Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult was disappointing. I became a Jodi Picoult fan when Amy (yes, the same Amy who was excoriated for recommending The Stolen Child and Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen) recommended The Pact several years ago. I still remember every character in The Pact and remember the visceral impact the story had on my concepts of family, parenting and friendship. But, like many other authors whose names become a “brand” and whose books become insta-best-sellers, I think that the quantity results in a lack of quality.
My primary issue with Nineteen Minutes has nothing to do with Picoult as an author. It is that Lionel Shriver did such an amazing job with the same issue of school shootings, parental responsibility and nature vs. nurture in We Need to Talk About Kevin, that perhaps that spoiled me for the topic. It’s kind of like when I went to a karaoke party all pumped up to sing a Patsy Cline song and the woman for whom the party was given got up and sang “Crazy”, leaving me in the dust before I ever sang a note. (I ended up singing Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Lucky and getting kudos for my smoky voice. I still yearn to sing Patsy Cline, but will forever feel inferior not only to the original, but to an amateur at a party who just happened to get up there first.) Shriver used the first person perspective of the shooter’s mother and the epistolary format to invite the reader into the mind of a mother shattered by the actions of the child to whom she gave life. I read the book twice…once on my own and once for a book group…and I continue to give it my unqualified endorsement more than three years after my initial reading.
Jodi Picoult has fallen into the trap of writing from the surface rather than digging deep into the story and the characters to draw us in. First of all, there are too many characters. To whom are we supposed to identify? The thinly developed judge whose daughter survives the shooting? The shooter’s mother whose reactions, while believable, are only lightly touched on? The policeman whose motivations are intimated but not expanded upon? The attorney whose baby may evoke a hopeful future or an alternative to the ultimate fate of the shooter, but never quite does?
This novel could have been wondrous if it had been more limited in scope. If Picoult had chosen to delve deeply into two or three characters, their involvement in and impact of the shooting, I think I would have been more deeply connected to this novel. But instead, it felt like an outline for a novel instead of a novel. I have had the same feelings about Michael Crichton’s later novels. It was like once Jurassic Park provided a crossover to the movies, every Crichton novel read more like a screenplay than a novel.
Picoult’s earlier novels…most notably The Pact, Plain Truth and Keeping Faith… combined an “issue” theme with intensely developed characters that allowed the reader to imagine them and relate to them. It was as far back as 2002 with Perfect Match that my book ratings began dropping and my comments began reading “typical, readable Picoult”. I don’t want “typical”. I don’t want “readable”. I want to be challenged. I want my imagination to be inspired to visualize the characters and walk in their shoes. I don’t want to be spoon-fed plotlines. I don’t want to know what is going to happen because we can’t possibly read 400+ pages just to make us think and examine the story, the characters and as is Picoult’s style, the issue. I suppose when one becomes a “brand name” as Picoult glibly states in her acknowledgements, one must appeal to the masses and dumb down one’s prose, plot and characterization.
A reading of Jodi Picoult’s earlier novels makes evident her talent. A glance at the back cover of the book shows her to be a beautiful woman. A perusal of her acknowledgements hints that she spends time researching her topic as well as her characters. I just wish she would spend more time on the writing and write for the people who loved her work before she was a “brand name.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but Danielle Steele, Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton are brand names and their work is predictable and facile. Pat Conroy, John Irving and Stephen King are prolific as well as successful, but still manage to catch us off-guard and stun us with their talent. I would love to include Jodi Picoult in the later group, instead of the
Whew! That was a close one.
I think you've hit it on the head, here. She's totally shallow and predictable. I haven't read The Pact, and I might have to since everyone else is raving about it.
My biggest fear is that I'm going to trash a book someone totally loves, like that'll be the worst thing that ever happens to me. For reals, it's no big deal, and when someone guts a book I love, I don't think any less of them. But I'm always cringing, waiting for that hateful 'I loved this book and you're an idiot' comment. Like I haven't realized that book-blog people are generally nicer than that.
Your profile picture just slays me.
Posted by: raych | April 12, 2008 at 02:17 PM