Small Great Things

Jodi Picoult has adopted as her preferred style the moral dilemma format for her novels. She has tackled many issues from abortion to organ donations.  Picoult clearly sees American racism as a compelling social issue in her novel Small Great Things. She opens this piece acknowledging her position as "white and class privileged." The author realizes she may not be up to the challenges of this issue.  She begins the book by painstakingly revealing her rigorous research both with women of color and skinheads. Despite the many roadblocks, Picoult chooses to make a brave attempt to start a conversation about the very real, very pervasive racism in American society. The story centers around the trial of a black delivery nurse, Ruth, who is accused of deliberately causing the death of the infant son of a white supremist couple who have demanded Ruth never touch their baby while in the hospital nursery.  The courtroom scenes and the introduction of interesting, relatable characters carries this story and makes it compelling.  Unfortunately, by the end of the trial, Picoult's storyline jumps to extremes in order to satisfy her audience or so it seems.   Perhaps the author has tackled too much in her social awareness campaign.  Readers will easily see themes of segregation, the challenges of black ambition, the welfare system and of course, race and the justice system.  There are just too many unlikely plot leaps for this story to remain totally believable.  The novel is flawed but as most of Picoult's work, it opens great discussions.  The author's good intentions must be given credit and surely accomplished most of what she intended.  In a social climate as divided as ours tends to be, any conversation is a good thing.  Maybe good talk is as much as we can hope for.  Let the discussion begin.