The Lovely Bones: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

One morning, while Lindsey is still away at the symposium, Jack Salmon wakes up early. He checks on Buckley, pulls on his jogging outfit, and takes Holiday out for a walk—an excuse to pass by Mr. Harvey’s house. It is late summer, and still there has been no movement on Susie’s case. Jack cannot stop Ruana’s words from echoing in his head, though he has not shared them with Abigail—he is afraid she might say something about Jack’s dark desire to Len Fenerman. Jack has noticed that Abigail is leaning more heavily on the police lately; she will not hear any of Jack’s own theories, and won’t even trust her own instincts. Though Jack knows on some level that Harvey is responsible, he vows to wait to move on him until he has “incontrovertible proof.”

From heaven, Susie remarks on how her house and Mr. Harvey’s house have the exact same layout. But whereas Susie’s house is warm and full, Harvey’s is cold and empty. He has few possessions, and spends most of his time in the kitchen building dollhouses—or, when his “lust” sets in, sketching blueprints for holes and tents. Harvey has noticed, over the last few months, that occasionally a police car driving through the neighborhood will slow in front of his house. Harvey has been careful not to alter any of his patterns, and sets alarms which remind him to open the blinds and close them, or turn lights off and on.

Harvey keeps things to count, as counting reassures him. He has several small things, kept from each of his victims—charms, wedding rings, perfume bottles, the heel of a shoe. He has forgotten the names of some of his victims, but Susie knows them all.

Harvey often falls asleep in the basement—he can keep odd hours in there, as no light gets out and alerts the neighbors to his uncommon patterns. As Susie follows Mr. Harvey down to the basement each night, she learns something terrible: Harvey is responsible for killing a spate of neighborhood animals, the deaths of which had previously been attributed to a neighborhood bad-boy, Joe Ellis. Harvey would kill the animals, then spread a chemical on their corpses which would dissolve their flesh and leave only bones. As Susie watches Harvey sit in the basement counting the animals’ bones, she realizes that he has killed animals in order to “take lesser lives [and] keep from killing a child.”

All summer, Jack has been calling the police repeatedly to report small things about Harvey, thus irritating the police. In early August, Len stops by the Salmon house to set some boundaries. Lindsey lets Len in—she has just returned from camp. Jack greets Len, and Buckley—who has begun to idolize Len—rushes to say hello as well. Jack shoos Lindsey and Buckley from the room and asks Len if he has any news. Len tells Jack that he needs to stop making calls about Harvey—there is no evidence to connect him to Susie’s death. Lindsey hovers in the doorway, listening to everything. Len insists that though odd, Harvey is not a killer. Lindsey steps into the room, and berates Len for “giving up.” Abigail comes downstairs, and as she sees Len, Jack notices something new, strange, and alive in her eyes.

That night, Jack writes in his notebook that “Abigail thinks Len Fenerman is right about Harvey.” Alone in his study, he considers how Abigail has shied away from him more and more recently, but seemed to “bloom” in Len’s presence. As Jack is about to turn out the light and head to bed, he sees something out the window—a beam of light, moving across the lawns and toward the junior high. Assuming that the flashlight beam belongs to George Harvey, Jack quickly gets dressed and heads downstairs, taking a baseball bat from the hall closet and heading out the door. Ruana’s words—find a quiet way—echo in his ears.

Jack reaches the soccer field, then the cornfield, following the beam until it goes dark. Jack makes his presence known, saying aloud “I know you’re here” into the darkness. Jack stalks through the corn, following the sound of whimpering. Susie, from above, can see that it is only Clarissa in the field—now crouching and frightened, only a child despite her blue eyeshadow and platform boots. Clarissa says Brian’s name aloud, and Jack loosens his grip on the bat.

Brian Nelson moves through the cornfield with a flashlight in hand, and suddenly hears “cries for help.” In a moment of delusion, Jack rushes up against Clarissa, believing her to be Susie. He begins calling Susie’s name aloud. Brian, overhearing Jack’s shouts, runs toward the noise. Brian pulls Jack off of Clarissa and begins to beat him. Susie turns away as her father is beaten again and again—she can do nothing, trapped as she is in her “perfect world,” just like the penguin in the snow globe. Quietly, she longs for her father to “go away and leave [her] be.”