payment page
George Harvey is the Salmon’s 36-year-old neighbor and serves as the novel’s antagonist. Harvey’s rape, murder, and dismemberment of 14-year-old Susie incites a ripple of consequences, revealed through each character’s response to the crime. Susie, who is able to witness childhood memories of Harvey and his mother, subtly reveals that his actions toward her are consequences of his past.
Harvey harbors an insatiable desire to harm women and children, the two groups he learned as a child are the weakest and most socially vulnerable. It’s no coincidence that Harvey disposes of Susie’s remains in a sinkhole, a place where locals discard unwanted things. Arguably, this disposal represents his objectification of Susie and of women in general, reminiscent of the ways in which his father and other men used and discarded Harvey’s mother.
When they are together, Harvey’s mother frequently steals from stores and even from the deceased in accidents they pass by. Though a young Harvey perpetually fears being caught, he learns to see past death so that he can steal from the dead. His mother hides her stolen trinkets from Harvey’s abusive, alcoholic father. When his father abandons his mother on the side of the road, Harvey is left only with her amber necklace. Harvey repeats these perversely comforting patterns in adulthood by taking keepsakes from each victim, which he, like his mother, hides. Harvey lives in the shadows as he once had with his mother, constantly fearing capture while remaining confident in the cleverness of his anonymity.
Harvey’s journey represents the inevitability of consequences. He flees after murdering Susie and continues to kill, but the keepsake he took from Susie, the Pennsylvania keystone bearing her initials, is found near the body of a subsequent murder victim, linking Harvey to the crime. Though he never experiences justice legally, he does poetically. Earlier in the novel, Susie says that the best murder weapon is an icicle. This foreshadows the moment when an icicle breaks and hits Harvey, causing him to fall to his demise. Because Harvey ignored the dead in life, he is ignored in his own death.
