Our narrator Susie Salmon is already in heaven. Murdered by a neighbor when she was only fourteen years old, Susie tells us what it is like to be in her new place. "When I first entered heaven I thought everyone saw what I saw. That in everyone's heaven there were soccer goalposts in the distance and lumbering women throwing shot put and javelin. That all the buildings were like suburban northeast high schools built in the 1960s." Later she learns that heaven is whatever you truly want it to be and, sometimes, other people's version of heaven intercepts with your own.
The images and feelings elicited in this novel are ones that speak true and are hard to forget, and although the novel's tone is unsentimental, the events in the story are no less emotional for it. I am not normally one to get weepy, thus reading in public is not a big deal. I was somewhere in the middle of this novel while waiting in a doctor's office and I got so caught up reading that I hadn't realized forty minutes had passed or that I was the only one left in the waiting room. (Did they call my name and I not hear it?) I was glad, though, that there was no one to see me sniff away my happy tears.
There are a lot of scenes that stand out in my mind, but I'll share this one because it shows how Sebold uses the ordinary to express the state of the household. Lindsay is in the bathroom attempting to shave her legs for the first time. It is her father, not her mother, who steps in to help her with this rite of passage. He gives her a new blade and tells her what to do, and against his normal father role, he keeps it to himself that he feels she's still too young to shave her legs. Like so many other moments in the book, it is such a heartbreaking and loving scene. And one that brings them a step closer to healing.
Another way that this novel surprised me is the way the story moves along, partly because the language is so beautiful and partly due to the narration style. Susie narrates by mixing in events about things that happened before she died so that we can see how the family was when she was still there; and at the same time, she keeps the day to day, year to year events moving along, so that we can see the progress the family makes in accepting her death. Because there are so many people that Susie tells us about a lot of things happen in the novel, much of adding a mild suspense. The best part is how easy it is to like her family and friends. And the ending is surprisingly satisfying. Yes, it is wrapped up in nice tidy package, but it leaves a smile, nevertheless. Whereas some writers might not be able to get away with it, this one does. And after the book is read, it's like what Susie says about her and her family, sometimes she still sneaks away to watch her family because she can't help it, and sometimes they still think of her because they can't help it either. I find myself thinking about this novel, because, well, I can't help that either.
It is sad to think that no matter when one reads this novel there will probably be a child missing in the news and a family trying to adjust to the new horror in their lives. As I write this they are still searching for
14-year-old Elizabeth Smart in Utah. It is not that the The Lovely Bones makes light of this kind of tragedy, but it does bring 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."
