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Her first book The Lovely Bones in 2002 became an instant bestseller on the market and won a lot of critical praises. The book remained bestseller for thirty weeks in New York Times and earned the Best Fiction of Year Award in US. It is also chosen as a recommendation book by ABC’s Good Morning America .
Sebold was once raped as a freshman at Syracuse University at 18, which contributes to her career of writing.
By now, Sebold has completed three books, including a memoir Lucky in 1999, and two novels called The Lovely Bones in 2002 and The Almost Moon in 2007.
Her first novel The Lovely Bones, once called Monsters, is narrated by Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl, who was raped, murdered and then dismembered by her neighbor George Harvey. After the sudden terrible accident, Susie became a soul in the lovely and peaceful heaven. She spies on her family and friends. Therefore, she watches how bitter and sorrowed her family are and how they separately deal with the reality. She feels her father Jack’s sense of guilt and craziness about finding the murderer, sees her mother Abigail’s refusal to face the reality and having love affair with the policeman and witnesses her sister Lindsey’s becoming mature in the trauma. Day by day, her family breaks down and is separated. She is worried and sad but she has no other choice but to watch and wait. For nearly ten years, she witnesses how her family are trapped into the trauma gradually, how they try their best to walk out of the traumatic reality and then get recovery from it. Finally, her family return to completion and unity. Her father and mother can share their opinions together and face the reality. Her siblings now all have their own future. Although they still memorize and miss her, they can confront the difficulty and move on their life. Besides, during the process, she changes successfully. She has transformed from a girl who is regretful, sad and stubborn into a grown-up who understands the true meaning of family. With the guidance of her teacher, friends and grandfather on the heaven and her self-realization, she succeeds in moving to another, larger part of heaven, occasionally watching earthbound events.
As a comparatively new book which hasn’t been popular among Chinese people, the relevant researches cover different kinds of angles but are not profound. They can be pided into some categories as follows. Firstly, some researchers analyze the novel from the angle of language, like “Symbolism Applied in The Lovely Bones” by Liu Xiaolan. Secondly, some researches focus on the typical characters mentioned in the novel and study their mental characteristics, images and so on. For example, Lu Caizhu and Qiao Heming cooperate to study the mental image of Susie in “A Psychological Study of Susie--Dicussion on the Characters of The Lovely Bones from the Psychological Prospective” while Su Fang analyses the image of Jack Salmon in “Analysis on the Image of Father in The Lovely Bones”. Thirdly, the narrative methods and prospective is also an important topic. Chen Jiakun analyzes the unique first person narrative of the dead person and explains it with Genette’s theory in “The Passion in the Bones --- The Narrative System”. Fourthly, since the novel was filmed by the famous director Peter Jackson, some scholars have shown their interests in the comparative study between the novel and the movie, like “Literal Narratives and Image Narratives” by Wan Huirong. Fifthly, the theme of the novel is worth discussing. Wang Hongying discusses it in “Brief Analysis on the Profound Meaning of the Title”.
Different from researches home, the researches abroad are more profound and impressive. Some foreign scholars, especially Ann V. Bliss, study the relevant images from the feminist angle to discuss the suffering and loneliness of women in family in “ ‘Share Moments, Share Life’: The Domestic Photograph as a Symbol of Disruption and Trauma in The Lovely Bones”. Some of them choose the criminal George Harvey as the focus and study the history and harm of psychological disorder and family abuse from the criminal. Also, foreign researchers concern about the narrative methods and the theme.