A novel about life and death, forgiveness and vengeance, memory and forgetting - but, above all, about finding light in the darkest of places.

Helen Knightly has spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare. She steps over a boundary she never dreamt she would even approach. But while her act is almost unconscious, it also seems like the fulfilment of a lifetime's buried desire.

Watching from heaven, Susie Salmon sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated, even from one another, as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet.

Reveals how Alice Sebold's life was transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was raped and beaten in a park near campus. This book also chronicles her recovery as she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction.

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For years, Helen Knightly has given her life to others. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over twenty-four hours, this novel explores the ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion and the line between love and hate.

Watching from heaven, Susie Salmon sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet.

Susie Salmon looks down from a heaven which looks a lot like her school playground. There are counsellors to help newcomers adjust, and friends to room with. Everything she wants appears as soon as she thinks of it - except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on Earth.

A useful resource for students and educators of literary fiction. It contains sections that include: Literary Interpretation; Writing Style and Structure; Themes and Focus Points; Characaterisation; Historical Information; Novel Summary; Author Information; Images, Symbols and Metaphors; and Important Quotes.