It's nice to know that I don't just lose other people's book reviews. This one was written in October '03. I found it stuffed into the backpack that's home to the old PowerBook. I'm glad I found it. I was reminded of how much I wished I knew someone else who'd read this book.

Within the realms of their books, authors are omnipotent creators. It's not surprising to find some writers telling stories as all-knowing observers. It's unusual for an author to create a character who is the all-knowing observer. That's what Alice Sebold did in The Lovely Bones. My reactions are decidedly ambivalent. I bought the book at a little shop in a gate area of London's Gatwick airport. I discovered I had some cash left as we waited for our plane back to the states to be approved for flight. I toured the three stores available on our side of security and I traded my few remaining pounds sterling for this book, a couple of chocolate bars, and a wonderful two CD set of music from Africa. The Lovely Bones was on best-sellers lists for months. Sandy Brown mentioned it in passing in these pages. I was curious. On the October weekend that we cleaned out and shut down Sidetrack for the season, I took the book with me. I think Sebold is a great storyteller. I read the book almost compulsively. I was raking leaves and doing those odd jobs associated with closing up a lake cabin, but my breaks were for reading. I stayed up well past my usual bedtime to finish. I should have just quit and put the book away about half way through it. But, a much-studied phenomenon suggests that when people invest enough time and energy into an endeavor, they are loath to quit even when that endeavor is no longer enjoyable or likely to produce the desired results. That's where I was at midnight. The odd construction of a dead girl in an all-too-human heaven narrating a story distracted me. What began as examination of tragedy's effects on people became a screenplay for an episode of "Touched by an Angel." A consideration of justice and revenge became an unsuccessful skit for "Saturday Night Live." I kept thinking about Mark Twain's satire "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." Twain was mocking people's pedestrian images of heaven. Sebold wants us to take her image seriously. If she'd left out the miraculous melodrama and the absurd formal revenge, I might have had time and energy to take her seriously. There's the kernel of a powerful story of tragedy, suffering, and recovery in her book. If she'd told it in a more straight forward and conventional way, I'd have liked it a lot better. But it might not have sold so well. Did anyone else read this book and have thoughts about it? I'd really love to hear what you think.