Brilliantly written novel in a tantalising novel format - a tell-tale from a heavenly abode ! Truly wowing . Held me in a riveting, unremitting, time-stopping embrace for a whole day.
A compelling, emotive and soulful story of the family of a teenage girl, Susie Salmon, who gets waylaid, raped ,and gruesomely dismembered by a serial paedophile rapist killer on the prowl in her neighbourhood. One gets totally immersed in diverse emotions of
abhorrence and abomination at a life brutally cut short, teary poignancy of a deflowered innocence, and exasperation of stifled hopes and aspirations of a teenager still learning the ropes of 'kissing' and suffering inchaote pangs of a budding adolescent love.
The mind howls, kill that psycho ! Oooph , why can't the world let human saplings grow to maturity, let them fully taste and savour life ? What happens to the ones they leave behind ?
How do the ones around Susie cope with her deathly absence that 'whispers' or sends 'wave of a whisper undulating down' to them as they go about living ? Some are affected positively , some disruptively. An intriguing voyage of discovery.
'These are the lovely bones that had grown around my absence ; the connections -sometimes tenuous ,sometimes made at great cost , but often magnificent -that happened after I was gone.'
Despite the horrific crime preface the tone of the narrative is cheery ,not
morose nor morbid. For one thing, it has a happy ending. And another, Susie lives on, 'living' vicariously through her younger siblings and her schoolmates- 'sees' them do all those things that she would have done had her life not been prematurely snuffed out.The dead too talked and laughed with the living in the air between them. The family ,in turn, kept sharing when they 'felt' her and "being together, thinking and talking about the dead ,became a perfectly normal part of their life".
But dont be misled. This is no ghost story, no murder thriller, nor does it philosophize over life and death, it is an engrossing tale, told empathetically with looming hope, of a family traumatized by the cruel death of a loved young one carrying on the business of living . And ending with Susie's
parting spectral solicitation,
'I wish you all a long and happy life'
There is a bit of puffiness in the plot that at places feels contrived and expendable, though that takes nothing away from the elegance, punch, compulsiveness ,and appeal of the story.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I am sure you too will .
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