-December 6th, 1973 Norristown, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia Susie takes her usual shortcut home from school through the cornfield.
-Mr. George Harvey a 36 year old man who lives alone and builds doll houses for a living, persuades her to look at an underground den he recently dug out in the corn field. Once she enters it he rapes and murders her with a knife and dismembers her body, putting her remains in a safe where he eventually dumps into a sinkhole. (Susie’s spirit flees towards her personal Heaven)
-Salmon family refuses to accept she is dead until Susie’s elbow is found by the neighbor’s dog. Police talk to Harvey, finding him odd but seeing no reason to suspect him. Jack leaves work and begins to suspect Harvey, a sentiment his surviving daughter Lindsey comes to share.
-Len Fenerman (Investigator) drops investigation
-Jack looks out the window and sees a flashlight in the cornfield. Believing it was Harvey returning to destroy the evidence, he runs out to confront him with a baseball bat. The figure is not actually Harvey but Susie’s classmate Clarissa, Susie’s best friend (they are dating). As Susie watches with her horror from Heaven; Brian beats jack with the bat breaking his knee. While Jack recovers, Abigail has an affair with the detective (Fenerman)
-Lindsey sneaks into Harvey’s house and finds a book with a diagram of the underground den, but is forced to leave when Harvey shows up unexpectedly. The police however satisfied with Harvey’s explanation do not arrest him, giving him the opportunity to flee Norris town. Later evidence is found connecting Harvey to Susie’s death as well as those of several young girls. (Susie meets other victims in heaven, sees into Harvey’s traumatic childhood and realizes that he made several unsuccessful attempts to stop killing.
-Abigail leaves jack taking a job at a winery in California, her mother (grandma Lynn) moves into the Salmon’s home to care for Buckley and Lindsey.
-Lindsey and her boyfriend Samuel Heckler, become engaged, find an old home in the woods owned by a classmates father.
-Jack has a heart attack and emergency prompts Abigail to return home
-Meanwhile Harvey returns to Norristown and notices that they are extending the school into the cornfield where he murdered Susie. He drives past the sinkhole where Susie’s body rests and Ruth and Ray are standing near.
-Ruth (Susie’s former classmate) who had felt Susie’s spirit rushes past him after she was murdered sense the women Harvey had killed and is physically overcome. Susie watches from Heaven and is also overwhelmed with emotions and feels how she and Ruth transcend their present existence and the girl who exchanges position:
Susie, her spirit now in Ruth’s body, connects with ray, which had a crush on Susie in school and made plans to go out with her a few days before the murder. Ray sense Susie’s presence, and takes advantage of the fact that Susie is briefly back with him. In Hal Heckler’s (Brother of Samuel) bike shop they find a room to make love, as Susie has longed to do after witnessing her sister and Samuel. Afterwards she must return to heaven.
-She moves on to a larger part of heaven, occasionally watching down on earthbound events. Her sister gives birth to a daughter Abigail Susanne.
-When stalking another girl in New Hampshire, Harvey is hit by a huge icicle and falls down a snow-covered slope, dying from the wound.
-At the end of the novel Susie’s charm the Norristown couple that knows nothing of its significance finds bracelet, and Susie closes the story by wishing the reader, “A long and happy life”.
-Takes place over an eight-year period (after Susie’s death)
Mini Prologue:
-Involves Susie’s memory of her father and the penguin snow globe. (Implies perfect world).
-Novel becomes a search for perfection in the midst of overwhelming grief
Snapshots:
Used to emphasize the idea that the pictures Susie had taken are snapshots of many lives and memories they retain
-Also helps analyze why the characters make the choices they do.
Point of View:
-The Lovely Bones, point of view, is the perspective from which the story is told, plays a critical role in the narrative. Generally, a novel’s point of view consists of one of four traditional stances: first person, second person, third person and third person omniscient.
Depiction of Heaven:
- Because Susie’s character is narrating the story from her own personal heaven, there are some questions over the depiction of the afterlife. Some readers who took a Christian perspective faulted Susie’s heaven for being utterly devoted to an apparent religious aspect.
“It was a very God-free heaven, with no suggestion that anyone has been judged, or found wanting,”
Sebold's description of Susie's heaven: (Heaven is different for everyone)
Sebold intended the heaven to be simplistic in design: “To me the idea of heaven would give you certain pleasures, certain joys – but it is important to have an intellectual understanding of why you want those things. It is also about discovering and being able to come to the conclusions that elude your life.
Ex. Susie wants duplex – larger things like being able to understand why her mother was always slightly distant from her.
Ms. Sebold - “Book is not intended to be religious, but if people want to take things and interpret them, then I can’t do anything about that. It is a book that shows faith and hope and giant universal themes in it, but it is not meant to be”.
(This is the way you should view the afterlife)
Plot
-December 6th, 1973 Norristown, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia Susie takes her usual shortcut home from school through the cornfield.
-Mr. George Harvey a 36 year old man who lives alone and builds doll houses for a living, persuades her to look at an underground den he recently dug out in the corn field. Once she enters it he rapes and murders her with a knife and dismembers her body, putting her remains in a safe where he eventually dumps into a sinkhole. (Susie’s spirit flees towards her personal Heaven)
-Salmon family refuses to accept she is dead until Susie’s elbow is found by the neighbor’s dog. Police talk to Harvey, finding him odd but seeing no reason to suspect him. Jack leaves work and begins to suspect Harvey, a sentiment his surviving daughter Lindsey comes to share.
-Len Fenerman (Investigator) drops investigation
-Jack looks out the window and sees a flashlight in the cornfield. Believing it was Harvey returning to destroy the evidence, he runs out to confront him with a baseball bat. The figure is not actually Harvey but Susie’s classmate Clarissa, Susie’s best friend (they are dating). As Susie watches with her horror from Heaven; Brian beats jack with the bat breaking his knee. While Jack recovers, Abigail has an affair with the detective (Fenerman)
-Lindsey sneaks into Harvey’s house and finds a book with a diagram of the underground den, but is forced to leave when Harvey shows up unexpectedly. The police however satisfied with Harvey’s explanation do not arrest him, giving him the opportunity to flee Norris town. Later evidence is found connecting Harvey to Susie’s death as well as those of several young girls. (Susie meets other victims in heaven, sees into Harvey’s traumatic childhood and realizes that he made several unsuccessful attempts to stop killing.
-Abigail leaves jack taking a job at a winery in California, her mother (grandma Lynn) moves into the Salmon’s home to care for Buckley and Lindsey.
-Lindsey and her boyfriend Samuel Heckler, become engaged, find an old home in the woods owned by a classmates father.
-Jack has a heart attack and emergency prompts Abigail to return home
-Meanwhile Harvey returns to Norristown and notices that they are extending the school into the cornfield where he murdered Susie. He drives past the sinkhole where Susie’s body rests and Ruth and Ray are standing near.
-Ruth (Susie’s former classmate) who had felt Susie’s spirit rushes past him after she was murdered sense the women Harvey had killed and is physically overcome. Susie watches from Heaven and is also overwhelmed with emotions and feels how she and Ruth transcend their present existence and the girl who exchanges position:
Susie, her spirit now in Ruth’s body, connects with ray, which had a crush on Susie in school and made plans to go out with her a few days before the murder. Ray sense Susie’s presence, and takes advantage of the fact that Susie is briefly back with him. In Hal Heckler’s (Brother of Samuel) bike shop they find a room to make love, as Susie has longed to do after witnessing her sister and Samuel. Afterwards she must return to heaven.
-She moves on to a larger part of heaven, occasionally watching down on earthbound events. Her sister gives birth to a daughter Abigail Susanne.
-When stalking another girl in New Hampshire, Harvey is hit by a huge icicle and falls down a snow-covered slope, dying from the wound.
-At the end of the novel Susie’s charm the Norristown couple that knows nothing of its significance finds bracelet, and Susie closes the story by wishing the reader, “A long and happy life”.
Plot Structure:
-Takes place over an eight-year period (after Susie’s death)
Mini Prologue:
-Involves Susie’s memory of her father and the penguin snow globe. (Implies perfect world).
-Novel becomes a search for perfection in the midst of overwhelming grief
Snapshots:
Used to emphasize the idea that the pictures Susie had taken are snapshots of many lives and memories they retain
-Also helps analyze why the characters make the choices they do.
Point of View:
-The Lovely Bones, point of view, is the perspective from which the story is told, plays a critical role in the narrative. Generally, a novel’s point of view consists of one of four traditional stances: first person, second person, third person and third person omniscient.
Depiction of Heaven:
- Because Susie’s character is narrating the story from her own personal heaven, there are some questions over the depiction of the afterlife. Some readers who took a Christian perspective faulted Susie’s heaven for being utterly devoted to an apparent religious aspect.
“It was a very God-free heaven, with no suggestion that anyone has been judged, or found wanting,”
Sebold's description of Susie's heaven: (Heaven is different for everyone)
Sebold intended the heaven to be simplistic in design: “To me the idea of heaven would give you certain pleasures, certain joys – but it is important to have an intellectual understanding of why you want those things. It is also about discovering and being able to come to the conclusions that elude your life.
Ex. Susie wants duplex – larger things like being able to understand why her mother was always slightly distant from her.
Ms. Sebold - “Book is not intended to be religious, but if people want to take things and interpret them, then I can’t do anything about that. It is a book that shows faith and hope and giant universal themes in it, but it is not meant to be”.
(This is the way you should view the afterlife)