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Lovely Bones, TheBy: Alice Sebold
Category: FICTION
Guide Created By: Lorrie Gorg
Discussion Leader(s): Lorrie Gorg
Click here to visit the discussion
Guide DescriptionSusie, a precocious teenage girl, relates the awful events of her death, and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. This is a novel about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.
Background Information
Critical ReviewsChicago Tribune, 6/30/02 “...delicately insightful...sustains a mood that lingers after you've put it down...”
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, 7/7/02 “...a savagely beautiful story...the Salmon family's tragedy is...palpable and multifaceted...a strange and compelling novel...”
Questions
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. In Susie's Heaven, she is surrounded by things that bring her peace. What would your Heaven be like? Did you notice that in Susie's inward, personal version of the hereafter there is no God or larger being that presides? Why is that, do you suppose?
2. Why does Ruth become Susie's main connection to Earth? Was it accidental that Susie touched Ruth on her way up to Heaven, or was Ruth actually chosen to be Susie's emotional conduit?
3.. Susie's rape ends in murder and changes her family and friends forever. Rape is one of the most alienating experiences imaginable In the book, alienation is transferred, in a sense, to Susie's parents and siblings. How do they each experience loneliness and solitude after Susie's death? ..... (Question taken from "The Books")
4. "Pushing on the inbetween" is how Susie describes her efforts to connect with those she has left behind on Earth. Have you ever felt as though someone was trying to communicate with you from "the inbetween"?( One of our posters, was it Anna, stated that she had had an occurrence like that at one time) Have you?
5. Does Buckley really see Susie, or does he make up a version of his sister as a way of understanding, and not being too emotionally damaged by, her death? How do you explain tragedy to a child? Do you think Susie's parents do a good job of helping Buckley comprehend the loss of his sister?
6. Why does the author include details about Mr. Harvey's childhood and his memories of his mother? By giving him a human side, does Sebold get us closer to understanding his motivation? Sebold explained in an interview about the novel that murderers "are not animals but men," and that is what makes them so frightening. Do you agree?
7. Susie observes that "The living deserve attention, too." She watches her sister, Lindsay, being neglected as those around her focus all their attention on grieving for Susie. Do you feel that the father is becoming obsessed with his grief?
8. Can Abigail's choice to commit adultery be justified?
9. In The Lovely Bones, adult relationships (Abigail and Jack, Ray's parents) are dysfunctional and troubled, whereas the young relationships (Lindsay and Samuel, Ray and Susie, Ray and Ruth) all seem to have depth, maturity, and potential. What is the author saying about young love? About the trials and tribulations of married life?
10. Ray and Susie' s final physical experience (via Ruth's body) seems to act almost as an exorcism that sweeps away, if only temporarily, Susie's memory of her rape. What is the significance of this act for Susie, and do you think it serves to counterbalance the violent act that ended Susie's life?
11. Alice Sebold seems to be saying that out of tragedy comes healing. Susie's family fractures and comes back together, a town learns to find strength in each other. Do you agree that good can come of great trauma?
 (All Questions (except # 3)have been taken from Barnes & Noble Reading Group Guide)
Quotes by our Participants"This Hauntingly beautiful story, Transcends time and space,almost Ethereal in content,Unsettling ones mind with its Evocative imagery." .... Annofavonlea
"The book brings some healthy insight into the role of death in our lives..... 'That in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe.'" .... from Hats
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