The Lovely Bones

In heaven, Susie meets her roommate, Holly, a Vietnamese-American girl who died on the same day as Susie. For both girls, they perceive heaven as an idealized version of High School—no teachers, no boys harassing them, and only the classes they want to attend (art class for Susie, Jazz Band for Holly). Susie dreams what she could have been like in high school—a new perfect person.

Franny explains that when alive, she was a church social worker whom a man looking for his wife killed. Her heaven is to serve people and be rewarded with their gratitude, so she helps new arrivals acclimatize to the afterlife. She explains to the girls that all they have to do is desire something enough, and understand why, and they will have it.

Len Fenerman, the detective assigned to the case, calls the Salmon household, telling them that they have only found an elbow. He tells them that “nothing is ever certain,” a phrase which both parents repeat several times over the next few days. The next morning, Jack Salmon tells his 13-year-old daughter, Lindsey, what has happened. The Salmon parents then tell Buckley, their 4-year-old son, that Susie is at an extended sleepover with a friend.

The police cordon off the cornfield and begin digging, finding Susie’s blood mixed in with the dirt. During their search, the police find Susie’s biology notebook, which contains a love note hidden by Ray that Susie never had a chance to read. Ray becomes the first suspect but has an airtight alibi: He was attending his father’s academic lecture. Although Susie knows Harvey has hidden her body in his greenhouse, she is unable to communicate with anyone and is frustrated by her inability to steer the police in the right direction. Susie misses her dog, Holiday, first, as she hasn’t yet accepted that she won’t see her family again.

A week after Susie’s disappearance, Fenerman brings by Susie’s hat, telling the family that the assailant used it to keep her quiet. The sight of the hat causes Susie’s mother, Abigail, who has kept composed up until this point, to break down. Fenerman tells the family that, based on the found evidence, the authorities conclude someone murdered Susie. Jack goes into his study and cries into the dog’s fur.

Lindsey decides to return to school the last week before Christmas break, where she is brought into see the principal, Mr. Caden. Caden tries to comfort her, but Lindsey is distant, detached, and petulant. Susie wishes that she could tell him that he needs to make her laugh: by showing her a Marx Brothers film, by sitting on a whoopie cushion, or by showing her the silly boxers he is wearing.

When Susie’s soul ascended to heaven, she touched a classmate named Ruth Connors, a talented artist who is an unpopular social outcast. The morning after Susie’s death, Ruth describes to her mother the dream she had of a ghostly apparition flying out of the cornfield and towards the sky. Ruth never tells anyone else at school about the dream, but she collects photos of Susie from the old yearbooks and begins writing poetry about her. Susie tries to use their connection to point Ruth towards her charm bracelet—as Abigail has detailed knowledge of each piece—but is unable to since Harvey has taken it as a trophy.

The week before Christmas, Susie watches her best friend, Clarissa, make out with a classmate, Brian, in the parking lot. Susie has always liked Clarissa because she does the things Susie couldn’t, such as wear makeup, lighten her hair, wear platform shoes, and smoke cigarettes. Ruth passes by the couple, carrying a stack of feminist literature from the library, and overhears them making plans to meet in the cornfield. After school, Ruth breaks into Clarissa’s locker, stealing her scrapbook and Brian’s marijuana. That evening, Ruth smokes marijuana for the first time while looking at Clarissa’s photographs of Susie.

Meanwhile, Susie watches these hidden events unfold from a gazebo that she has created. Susie—who dreamed of being a wildlife photographer—recalls her 11th birthday, when she received an Instamatic camera and film. That morning, she took her camera and went out back where she was able to take a photo of her mother: “There was only one picture in which my mother was Abigail. It was that first one, the one taken of her unawares, the one captured before the click startled her into the mother of the birthday girl” (43). That night, Lindsey goes into Susie’s room, which “had become a no man’s land in the middle of [their] house” (44) and finds the picture, which Susie never showed to anyone.

Just before Christmas, Susie watches Jack clean the study, where he and Susie used to build ships in bottles together. As he cleans, he speaks to Susie and starts smashing all the ships, beginning with the one that was accidentally destroyed a week before Susie’s murder. Without knowing how, Susie accidentally casts her face for a moment into the broken glass. Jack sees it and begins laughing. He then goes into Susie’s room and is about to start destroying it, but instead collapses crying. Buckley witnesses this and wraps the sheets around Jack in a hug. Jack tries to tell himself that he needs to give his love to the living, but he is unable to escape the weight of Susie’s death.

Shortly after killing Susie, Harvey collapses the hole in the cornfield and carries away Susie’s dismembered body in a sack. Passing by a neighbor’s house, the lingering smell of the body is what allows their dog to later find Susie’s elbow. Harvey leaves the sack in his garage, which leaves a lasting stain on the ground. As her blood stains the earth, Susie realizes that she isn’t the first girl Harvey killed.

As Harvey washes himself, he fondly recalls the process of raping and killing Susie. He saves the book of sonnets he read to her and the knife he used to kill her. Harvey places the sack inside a metal safe and drives to a sinkhole outside of town that the residents use to dispose of old appliances. As he drives, Harvey thinks about how he is getting better, never using the same pattern and instead “making each kill a surprise to himself, a gift to himself” (51). After disposing of the safe in the sinkhole, Harvey realizes while driving home that he inadvertently kept Susie’s charm bracelet. He pulls into an under-construction industrial lot and throws the bracelet into a soon-to-be man-made lake, keeping Susie’s Pennsylvania keystone charm as a trophy.

Two days before Christmas, Harvey gets the idea to build a ceremonial tent for his next kill from a book he is reading. Jack sees Harvey building the tent in his backyard and goes to talk with him. Harvey, sensing that Jack has no intention of leaving quickly, asks him to help: Susie “watched [her] father build a tent with the man who killed [her]” (55). As they work, Susie tries desperately to tell Jack that Harvey is her killer, and when Jack gets a shock after touching Harvey’s hand, he becomes suspicious. However, Jack is unable to say anything besides “Susie” and goes home.

Part of Susie wants her father to turn into a man violent with rage, but instead Jack has become severely depressed and experiences constant guilt over what happened to Susie. Upon returning from Harvey’s, he begins writing down his suspicions in his notebook and feels that Susie is watching him. He stops when Lindsey slams the door upon returning home.

Since Susie’s death, Lindsey has been dealing with “walking dead syndrome,” where everyone (including herself) sees Susie instead of Lindsey. This has caused her to avoid reflective surfaces and take her showers in the dark. Jack tries to speak with Lindsey, but she tells him that she wants to be alone. Although Jack cannot handle his grief alone, he allows Lindsey her space. Instead, Jack calls Fenerman and tells him that he is certain Harvey knows something about Susie’s disappearance. Downstairs, Abigail is eating macaroons in the bathroom when Buckley enters, crying “Momma” (a word Abigail hates) and asking where Susie is. Abigail ignores him and stares into the sink, prompting Jack to come down. Jack tells Buckley he’ll take him to the zoo tomorrow, unable to tell him that his sister is dead.

After Jack’s call, Fenerman goes to speak again with Harvey. At their first questioning, Harvey seemed like an odd widowed man who built dollhouses for a living, kept to himself, and had the sympathy of the neighborhood. The police concluded that he was a little strange and sad, but not a murderer. When Fenerman arrives again, Harvey lies about the tents, saying that he builds them every year to remember his dead wife, Leah. Fenerman, not wanting to intrude on his private rituals, doesn’t press further.

Fenerman later tells Jack that while he thinks Harvey is odd, the police haven’t found anything suspicious. However, when Fenerman mentions Harvey’s widow, Jack is sure that her name was Sophie, not Leah. Jack writes “Sophie” and “Leah” in his notebook, unaware that he has begun a list of Harvey’s deceased victims.

On Christmas, Samuel Heckler, a boy Lindsey has a crush on, comes by with a present for her while the family is playing Monopoly. When Buckley asks again where Susie is, Jack explains that Susie always played with the Shoe, and it’s like her game piece has been taken away. Buckley still does not fully understand death but later keeps the Shoe piece on his dresser for years until one day it mysteriously disappears.

Lindsey and Samuel go off on their own to open the gift. The present is half of a heart, and Samuel reveals that he is wearing the other half around his neck. Lindsey’s face flushes (as does Susie’s watching from heaven), and she kisses Samuel for the first time.