I have just finished re-reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I love it because it describes the intimate details of a grieving families life, carrying on but never forgetting, sometimes freezing in grief, sometimes running away from it, eventually learning to live with it through happier memories of the one they have lost.
These extracts are examples of the intricacy yet simplicity of Sebold's writing and insight into the human experience. They capture what I want to in a way in my work. Bringing back the sense of touch whilst also being removed from the physical experience of the object. Drawing on our memories and our childhood, and thinking of certain experiences and memories in which we remember a profound depth of feeling. It is sensual. It is nostalgic. It is being human.
Wet laundry: the snap, the yank, the wet heaviness of double- and queen-sized sheets. The real sounds bringing back the remembered sounds of the past when I had lain under the dripping clothes to catch water on my tongue or run in between them as if they were traffic cones through which I chased Lindsey or was chased by Lindsey back and forth.
Page 247
And my father would take the thin cotton top sheet and bunch it up in his hands while being careful to keep the two corners between his thumb and forefinger. Then he would snap it out so the pale blue (if they were using Buckley's) or lavender (if they were using mine) sheet would spread out like a parachute above him and gently, what felt wonderfully slowly, it would waft down and touch along his exposed skin- his knees, his forearms, his cheeks and chin. Both air and cover somehow there in the same space at the same time- it felt like the ultimate freedom and protection.
Page 259
Extracts from The Lovely Bones (2002) Alice Sebold
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