When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth continuing without her-her school friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone. And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it-except the thing she most wants: to be back with the people she loved on Earth. With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event. The Lovely Bones is luminous and astonishing, a novel that builds out of grief the most hopeful of stories. In the hands of a brilliant new writer, this story of the worst thing a family can face is transformed into a suspenseful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing.
This edition of the New York Times best-seller and a Good Morning America "Read This" Book Club pick contains features available only in the electronic version! Included in this eBook edition are a Reading Group Guide, an exclusive interview with the author, and "The Oddity of Suburbia," Alice Sebold's comments on growing up in the suburbs of "Nowhere U.S.A." When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. (It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing set.) With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief-her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor-and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant new novelist, and through the eyes of her winning young heroine, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful, touching, even funny novel about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.
On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.
As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams", where "there were no teachers... We never had to go inside except for art class... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue".
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow".
Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings.
--Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com
Alice Sebold is the author of the memoir Lucky. She lives in California with her husband, the writer Glen David Gold.
9月15日,星期五,上午11点,我在纽约Penn Station火车站等同事,顺便溜达进出口处的书店,顺手拿起一本书来翻看。书的名字叫The Lovely Bones,似乎在豆瓣还是哪里见过介绍的,一直没有翻过。"I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."(1973年12月6日,我被...
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外面在下雨,黑黑的夜无边,时而有路灯光从窗外洒落进车窗,冰凉地铺洒到手中的书上。 纸惨白。 故事惨白。 火车奔腾在默默长夜中,我心底飘过几声叹息,有泪水为苏西哭泣。 “1973年12月6日,我被谋杀时才十四岁……” 这是故事的开头,这句I was fourteen when I was murder...
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0 有用 蓝布衣裳 2016-12-07 15:00:25
if we continue to live after we died...
0 有用 Sun 2010-12-18 23:47:29
“痛苦中带着诙谐,脆弱中带着坚强,有又一丝刻骨铭心的悲伤”。(ps,最后哈维先生死的有点戏剧化……)
0 有用 jerrysyfx 2016-11-03 21:45:41
危险就发生在不经意间。管你日后,多么后悔。
0 有用 菲艾飞花 2010-02-08 12:54:01
这是部另类的亲情,作者从一个女孩死后的灵魂的视角,描绘女孩被害,和被害后父母,妹妹,弟弟,凶手,朋友,爱人的内心世界和感情活动。在描绘时,大量的运用了视觉互换,穿插,等手法,加深故事的情节性,和真实性,是一部真实,感人的故事。因为作者有相似的经历,更增加了文章的感染力
0 有用 蓝布衣裳 2016-12-07 15:00:25
if we continue to live after we died...
0 有用 jerrysyfx 2016-11-03 21:45:41
危险就发生在不经意间。管你日后,多么后悔。
0 有用 Sun 2010-12-18 23:47:29
“痛苦中带着诙谐,脆弱中带着坚强,有又一丝刻骨铭心的悲伤”。(ps,最后哈维先生死的有点戏剧化……)
0 有用 菲艾飞花 2010-02-08 12:54:01
这是部另类的亲情,作者从一个女孩死后的灵魂的视角,描绘女孩被害,和被害后父母,妹妹,弟弟,凶手,朋友,爱人的内心世界和感情活动。在描绘时,大量的运用了视觉互换,穿插,等手法,加深故事的情节性,和真实性,是一部真实,感人的故事。因为作者有相似的经历,更增加了文章的感染力