Peter Jackson: A director's take on the puzzle of bringing the afterlife to life

Not only was The Lovely Bones beautifully written, but narrated from beyond the grave, it had the kind of hook which made it stand out amid the bookshelves groaning under the weight of new fiction.

The dark tale of the murder of Susie Salmon, who watches over her grieving family from a mysterious realm where she can have anything she desires or imagines (except to be back with those she loves) the book became an instant bestseller.

Among the millions of readers immediately taken with the story was the director, Peter Jackson. He was still in post-production on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when a copy of The Lovely Bones was given to him by his longtime film-making associates, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.

"Alice Sebold's novel is one of those great books where you don't know what to expect," says Jackson, ahead of the release of his big-screen adaptation.

"It is a tough, thrilling, emotional story. As a film-maker, that's terrifically interesting.

"People were starting to rave to me about this book and so, as soon as I could, I grabbed it. I wanted to see what the excitement was about. I found it to be a tremendously powerful and evocative story.

"On the face of it, the novel is about every parent's darkest fear – the loss of a child. Yet, ultimately, it grows into a story about the redeeming power of love, which is why I think so many people are drawn to the book."

Jackson's interest was piqued and having secured the rights to the book and Sebold's blessing, the biggest challenge was how to depict the story's highly unconventional main location – the place which Susie refers to as the In-Between.

"We all like puzzles and I think we saw The Lovely Bones as the ultimate puzzle for screenwriters," says Jackson.

"How do you take Alice's very intricate, poetic book, which doesn't in any way scream 'I'm a movie', and structure it as a film? We became obsessed with how to move the pieces around to tell this story on the screen."

From the start, Jackson, Walsh and Boyens knew that they wanted Susie's experience of the afterlife to be completely personal and specific to Susie's understanding of the world.

They wanted it to transcend religious traditions and celestial imagery – and, instead, reflect Susie's inner-consciousness and emotional life.

Most of all, they wanted it to feel like the quintessential dream world; influenced by earthly events yet limitless in its possibilities.

"What we attempted to do is to present an afterlife that is evocative, elusive and ephemeral," says Jackson.

"It is a place which reflects the eye of the beholder; it isn't filled with any particular religious iconography. I wanted to keep it mysterious and intangible.

"It's called the In-Between because Susie is basically caught in the 'blue horizon' – the space she refers to as being between heaven and Earth.

"The In-Between is not a literal heaven so much as a place where Susie stops to take spiritual and emotional refuge, before she is ready to move on."

Like the film, the book follows Susie's attempts to help her father bring her killer, the eerily normal Mr Harvey, to justice, and aside from the unearthly location, it is, at heart, a thriller.

"Mr Harvey is a fascinating kind of character because he's an Everyman," says Jackson. "He mows the lawn, he chats with the neighbours, he knows the value of appearances, and Susie starts to wonder if this man might actually get away with murder.

"I like to think of the movie as an emotional thriller. It's about an evil man who takes pleasure in murder and it's also about a family trying to figure out how to rebuild their lives in the face of overwhelming loss.

"The story begins with Susie's murder and there is grief and loss and unimaginable pain, but the strength of the Salmon family prevails through all of it; somehow they survive, somehow they find a way to rebuild and carry on and keep Susie in their hearts as a living memory, which is a tremendously hopeful place to leave the story."