The Lovely Bones: Booktrack Edition characters

Appears from the start

A fourteen-year-old girl who narrates from an individual heaven after being murdered near her Pennsylvania home in 1973. Curious, observant, and still attached to ordinary adolescent hopes, she watches her family and community struggle with her absence.

Appears from the start

A neighbor of the Salmon family who lives alone and builds elaborate dollhouses. He lures Susie into a concealed room in a cornfield, murders her, and takes careful steps to conceal both the crime and her body.

Appears from the start

Susie's father, an affectionate man who shares playful projects and private signals with his children. The news of Susie's death leaves him with a grief made more painful by the absence of her body and the lack of an identified killer.

Appears from the start

Susie's mother, who is devastated by the murder and increasingly trapped by the identity of bereaved wife and mother imposed on her. Her response to grief differs sharply from Jack's obsessive search for the killer.

Appears from the start

Susie's younger sister, close enough in appearance to remind people of Susie but more guarded and athletic. She must navigate school, family grief, and the unsettling awareness that the killer remains unknown.

Appears from the start

The youngest Salmon child, still a small boy when Susie disappears. He understands death unevenly and directly, while the changes in his parents and sister reshape the household around him.

Appears from the start

The boy Susie has a crush on at school. A private note he once wrote to her becomes part of the early investigation, and her memory of their brief kiss represents the romantic life she expected to have.

Appears from the start

A socially isolated girl from Susie's school who feels Susie's spirit pass her at the moment of death. She cannot initially explain the strange contact or know whose presence she has felt.

First appears in chapter 2

The police detective assigned to Susie's disappearance. He treats the Salmon family with sympathy while working from the scarce physical evidence left after the crime.

Also known as Grandma Lynn

First appears in chapter 8

Abigail's glamorous, outspoken mother, who arrives to help the household after Susie's death. Her habits and blunt advice can be disruptive, but she offers Lindsey practical attention at a time when both parents are consumed by grief.

First appears in chapter 8

A boy Lindsey meets through school who is patient and direct with her. He treats her as a person in her own right rather than only as the sister of a murdered girl.

First appears in chapter 2

A guide Susie meets in heaven, where each person experiences a world shaped partly by desire and memory. Franny helps her understand the possibilities and limits of watching the living.

First appears in chapter 2

Susie's companion in heaven, close to her in age and able to share parts of the afterlife Susie is learning to inhabit. Her presence offers friendship without replacing Susie's longing for the people still on earth.