Alice Sebold is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist. She has published three books:
LuckyLucky is a 1999 memoir by Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones. The memoir describes her experiences of being raped and how the experience shaped the rest of her life.-Summary:...
(1999),
The Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received much critical...
(2002) and
The Almost MoonThe Almost Moon is the third book and second novel by American writer Alice Sebold, author of her memoir, Lucky and The Lovely Bones. It was released by Little, Brown and Company in the United States on October 16, 2007.-Synopsis:...
(2007).
Early life
Sebold was born in
Madison, WisconsinMadison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
. She grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from
Great Valley High SchoolGreat Valley High School is a high school in eastern Chester County. It is located near Malvern, Pennsylvania. It is located on the same campus as Great Valley Middle School. It is the only high school of the Great Valley School District....
in
Malvern, PennsylvaniaMalvern is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,998 at the 2010 census. The main road through the borough is King Street, although the borough is also bordered by Paoli Pike on the south, and is near US 30 on the north. The primary cross street is Warren...
in 1980. She then enrolled in
Syracuse UniversitySyracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
. In the early hours of May 8, 1981, she was raped while walking home through a park off campus. She reported the crime to the police, who took her statement and remarked that a young woman had once been murdered in the same location.
Sebold returned home to Pennsylvania to live with her family for the summer before beginning her sophomore year at Syracuse.
After some months at home Sebold returned to Syracuse to finish her
bachelor's degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
and to study writing. On October 5, 1981, while walking down a street near the Syracuse campus, she recognized her rapist and reported him to police; she later testified against him, and he received the maximum sentence.
Following graduation from Syracuse, Sebold went to the
University of HoustonThe University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
in
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
for
graduate schoolA graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
. She did not complete her graduate studies, likely due to drug use. Then she moved to
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
and lived there for 10 years. She held several jobs as a waitress and tried to pursue her writing career. Sebold wanted to write her story through
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, but that, and attempts at writing a novel, did not come to fruition. She used
heroin recreationally for two years, though claims she never became addicted. Sebold recounted her
substance abuseA substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
to students at an
Evening of Fiction workshop by saying that, "I did a lot of things that I am not particularly proud of and that I can’t believe that I did."
Sebold left the city and moved to
Southern CaliforniaSouthern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, where she became a caretaker of an arts colony, earning $386 a month and living in a cabin in the woods without electricity. She would write under a
propanePropane is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula , normally a gas, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used as a fuel for engines, oxy-gas torches, barbecues, portable stoves, and residential central...
lamp. In 1995, Sebold applied to graduate school at
University of California, IrvineThe University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
(UCI).
Career
While at UCI, Sebold began writing
Lucky, a memoir of her rape. The police had told Sebold that she was lucky to be alive; not long before Sebold's attack, another young woman had been killed and dismembered in the same tunnel. The story began while she was writing a ten-page assignment, though Sebold eventually wrote 40 pages for her class.
After
Lucky, Sebold published the bestselling novel
The Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received much critical...
. The book is a novel about a 14-year-old girl who is raped, murdered and dismembered. The main character tells her story from her personalized version of Heaven, looking down as her family tries to cope with her death and her killer escapes the police. While working on
The Lovely Bones in 1995, Sebold met her husband
Glen David GoldGlen David Gold is known as the author of Carter Beats the Devil, a fictionalized biography of Charles Joseph Carter , an American illusionist performing from c.1900-1936 and Sunnyside. He writes in a narrative style, and the book was hailed as a very respectable venture into historical fiction...
at UCI. He arrived late for one of his classes and couldn't take his hat off, and they began talking. They were married in November 2001.
In an interview conducted by Ann Darby of
Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, Sebold said of
The Lovely Bones: "I was motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't. Though it's a horrible experience, it's not as if violence hasn't affected many of us." The novel was adapted into a 2009
film of the same nameThe Lovely Bones is a 2009 American drama film directed by Peter Jackson. It is a film adaptation of the award-winning and best-selling 2002 novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, alongside Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents Jack and...
by
Peter JacksonSir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
.
Sebold's second novel,
The Almost Moon, continued what
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
called "Sebold's fixation on terror." It begins: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."
Sebold edited The Best American Short Stories 2009. The process, she said, required her to read and choose twenty of over 200 short stories she was presented with to put in the book.
Awards
Sebold won the
American Booksellers AssociationThe American Booksellers Association is a non-profit industryassociation founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States and Canada. The ABA and its members support freedom of speech, literacy, and programs that encourage reading...
Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction in 2003 for
The Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received much critical...
and the
Bram Stoker AwardThe Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
for First Novel in 2002. She was also nominated in the Novel category in that year. Sebold is an alumna of the
Ragdale FoundationRagdale is the summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation...
.
Works
- Lucky
Lucky is a 1999 memoir by Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones. The memoir describes her experiences of being raped and how the experience shaped the rest of her life.-Summary:...
(memoir, 2002; originally published in 1999), Back Bay Books, ISBN 0-316-66634-3
- The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received much critical...
(novel, 2002), Little, Brown, ISBN 0-316-66634-3
- The Almost Moon
The Almost Moon is the third book and second novel by American writer Alice Sebold, author of her memoir, Lucky and The Lovely Bones. It was released by Little, Brown and Company in the United States on October 16, 2007.-Synopsis:...
(novel, 2007), Little, Brown, ISBN 0-316-67746-9
External links