"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, Chapter 1

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is written in first person past tense; the narrator/protagonist is Susie Salmon, who is murdered at the age of fourteen by a neighbor. The story opens with these basic facts, and goes on to tell of her background and the events leading up to her murder. Sebold's timeline in the story goes between current events and memories of living in a spontaneous yet comprehensible way.

One of the first things that struck me was the authenticity of Susie's encounter with her murderer. Sebold, no stranger to violence herself (her memoir, Lucky, tells the story of her rape) creates a convincing exchange between Susie and Mr Harvey. I call this the interview, a term taken from Gavin deBecker's The Gift of Fear (which everyone should read; it could save your life). Ignoring the creepy feeling he gives her, Susie allows herself to become trapped in an underground room with Mr Harvey. Susie overrides her instincts during the interview in an attempt to be polite, thereby putting herself in a dangerous situation. Mr Harvey manipulates Susie's naivete by playing on her desire to be courteous: "Be polite and have a Coke...I'm sure the other kids would." (11, The Lovely Bones). He states that he built the hole as a kind of clubhouse for the neighborhood kids, which Susie knows is a lie but thinks the lie is rooted in Mr Harvey's loneliness as opposed to a more sinister motive. He continues to manipulate her emotionally before attacking and raping her, and beyond. He toys with her right up to the moment of killing her.

One phrase that struck a chord with me: "I thought it was the worst thing in the world to be lying flat on my back with a sweating man on top of me." (12, The Lovely Bones). The emphasis on "worst thing in the world" denotes her later realization that living through the experience, surviving and going on about her life, would actually have been a better outcome than her death. That the rape could become tolerable to live with if she had only had the opportunity to live beyond that experience.

I welcome the discussion of these ideas. I believe that the scenario depicted in the first chapter of The Lovely Bones is one that is highly relevant to all women, whether or not they have lived through a similar experience and also to men, who need some perspective in order to truly understand the women in their lives. Gavin deBecker succinctly boils down the innermost fears of men and women concerning the opposite sex when he states: "At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them." (67, The Gift of Fear)

While this is an intensely emotionally charged subject, I ask that all comments be respectful of others points of view.