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The Lovely Bones Chapter 16: Snapshots Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • When alive, Susie took lots of pictures of her family.
  • Summer 1975, Abigail asks Jack to make love to her, and she leaves home.
  • In the fall, Grandma Lynn calls Jack and says she's moving in.
  • That December, Mr. Harvey has been gone over a year, and nobody has been able to find him.
  • One cold day, Lindsey, gets a ride to the police station from Hal, hoping for information.
  • At the station, she sees her mother's red scarf on Len Fenerman's desk, and she freaks out.
  • When Fenerman comes around the corner, Hal and Lindsey realize Abigail was having an affair.
  • When Buckley is seven he builds a fort for Susie, with Samuel, Hal, and Lindsey helping him.
  • He reads comic books in his fort and doesn't let himself wish for his mother.
  • Fall 1976, Fenerman surveys the evidence against George Harvey, recovered from his house. He knows that Jack Salmon was right about Harvey, but, there is no record of Harvey anywhere.
  • When he sees Susie's jingly pompom hat, he thinks of Abigail and his love for her.
  • Susie feels sorry for Fenerman because he didn't solve the crime in time. He feels extremely guilty.
  • Susie sees something he doesn't see – her keystone charm found near the bones of a child's foot, found by a hunter in Connecticut.
  • In the spring of 1976 Abigail drives to California and gets a job at a winery.
  • Ray gets handsomer and handsomer as the years go by, and he leaves for college.
  • His mom packed the book of Indian poetry, and when he unpacks it in the dorm, Susie's picture falls out.
  • Buckley plants a garden. Sometimes, Abigail calls home.
  • Ruth moves to New York City. When she's not working, she roams the streets.
  • When she sees a place where a dead girl was killed, she can see what happened.
  • In December 1988, Fenerman learns that Susie's charm was discovered near the body of girl found in 1976.
  • In 1982, Hal meets a biker whose mother, Sophie, was killed by her tenant, a dollhouse builder who matches Mr. Harvey's description. Hal calls Fenerman.
  • And the years go by for Susie, collecting snapshots of her family and friends. When Holiday dies he comes to Susie's heaven.