Alice Sebold is a master of openings. Who can forget the beginning of The Lovely Bones: ‘After I was dead, I thought about how there had been the light scent of cologne in the air…’. And now: ‘After all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.’ It’s not mere sensationalism: The Lovely Bones was a rich and touching novel, which deserved its huge success. The Almost Moon is even more shocking, and its publishers will hope to make a packet out of it. But that is not Sebold’s fault. What she hopes, I imagine, is what all true writers hope: to stir us to deeper thought and feeling about the tragedy of life – or in her case, as in Conrad’s, the horror.

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