SOURCE: Sebold, Alice, and Ann Darby. “PW Talks with Alice Sebold.” Publishers Weekly 249, no. 24 (17 June 2002): 41.

In the following interview, Sebold discusses her narrative choices in The Lovely Bones and her plans for her next novel.

[Darby]: Your memoir [Lucky] focused on rape—your brutal rape when you were a student at Syracuse University in 1981. Your novel, The Lovely Bones (reviewed on p. 40), is about a rape and murder. Was it a relief, or a horror, to re-imagine a rape?

[Sebold]: Oddly, it was a delight, because I loved my main character so much and I liked being with her. It was like having company. 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...