable to reveal the truth of his life to others, Susie hopes someone else can discover the man's true identity and past before yet another--perhaps someone close to her--becomes his victim.

My favorite aspect of The Lovely Bones has to be the unique concept, which some have referred to as a sub-genre called autothanatographical fiction.  If autobiography is the self (auto) writing (graph) about his or her life (bio), then autothanatography is the self writing about his or her own death (thanatos).  This gives the narrator a unique perspective on his or her life that is very different from that of other narrators, who are limited to telling the story of their lives up to the point at which they're writing.  Not only does Susie focus on the events unfolding on Earth after hear death, but she spends considerable time analyzing her own life--what it was, what it meant, and what it could have been.  Several other books, including one I have on my Someday List, Shade by Neil Jordan, can be placed in this same sub-genre, and I have a sneaking suspicion the category may become one of my go-to places for new reads.

Alice Sebold, author

 

I picked up The Lovely Bones not only because it fit into the horror genre on which I'd chosen to focus on this year, but because many of my students had read it previously and had always recommended it.  I have a habit of placing such recommendations in my to-read pile and never quite getting to them because there's so much else I "have to read first," but I'm glad I finally picked it up and hope you might enjoy it as well.  The story is influenced by Sebold's own horrific experience at the age of 18, when she herself was assaulted as a college freshman.  I have not read Sebold's memoir of the tragedy, Lucky, but am told it is an even more gripping tale whose focus, rather than on the suspense created in The Lovely Bones, is on the author's struggle to reclaim her life.  I'd be interested in seeing how the two compared.

If you have read any of Sebold's works or anything similar you enjoyed, why not leave a comment and let me know what you thought? I'd love to hear about it.

Happy reading.