The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Recipe by Lee Majhen-Todd
I’ve avoided reading this book since it was published.
When The Lovely Bones first found its way onto shelves, 2002, I was working for a charity which counselled children.
This book seemed to be everywhere I looked!
Every counsellor I knew seemed to have read it, was reading it or it was on their reading list.
I have a little bit of a ‘thing’ about over-hyped material.
Music, the Beetles (don’t hate me) films (Avatar), personalities (the Kardashians) and books, one of which The Lovely Bones is one!
Full disclosure, as part of my work with children, reading a book about the rape and killing of a child in a fictional setting, was something that was a little too close to home, or should I say close to work!
I’m glad I didn’t read it then, but I’m also glad I chose it for Februarys read!
A little about the author!
February read is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, a book that is full of feeling, written by the American bestselling author Alice Sebold.
Born in Wisconsin in 1963, she grew up in Philadelphia where her father taught Spanish.
Both Alice and her sister spent time taking care of their mother, a journalist for a local paper.
Mary, her mother suffered from panic attacks and had problems with alcohol.
After graduating university, Alice worked many jobs including as a waitress while pursuing her writing career.
In 1981, while Alice was a freshman at university, she was assaulted and raped.
After the rape, she tried writing a book using the working title Monsters, but was unable to finish soon realising that she needed to write about and process her rape.
In 1999, once she’d finished her memoir and it was published, she called it Lucky, Alice to complete the novel she’d been working on which turned out to be our February read, The Lovely Bones.
Her earlier book, Lucky, had positive reviews when first published, but soon disappeared off book shelf in stores
After The Lovely Bones was successful in 2002, Lucky picked up more interest and went on to sell over one million copies.
Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
And what is our February read about?
I’ve taken this summary from the encyclopaedia of extensive knowledge that is Wikipedia, because let’s be honest, nothing I could write here would be any different, any more recent or any better than anything that’s already been written a hundred times elsewhere.
On December 6, 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon takes her usual shortcut home from her school through a cornfield in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
George Harvey, her 36-year-old neighbour, a bachelor who builds doll houses for a living, persuades her to look at an underground kid's hideout he constructed in the field.
Once she climbs into the hideout, he rapes and murders her, then dismembers her body and puts her remains in a safe that he dumps in a sinkhole, along with throwing her charm bracelet into a pond.
Susie's spirit flees toward her personal heaven, and in doing so, rushes past her classmate, social outcast Ruth Connors, who can see Susie's ghostly spirit.
The Salmon family initially refuses to believe that Susie is dead, until a neighbour's dog finds Susie's elbow.
The police talk to Harvey, finding him odd but not suspicious.
Susie's father, Jack, gradually suspects Harvey.
Jack's surviving daughter, Lindsey, eventually shares this sentiment.
Jack takes an extended leave from work. Meanwhile, another of Susie's classmates, Ray Singh, who had a crush on Susie in school, develops a friendship with Ruth, drawn together by their connection with Susie.
Later, Detective Len Fenerman tells the Salmons that the police have exhausted all leads and are dropping the investigation.
That night, Jack peers out of his den window and sees a flashlight in the cornfield.
Believing Harvey is returning to destroy evidence, Jack runs out to confront him, armed with a baseball bat. The figure is not Harvey, but Clarissa, Susie's best friend who is dating Brian, one of Susie's classmates.
As Susie watches in horror from heaven, Brian—who was going to meet Clarissa in the cornfield—nearly beats Jack to death, and Clarissa breaks Jack's knee.
While Jack recovers from knee replacement surgery, Susie's mother, Abigail, begins cheating on Jack with the widowed Det. Fenerman.
Trying to help her father prove his suspicions, Lindsey sneaks into Harvey's house and finds a diagram of the underground den, but is forced to leave when Harvey unexpectedly returns.
The police do not arrest Lindsey for breaking and entering.
Harvey flees from Norristown.
Later, evidence is discovered that links Harvey to Susie's murder as well as those of several other girls. Meanwhile, Susie meets Harvey's other victims in heaven and sees into his traumatic childhood.
Abigail leaves Jack and eventually takes a job at a winery in California.
Abigail's mother, Grandma Lynn, moves into the Salmons' home to care for Buckley (Susie's younger brother) and Lindsey.
Eight years later, Lindsey and her boyfriend, Samuel Heckler, become engaged after finishing college, find an old house in the woods owned by a classmate's father, and decide to fix it up and live there.
Sometime after the celebration, while arguing with his son Buckley, Jack suffers a heart attack.
The emergency prompts Abigail to return from California, but the reunion is tempered by Buckley's lingering bitterness for her having abandoned the family for most of his childhood.
Meanwhile, Harvey returns to Norristown, which has become more developed. He explores his old neighbourhood and notices the school is being expanded into the cornfield where he murdered Susie.
He drives by the sinkhole where Susie's body rests and where Ruth and Ray are standing.
Ruth senses the women Harvey has killed and is physically overcome.
Susie, watching from heaven, is also overwhelmed with emotion and feels how she and Ruth transcend their present existence, and the two girls exchange positions: Susie, her spirit now in Ruth's body, connects with Ray, who senses Susie's presence and is stunned by the fact that Susie is briefly back with him.
The two make love as Susie has longed to do after witnessing her sister and Samuel. Afterwards, Susie returns to Heaven.
Susie moves on to another, larger part of Heaven, but occasionally watches earthbound events. Lindsey and Samuel have a daughter together named Abigail Suzanne.
While stalking a young woman in New Hampshire, Harvey is hit on the shoulder by an icicle and falls to his death down a snow-covered slope into the ravine below.
At the end of the novel, a Norristown couple finds Susie's charm bracelet but don't realise its significance, and Susie closes the story by wishing the reader "a long and happy life".
Thank you, Wikipedia!
The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold
In 2009 The Lovely Bones was made into a supernatural thriller drama film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, starring Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci and Michael Imperioli.
Movie, released 2002
3 Egg Rating
Lets bake!
I’ve chosen to make this month’s recipe myself for a couple of reasons!
Firstly, I couldn’t find what I was looking for on line or have a chef who had a recipe that had what I wanted to post. And then, there’s the fact I haven’t posted a recipe in this section for a while, so i went into recipe developer mode!
The recipe?
Roasted Bone Marrow & Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Don’t judge until you’ve tried these cookies!
Adding the roasted bone marrow to the cookie dough makes the cookies super special and a little indulgent, and no, i don’t taste the bone marrow or beef when i eat them.
The roasted bone marrow is added to the room temperature butter, then beaten with the sugar and just adds a bit of grown up decadence.
If you’re into bone marrow as something to eat alone, as i am, make more than needed, and have it spread on some very thin toast as a starter or even better, as a chefs treat, no one will know!
I used bars of chocolate and chopped them into chunks, mainly because i wanted to have some chunky texture and also i knew the cookies would be pale when they came out of the oven and i wanted the chocolate crumbs to give them a dull chocolate colour.
But if you want to use chocolate chips instead, thats definitely an option!
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life!
Pale and perfect
How It’s Done
50g Beef Bone Marrow From Beef Bone marrow Bone - See Instructions
120g Butter – Softened
200g Caster Sugar
1 ½ Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Large Egg
250g Plain Flour
1 Tsp Cornflour
1 Tsp Baking Powder
½ Tsp Cinnamon
½ Tsp Salt
200g Bar Dark Chocolate
Roast the marrow bones until they are piping hot in the middle
What You Need
Heat the oven to 200c
Cover a couple of oven trays with non-stick baking parchment.
Place the beef marrow bone into the hot oven and cook for around 20 minutes, or until the bone marrow is piping hot all the way through to the middle
Once cooked, scoop or the cooked bone marrow,
Set it aside and let it come to room temperature
Remove the packaging form the chocolate bar and chop it into small chunks and set it aside until needed
I like to leave the chocolate in small chunks
Place the room temperature bone marrow, softened butter, caster sugar and vanilla into the bowl of an electric mixer and cream together until its pale and fluffy – See Tip Box
Beating the room temperature bone marrow, butter, sugar and vanilla together until it becomes pale and fluffy
Add the egg and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy – Make sure to scrap down the bottom and sides of the bowl occasionally during the mixing process.
Add the flour, cornflour, salt, cinnamon and chocolate chunks to the bowl and beat on slow speed only until the ingredients are combined – See Tip Box
This is what the mixture looks like when the dry ingredients plus the chocolate chunks are added.
Reduce the oven temperature to 180c - See Tip Box
Divide the dough into 20 balls - See Tip Box
Place the balls of dough onto the prepared baking trays, leaving 2” between each cookie ball and place into the fridge to cool for 10 minutes.
Remove from the fridge and and place into the hot oven
Bake the cookies until they’re slightly golden around the edges, pale on the top and have risen a little in the middle – Approx. 13 minutes – See Tip Box
Space the cookie dough around 2” apart before baking
Let the cookies stay on the tray for 10 minutes to cool a little, before transferring them to a baking tray to cool completely.
Store the cookies in an air tight container for a couple of days.
They’re ready when they’re pale in the centre with a line of golden brown around the edge and a little risen in the. centre.
Tip Box
Cream – Cream is a term to describe beating together ingredients, usually softened butter and sugar until they change state and become pale and fluffy.
Add dry ingredients – Don’t over mix at this stage or the cookies may become tough to eat
Chill the dough – Sometimes it’s not necessary to chill the cookie dough before baking s they don’t spread too much when baked
Decadent an delicious
20 Dough Balls -1) If you want to be super accurate, weigh each of the dough balls to make sure they’re all the same size, or, if you’re like me, just eyeball it.
2) I use an ice cream scoop to try and make the dough ball around the same size.
Oven – 1) Roasting the marrow bones are at a higher temperature than baking the cookies, so remember to let the oven cool down to 180c before baking the cookies. Or if the oven was off while the marrow is cooling, heat it to 180c.
2) All ovens vary so adjust the baking time accordingly
Big chunks, little chunk and even some chocolate crumbs to bite into
