Then there is Kennedy, Ruth’s public defender, married to a surgeon who (of course) seems to be the perfect man.
At times, Turk’s story feels like a history of the modern white supremacy movement, but given the current political climate it is quite prescient and worthwhile. We see his anger and impotence, and as the story unfolds, we see how he learned to hate, how he met and fell in love with Brittany, how avenging his son becomes his singular motivation. He is a white supremacist, but he is also a husband and father. She makes this man with loathsome ideologies flawed but human. “Small Great Things” particularly shines when Picoult writes from Turk Bauer’s point of view. I’d rather read a writer who knows too much about the story she is telling than a writer who knows not enough. In terms of research, Picoult has put in the work - even too much work at times, as if she is saying, “Look at everything I know about everything I’m writing here.” Still, this preparation and eagerness to please don’t really detract. This is a writer who understands her characters inside and out.
THE COLOR WAR JODI PICOULT HOW TO
Picoult knows how to tell an interesting story, and the novel moves briskly.
She is charged with felony crimes, and her fate lies in the hands of the public defender Kennedy McQuarrie, a white woman.
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In short order, Ruth’s nursing license is suspended. The parents, as you might expect, need someone to blame. In the end, Ruth does both, but cannot prevent serious consequences. In that moment, Ruth has to decide whether she should heed her humanity and her oath as a nurse or follow the orders she has received to stay away from the Bauer baby.
Turk demands that Ruth have no interaction with the baby - but when the ward is short-handed, Ruth finds herself alone with Davis just as he stops breathing. Ruth Jefferson, a black woman with a teenage son, has been a labor and delivery nurse for more than 20 years when the white supremacists Turk and Brittany Bauer come to her maternity ward for the delivery of Brittany’s first child, a boy named Davis. “Small Great Things” is, in most ways, a classic Jodi Picoult novel - tackling contemporary social issues, creating interesting, relatable characters and presenting a gripping courtroom drama. The question is whether good intentions translate into a good novel. Picoult certainly seems to have the best of intentions. Because then, even more of us will overhear and - I hope - the conversation will spread.” She ends the note acknowledging that talking about racism is difficult but that “we who are white need to have this discussion among ourselves.
Of the former, she said: “I hoped to invite these women into a process, and in return they gave me a gift: They shared their experiences of what it really feels like to be black.” There is also a lot of introspection about her presumed audience (white people) and her own racism. She details the rigorous research she did, the people she talked to, including women of color and skinheads. Picoult is savvy enough to make her position as “white and class-privileged” known from the start. In a very earnest author’s note at the end of her latest novel, “Small Great Things,” Jodi Picoult says that she has long wanted to write about American racism. SMALL GREAT THINGS By Jodi Picoult 470 pp.