George Harvey is eventually suspected of being a serial
killer, which he is, but he is never caught or punished for the crime. There was never
enough definitive proof to arrest him.
At the end of the
novel, Susie moves on into a larger part of heaven but she is still able to watch
events down on earth. One day she sees Harvey getting off a bus outside of a restaurant
in New Hampshire. Harvey sees a young woman near the restaurant and tries to accost her
but she refuses to speak to him, lucky for her. Susie notices some large icicles hanging
from the roof. After the woman leaves Harvey, one of the icicles falls and hits him on
the head, he tumbles down a ravine and is ultimately
killed.
So, he is punished by a higher power in the end and
the reader is left hoping that he will have some explaining to do wherever he winds up
going in the afterlife (this is my addendum, not part of the
book).
This novel is similar to the "magical realism" made
popular by several Hispanic authors. Magical realism blends magical or spiritual
elements into a realistic atmosphere in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of
reality. The novel is realistic in most of its elements, but then there is the element
of the afterlife, the spiritual, etc., which requires a reader to venture into spiritual
realms.
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