The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, 328 pages
The Lovely Bones is the story of Susie Salmon's brutal murder. Susie narrates the novel with her own voice, pondering her brief existence and the waves left in her wake. From her heavenly purgatory, she observes her friends stagger on without her; watches her murderer disappear unnoticed; despairs as her family splinters a sliver at a time. Over time, Susie watches as her loved ones' wounds slowly mend into scars, and she realizes that she, too, must heal.
The imagery oscillates between lacy, watercolor language and a stark, penetrating vocabulary but always remains visceral. The way the story unwinds reminded me more of a play than a novel which was slightly discomfiting, mirroring Susie's unease in purgatory. While not a novel I will revisit, it was well-worth a read.
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