The plot of 2009’sThe Lovely Bonesis as heartbreaking as it is harrowing for many reasons, though perhaps the most tragic aspect of all is that it was based on actual events.The Lovely Bonestrue story comes both from a real murder and the lived experience of author Alice Sebold, who wrote the 2002 novel that director Peter Jackson’s supernatural drama is based on. InThe Lovely Bones,14-year-oldSusie (Saoirse Ronan) is sexually assaulted and murdered byGeorge Harvey (Stanley Tucci), a serial killer who lives in Susie’s neighborhood.
Susie spends most of the story ofThe Lovely Bonesas a spirit, unable to do anything but watch as Harvey continues his crimes while her own family is torn apart by grief. While Harvey eventually meets his demise by the end of the movie, the ending is far from cathartic, and it remains an incredibly emotional story without much justice for Susie herself. While both the movie and book create a sense of injustice that’s difficult to swallow, they become all the harder to contemplate when the true story behindThe Lovely Bonesis explained.
The Lovely Bones True Story Draws From The Author’s Own Experience
Alice Sebold Was Inspired By The Darkest Night Of Her Life
Susie Salmon’s fate inThe Lovely Bonesis incredibly heartbreaking. While she manages to find some sense of catharsis by the end of the movie by witnessing how her family is becoming closer through the healing process following her demise, it still feels far from fair considering that George Harvey, her killer, had the mercy of a quick and relatively painless death without ever being brought to justice.
Many aspects of Susie’s experience hit incredibly close to home for many viewers and readers, and there’s an unsettling sense of realism despite the many supernatural elements of the story. There’s a key reason for this too -the true story ofThe Lovely Bonesis partly based on author Alice Sebold’s own experience of sexual assault.
Aside fromThe Lovely Bones,Alice Sebold is also known for her 1999 memoirLucky.This work of nonfiction is just as difficult to read, as in it Sebold details one of the darkest moments of her life - when she was attacked and sexually assaulted in the 1980s while a student at Syracuse University in New York. The assault was incredibly brutal, judging by Sebold’s description, and it’s clear how her experience informed the story of Susie inThe Lovely Bones.
Eventually, Anthony Broadwater was convicted for the assault of Alice Sebold. He served 16 years in prison, though was eventually exonerated. It should be noted that Broadwater wasn’t identified by Sebold herself at any point, and he was instead named as a suspect based on the suspicion of a police officer.The true identity of Alice Sebold’s attacker remains unknown, but the impact it had on the author lasted with her for many, many decades.
To make this aspect ofThe Lovely Bonestrue story all the more harrowing, Alice Sebold was informed that another woman had been assaulted and killed in the same area. It’s from this knowledge thatLuckygot its title, as a police officer shockingly told the author that she was indeed“lucky”to escape with her life.
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A Real Murder Also Inspired The Lovely Bones
It Wasn’t Only The Author’s Lived Experience That Went Into Crafting Susie Salmon’s Story
While the emotional aspects of Susie Salmon’s tale is drawn from Alice Sebold’s own experience, the author’s assault in the 1980s wasn’t the only event that inspiredThe Lovely Bonestrue story.The author of the novelPeter Jackson’s 2009 movieis based on has also cited a brutal murder in Pennsylvania as a real-life event that helped her craft the story.
The real murder that’s part of the true story ofThe Lovely Bonestook place in the 1970s in Norristown, a Pennsylvania municipality near Bridgeport. While specific details are scarce, Sebold has been open about which aspects of the crime helped to inspireThe Lovely Bones.In the Norristown case, a 14-year-old girl, much like Susie Salmon, was taken from her parent’s home before being violently raped and then murdered. Even more tragically still, the perpetrator still hasn’t been caught.
The parallels between the Norristown case andThe Lovely Bonesare obvious even with so few details. However, Sebold has explained that it was the emotional aspects of the tragic incident that inspired Susie Salmon’s story, rather than the specifics of the crime itself. It was reading about the murder in Norristown that helpedThe Lovely Bonesauthor craft many of the emotional aspects of Susie and her perspective.The real-life crime prompted Alice Sebold to think about what it would be like to be a murder victim viewing the impact of their own death from the afterlife - how it would impact their family, as well as the strong need for justice and for their killer to be caught.
It’s the Pennsylvania murder fromThe Lovely Bonestrue story that helped Sebold craft many of the more supernatural elements of the book (and, eventually, movie) rather than the author’s own experience. Imagining the perspective of the 14-year-old girl from Norristown is what led Sebold to create the character of Susie Salmon, and the unique narrative that has her narrate the aftermath of her own death while being forced to witness the emotional impact it had on her family.
The Greatest Tragedy Of The Lovely Bones True Story Is The Lack Of Justice
The Implications Are Much More Harrowing Than The Details
Both sides ofThe Lovely Bonestrue story are incredibly tough to consider for many reasons. However, one of the most prevalent and clear is also mirrored in the plot of the book and movie - the distinct lack of justice.Neither the murderer of the 14-year-old girl in Norristown or Alice Sebold’s attacker were ever identified. They were never punished for their crimes, and - as harrowing as it is to consider - seemed to have gotten away with them. This is especially hard to stomach considering just how brutal and violent both incidents were.
This is mirrored in the plot ofThe Lovely Bones.After beingkilled by George Harvey, Susie learns that her tragic fate wasn’t an isolated incident. She was one of many girls whose lives were brutally taken by the serial killer, and it was likely he’d go on to kill many more. The ending of the story finds him tracking a girl in New Hampshire, certain she would be his next victim.While Harvey then slips over the edge of a cliff and dies, he is still never identified as Susie’s killer, and has a relatively quick and painless death without ever being brought to justice for his crimes.
It’s this aspect ofThe Lovely Bonestrue story which is perhaps the most tragic of all. The thought that Alice Sebold’s attacker of the murderer of the young girl in Pennsylvania never answered for their harrowing acts is difficult to contemplate - and both Sebold and director Peter Jackson did an amazing job of bringing this disturbing truth to the emotional forefront of the book and movie.
The Lovely Bones
Cast
After her murder, fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon watches over her family, friends, and killer from the “In-Between.” Her family and community grieve her death and try to find justice for Susie. Meanwhile, Susie struggles to move on to the afterlife while lacking closure in both her life and her murder.
