The Lovely Bones: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Susie looks back on the hours after she was murdered, during which Mr. Harvey made moves to cover up the crime. First, he collapsed the hole in the cornfield and returned home with a sack filled with Susie’s body parts. He placed the sack in the garage and went upstairs to wash up. Years later, Susie notes, the new owners of the house will “tsk” over the dark spot on the floor of the garage, believing it to be simply an unsightly oil stain.

Susie says it would be some time before she understood what the reader has “undoubtedly already assumed”—that she was not Harvey’s first kill. Though Harvey knew to watch the weather for ideal precipitation conditions that would rob the police of evidence, he was nonetheless fairly sloppy in his removal of Susie’s body from the scene of the crime.

At Susie’s Evensong in heaven, she watches all of her dogs lift their heads when they smell something interesting in the air, then decide to track the scent, and decide what to do when they come up against the source of the smell itself. She remarks that dogs don’t shut down their desire to know something just because the smell is bad or dangerous, and sees her own behavior—obsessively watching Mr. Harvey—in this light.

Susie remembers watching Mr. Harvey take the sack full of her remains to a sinkhole on the edge of town, which locals use to dump old appliances. Susie herself has been to this sinkhole with her father to dump an old refrigerator, and she remembers Jack describing the sinkhole as the Earth’s mouth. Mr. Harvey knocked on the door of the house belonging to the family who operated the sinkhole and charged people to dump goods. When a woman answered the door and jokingly asked if he had a dead body in the safe, Mr. Harvey quickly covered with a story about how the safe had belonged to his father, and no one could remember the combination. Susie notes that the family who ran the sinkhole would never suspect, even after reading countless newspaper articles about Susie’s death, that she had been what was in that metal safe.

As Mr. Harvey walked back to his car, he put his hand in his pocket and felt Susie’s silver charm bracelet. As he drove back into town, he stopped at an industrial park that was under construction and tossed her bracelet into what he believed would be a man-made pond. He kept one of the charms—a Pennsylvania keystone, engraved with Susie’s initials.

Two days before Christmas—the day she appears to her father—Susie watches Mr. Harvey reading a book on the native people of Mali. As he reads about the cloth and ropes they use to build shelters, he decides that he wants to build something again—an experiment, like the hole. Harvey begins to gather materials, and sets to work in his backyard.

Jack, having just smashed all of his glass bottles and seen Susie’s face in the shards, is out for a walk to clear his head. He spots Mr. Harvey, hard at work in his back yard, wearing just a t-shirt despite the cold. Jack approaches Harvey and asks what he’s working on, and Harvey answers that the structure is something called a mat tent. Mr. Harvey expresses his condolences for Jack’s loss, and Jack thanks him. Mr. Harvey wants for Jack to leave, but when he doesn’t go of his own accord, Harvey, wanting to avoid seeming antisocial or suspicious, asks Jack if he wants to help. Susie watches from heaven as her father builds a tent with the man who killed her.

After an hour, the basic structure is done, and Mr. Harvey goes back into the house. Outside, it begins to snow. Jack takes the snow as a sign from Susie, and asks aloud what she’s trying to tell him. In Heaven, Susie tries to make a dead geranium in the yard bloom, but nothing happens. Still, Susie notices that her father is looking at Mr. Harvey’s house suspiciously, having begun to wonder.

Mr. Harvey emerges from the house with a stack of sheets in his arms, meant to be draped over the structure. When Jack reaches for the sheets, his hand touches Harvey’s, and Jack experiences an “electric shock.” Jack accuses Harvey of knowing something. The two men hold each other’s eyes, and then turn back to work. As Susie watches the two of them finish up, the snow falls harder, and Susie feels despondent.

Mr. Harvey stands inside the tent, thinking of how the tribes he has been reading about use the structure as a wedding tent. Mr. Harvey imagines receiving a virgin bride. Jack moves toward Mr. Harvey, but Harvey holds his palm out, and instructs Jack to go home. Mr. Harvey cannot think of anything to say, and instead whispers only “Susie.” Mr. Harvey points out that all of their neighbors have just seen the two of them building something together—they are “friends” now, and no one will believe Jack if he speaks out against Harvey. Jack insists that Harvey knows something, but Harvey says that he cannot help Jack. Harvey retreats further into the tent and pulls one of the sheets down behind him, closing himself off from Jack.