Posted by Leslie Pratch; written by Mark Johnson
At last year’s National Book Awards ceremony, Stephen King included Jodi Picoult in a list of under-appreciated writers.
Well, let’s see. Picoult’s recent “Second Glance” was a New York Times best seller; she’s had great reviews in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, People magazine and elsewhere; and Atria Books is spending a small fortune promoting her new novel, “My Sister’s Keeper.”
Most writers would find such egregious under0appreciation intolerable. I hope Picoult can find the courage to continue.
I’m having some fun here, but I am serious about one thing: “My Sister’s Keeper” is a terrific book, right down to the final surprise. It all starts with a concept that’s full of emotional possibilities.
Anna Fitzgerald was conceived as a genetic perfect match for her sister, Kate, who was diagnosed with a rare and deadly leukemia when she was 3 years old. From the time Anna was born, she has regularly given up her blood and her bone marrow to keep her sister alive. Now she is 13, and Kate will die unless she receives one of Anna’s kidneys. But Anna, who has been cheated of her own identity all her life, draws the line: She hires a lawyer who files suit against Anna’s parents to gain her medical independence. She will give no more.
We see this situation and the events that follow in chapters narrated by Anna: her mother, Sara, and father, Brian; her ne’er-do-well brother, Jesse; lawyer Campbell Alexander; and Julia Romano, designated by the court to make recommendations in Anna’s case and coincidentally Campbell’s onetime lover. We see all these things through the eyes of everyone except Kate—which is fitting, because for the first time in many years the focus is on family members who are not Kate. This narration scheme also sets up a climactic plot development, but that’s only apparent much later.
The shifting narration also tightens the emotional screws: We feel from every participant the essential impossibility of resolution: If Anna thinks of herself for the first time in her life, she sentences her sister to death, and Anna and her sister love each other. The situation begs the judgment of Solomon. Justice will kill one child or the other.
Julia summarizes the dilemma like this:
“Traditionally, parents make decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down. And somewhere, underneath the rubble, are casualties like Anna.
The question is, did she instigate this lawsuit because she truly feels she can make better choices about her own medical care, or because she wants her parents to hear her for once when she crisis?”
Sara, the driven mother, has done what she is accused of: placed the welfare of one of her children far ahead of that of her others. In the hands of a lesser writer, she could be a monster, but we come to see that she is what any of us could become if we were faced with the same awful choices. We might have made different decisions, but not more heartfelt ones.
The lawsuit tears the Fitzgeralds apart. Sara, a lawyer who had left the profession for motherhood, defends against Anna’s suit—which means Anna is living with opposing counsel and with Sara’s corrosive anger. Brian wavers: He feels Anna’s plight in a way Sara does not, which drives a wedge between them.
Anna is sweet, irreverent, funny, loving and smart.
Odd man out is Jesse, who is even less part of the Fitzgerald family than Anna. Unlike her, he’s not a donor match: “Anna’s on their radar, because she fits into their grand plan for Kate.” Jesse washes his pain away with drugs, alcohol, sex, and destruction. He appears not to care, which means he cares more than he can handle.
Is there such a thing as a perfect book? Sure, but it’s “Moby Dick.” In “My Sister’s Keeper,” the wounded courtship dance of Campbell and Julia is played a little too cutely for me, although it eases the crushing tension. Of the two great surprises at the end, one is fitting and perfect; the other, I think, less credible and somewhat manipulative, but effective nonetheless. Picoult’s handling of the central issue is flawless.
In all, “My Sister’s Keeper” is full of insight, inspiration and heartbreak. Picoult prepares her readers for heartbreak on every page, but it comes from an unexpected quarter and there is no defense.
This review was originally published in the San Jose Mercury Times.
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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from Northwestern University with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919, leslie@pratchco.com, or visit her at www.pratchco.com.
Mark Johnson is a retired book reviewer for the San Jose Mercury Times.
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