the Lovely Bones

This book, a bestselling novel by Alice Sebold, was, in hindsight, a fairly compelling read but not overly memorable or thought-provoking. I ploughed through it during the eighteen-ish hour coach journey back to Sheffield from Holland, selecting this as I thought it would be a nice easy read, which it mostly was, but for the solid punch of the first chapter, which I should have expected given that the central premise is that its narrator, Susie Salmon, has been murdered by a paedophile called Mr Harvey.

   Its opening scene then throws a lot at you quite heavily - the depiction of sexual threat and violence is gut-wrenchingly brutal, as are its echoes throughout. The rest of the novel then follows two plot threads: Susie's thoughts, reflections and memories, while she's looking down from her vantage point in heaven; and the continuing developments in the lives of her parents, siblings, schoolfriends, and murderer. The second of these dominates the bulk of the content, which I'm grateful for, as the first, though a nice concept for providing a stand for the narrator, I feel went too far in the posthumous world it tried to build, and risked toppling over the line between sentimental fiction and hashed-out fantasy. Sebold has woven an excellent cast of characters in the main story though; Susie's father and mother, sister Lindsey, brother Buckley, Ray and Ruana Singh, Sam and Hal Heckler, Ruth Connors, Len Fenerman; the people are believable and different, and as we follow them throughout the years after Susie's murder, it is the present of their lives that dominates, not the tragedy at the novel's beginning, and though even when at the close they have all fully moved past grief Susie is not forgotten - but the focus on the living is special, I think, as the life of the novel is held there. The emotional threads binding these characters are described extremely well, and the depth of sadness and relief in places is palpable. Even Mr Harvey is not sketched merely as a classic two-bit villain, but has his youth fleshed out enough for us to begin to see how someone might possibly become so irreparably immorally twisted - his deceptive encounters with the police also reflect a much more well-rounded side to evil men than I was expecting. One negative comment would be that some scenes (I'm thinking of the whole Susie's-adventures-in-heaven thread, but also in particular Mr Harvey's final appearance and a frankly weird encounter between Susie, Ray and Ruth toward the end) simply feel a bit silly; if the book was more determinedly supernatural in tone then fair enough, but it doesn't seem to make much effort to let these elements direct or influence the path of the story in any way, and just seem like an add-on that can justify what are otherwise blatant mushy cop-outs plot-wise. If this seems very specifically harsh, read chapter 22 (pfft, spoilers) and tell me it doesn't come across as daft.

   I'd recommend this book if you like prolonged emotional journeys filled with sparks of hope. The characters are well-drawn, the scenes and feelings elegantly crafted, the plot not particularly interesting and the themes not particularly deep but the people at the core of the novel make it somewhat compelling. An easy (although at more times upsetting than it is uplifting) read, with a rewarding finish despite what I felt were one or two major floppy aspects to the story.