The Lovely Bones
has an interesting premise — a 14-year-old girl who was
murdered by a neighbor looks from heaven on her loved ones back on
earth — but it doesn't follow through with new insights about
heaven or earth.
This could even have been an interesting mystery novel if the clues
that Susie Salmon's father, Jack, found had been followed up and the
murderer apprehended. The detective drops the ball, and the story of
the killer just peters out, leaving you wondering why the police
investigation and the sleuthing by Jack and Susie's sister Lindsey were
given so many pages.
Perhaps Sebold is saying that, unlike in mystery novels, everything
isn't neatly wrapped up in real life. But this story doesn't feel so
real. The narrator doesn't sound like a 14-year-old. The grief of
family members isn't palpable. Ruth, a former classmate, has a
preternatural ability to sense the dead Susie even though they weren't
friends in life. When Susie is given the brief opportunity to inhabit
Ruth's body, she uses it to have sex with a former crush but not to
tell him who killed her and where her body is. Susie's mother runs away
from her grief but then is welcomed back as if she's been away for a
few days instead of years. The ending is a too-neat moving on by family
members.
Susie's heaven is disappointing, too. Even if you forgive Sebold for
vagueness about the particulars, what kind of a heaven is it when you
are all wrapped up in those you left and their pain?
.
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